Four Week Fiance 2(21)

I couldn’t change our path now, though. Everything was so complicated and fucked up. How could I start telling her the truth, after having told her so many lies? Would it even matter if I could tell her how much I loved her? What was my love, after all? What was the promise of a million dollars from a beggar? Or the promise of a fortnight of hot sun from an Eskimo? I had nothing to give that would make me worthy of her. Nothing to change our path of mutual destruction. I knew we were both going to be devastated at the end of everything. And it scared me more than I was willing to admit.

“Why are you like this, TJ?” She sighed. “I don’t understand. Why does it have to be like this?”

“I don’t know.” I sighed too, squeezing her hands. I’d asked myself that question a million times and I didn’t know. “Maybe this is just who I’ve always been.”

“So we’re just going to fool around for four weeks, while we stage a fake engagement, and then that’s it?” she asked, questioning me, trying to withdraw her hands, but I wouldn’t let her.

“Yeah, I guess so,” I answered, not really sure what to say. She had no idea that the bomb that was coming was going to be much, much worse than that.

“It’s so easy for you, isn’t it?” She sighed. “Just jump in and out of bed with all the women you want and then just move on.”

I shook my head. “It’s not easy at all.” She had no idea how unique she was, how special. How I couldn’t even think of another woman in any way other than platonic. I’d lost all attraction to them. Which was ironic, as I’d always appreciated a nice ass and rack.

“So you were just born this way? Unfeeling? Uncaring?” she asked again, prodding. I didn’t know what she was hoping to accomplish, and while I didn’t want to see her hurting, I didn’t know how to end the conversation to prevent that.

“I suppose so.” I shrugged.

“Okay, then.” She licked her lips and I could see the light in her eyes fading. “I understand.” She nodded. “It’s fine, really. We’ll just have fun and then when it’s done, we can just go back to being friends again.” She looked into my eyes and gave me a big smile. “I’m an adult, I can handle it.”

My heart broke then. The look in her eyes so proud, so determined, so heartbroken.

“I wish I could be the man you need me to be,” I said, my voice lower than a whisper.

“What?” she asked me, leaning in closer.

“I’m glad you can be so mature about it,” I said louder and her face froze as she nodded. My heart broke for her and it broke for me. I knew in that moment that both of our spirits were somehow fading, both of us forever connected to this moment. That hope and love had died slightly. That we were both victims to something we didn’t understand. In that moment, I felt a piece of my soul being torn out of my body. I felt like ice was piling into my heart and stomach and I didn’t know how to breathe.

It shouldn’t feel this way. Yet, it did. I was doing this for her. I was doing this because I knew I couldn’t give her what she needed. Not really. I didn’t know how. And what was worse, I didn’t know that all of me wanted to know how. As much as I loved being with her, I hated it. I hated how she made me feel. I hated the insecurity. I hated the jealousy. I hated the powerlessness. I hated that sometimes when I was alone and looking at the sky, her face would pop into my mind and I would find myself spending minutes and hours just thinking of her smile. I hated that I felt like she was made for me. She was my other half, my soul mate. She made me believe in God and that was a laugh because I hadn’t believed in a long time.

“So, what do you want to do today?” I asked her finally, pretending that we hadn’t just had the most life-altering conversation of our lives. I grinned at her, willing her to grin back. Willing her to go along with the façade that we were both cool with whatever this game was.

“I think I’m going to go and see Nonno,” she said, attempting a smile. “Maybe go to the beach or something.”

“Oh, that will be fun.” I was annoyed that a part of me wanted her to ask me to go to the beach with them. I didn’t really want to go to the beach; I just wanted to be with her.

“Yeah.” She nodded. “It will be fun. Nonno will likely tell me more stories of him and Nonna when they were back in Italy.” She laughed. “Shoot, he’ll most probably tell the same stories to my kids and grandkids.” She laughed and I just nodded, not wanting to go there. “I should get up and shower,” she said feebly. I could tell that she wanted to be away from me, wanted to figure out her feelings, see what she was left with inside. I hoped I hadn’t hurt her too badly. I didn’t want to do that. I hadn’t expected her to get so deep in conversation.

“Okay, that sounds good.” I nodded and watched as she jumped out of bed. My body missed her as soon as she was gone. It was the first morning since she’d been here that we hadn’t made love. I wanted to reach up and grab her and pull her back down onto the bed, but I didn’t. She gave me a self-conscious smile as she walked away, her eyes looking small and sad, and I just grinned as she walked into the bathroom, pretending that I didn’t notice her downtrodden spirit.

This was for the best. It was smart for me to get her to start hating me from now on. This way she wouldn’t be so heartbroken and downtrodden when everything came out.

I heard the sound of the water in the shower and I felt tears coming to my eyes for the first time in years. I was a man who didn’t cry. I was a man who didn’t shed a tear, but in that moment I couldn’t stop myself. I felt like I’d just lost a part of myself. I wasn’t even sure how or why, but as the tears flowed, I knew that I needed the release. A part of me wondered if I was crying because she was crying in the shower. It wouldn’t have surprised me. We were so connected. Our bodies attuned with each other’s every action and feeling. I’d never experienced something so extrasensory before. I wouldn’t have believed it was possible. Mila was my soul mate.

We were connected in ways I’d never have believed possible, but we were never going to get to be together for two reasons. One reason was the fact that she would hate me once she realized what I was hiding from her, and the second reason was because it confounded me to believe that she could love me and stay with me forever. I wasn’t good enough for her. I wasn’t the man she thought I was and I knew that it would kill me once she found that out and stopped loving me. I could lose everything in the world and not have it hurt as much as loving Mila and losing her when she realized who I really was.





Chapter Eight

Mila


The goat and the fish. That was us. He was the goat: frisky, moody, intelligent, questioning, hard to read. I was the fish swimming toward him, following him, wanting him, waiting for him. Always waiting for him. Every day I woke up and thought about how I wanted to kick that goat, though some days I didn’t want to kick so hard. You don’t kick hard when you love someone.

Every day felt different now. Some days, I could almost pretend that I felt happy, as if I were riding the bull of life and charging down the streets of Pamplona like some bad-ass Spaniard with no fear. Those were the days I loved, feeling high on life, excited to just be me and to experience everything that I could. I craved all of the feelings that went through me: pain, happiness, joy, jealousy, love. All of them made me feel alive, like I had a purpose. And then there were the days that I didn’t want to wake up. Even sitting up in bed was an effort. Thinking of him was a burden. A heartache. A depression. A memory I didn’t want to relive.

Those days were always the same. The thoughts were always the same. The moment etched in my mind was always the same. We're at the lake. It's mid-September. It was a couple of years ago, when I was in college. I’d been so excited to go to the lake house that summer. Some part of me had thought that that was going to be the summer that TJ and I would finally get together. It was late that night, about 11 p.m. I remember the time exactly because he'd told me we had to be there by 9 p.m and I'd been late. We were scared we wouldn't see the constellation, but we still had hope. We were tired, but alert. He wanted to show me Capricornus, the sea-goat. I'd laughed. I'd never heard of a sea-goat constellation. He'd held my hand and told me to just wait. That there were several things I'd never heard of before. And so we lay back and waited. He told me how Capricornus was represented by an image of a hybrid goat and a fish. I joked that he was moody like a goat and he said I was antsy like a fish. I told him that I was on break from college, so didn’t need him acting like a bossy professor. He said I’d be so lucky. I’d just looked at him, confused, and asked him lucky for him to be bossy? And he’d just laughed.

His shoulder had rubbed next to mine gently as we lay looking up at the stars, waiting. The distant stars and moon provided the only light and as I looked over at his shadowed face, I had felt my heart swelling. He looked over at me, gave me a small smile and told me to look back at the sky and to wait patiently. I remember I rolled my eyes at his bossy tone, but I didn't say anything. I liked it when he took charge. And then, just when I thought we were waiting in vain, we saw a shooting star and I felt his hand finding mine and squeezing. We just lay there, staring at the sky, hand-in-hand, and as the cool breeze ran across my face, I thought that this was perhaps one of the happiest moments I'd ever had in my life. I never wanted it to end.