A day has passed since Nick walked into the shower and told me everything.
I returned to his apartment, more or less by force. He made me come back and told me everything in this very room. I’m lying on the couch looking at the ceiling, not knowing what to do and replaying every word from last night in my head.
The day before…
“Do you want something to drink?” he asked, throwing the keys on the table. I could tell he was nervous even if he tried to hide it. His back was quite tense and he walked like a robot. He didn’t look at me and was just looking for a glass to pour water into.
“I want you to tell me everything,” I told him quickly.
He let out a sigh and shrugged his shoulders. He left the glass on the counter and sat on the couch.
“Sit down,” he told me, placing his hand on the spot next to him, I did, but made sure not to touch him. We both know how we affect each other with just a slight touch. “Ask.”
Let’s get this over with.
“What favors does the rector owe you?” I managed to articulate, I’m scared of his answers. So scared that I’m considering running far away from the apartment.
“I see you don’t forget anything,” he says laughing, but there’s no humor in that laugh.
“Nothing that matters to me.”
He stands up from the couch and starts walking around the room. Trying hard to avoid eye contact with me, he starts talking.
“He’s dating a student. I have proof. And let’s say I’m not being very confidential with them.”
“You’re blackmailing him?”
“Please, don’t scold me,” he sighs. He sees that I’m not playing around and gets serious again. “The guy is a bastard. He has a wife and daughters, he’s cheating on his wife. He treated me like shit for a long time because I was the son of the AIDS patient. He deserved it.”
He’s a bastard, yes. But I think doing it this way… it’s just not right.
Before discussing that, I want to keep asking…
“All the calls from ‘nobody important’?”
“They’re… they’re calls from a woman who works in a rehabilitation center.”
I’m sure my eyes couldn’t be any wider.
“Samantha, I have a brother. When my father left he didn’t hesitate to be with many women. But with one of that bunch he had a son he never acknowledged. His name is Paulo. He has drug problems. I met him a couple of years ago and helped him in everything I could, but there came a time when it was dangerous. He started hanging out with shitty assholes to get stronger drugs. The debts fell on me. I had the money, he has no inheritance… In short, he was being very dangerous to others and to himself. I admitted him to a rehabilitation center and yesterday I let the woman talk long enough to explain to me that he escaped, Samantha. All those calls were from people who work there.”
“Can he hurt you or…?”
“I don’t think so. But I know he’s going to get involved with people who wouldn’t hesitate to kill him if he doesn’t pay.”
“Why did you hide something like this from me?” I asked with a large lump in my throat. I could barely process what was coming out of my mouth.
“I didn’t think you should…” he begins. His voice denotes shame but I don’t care.
“I live with you! How can you say I shouldn’t know?” I get up and stand in front of him. Nick also gets up, his body electrically bumps into mine, so I step away.
“I’m sorry! Is that okay?! I just didn’t think you’d be able to understand it,” he yelled. I backed off, but he took several steps closer.
“To understand? I was going to understand and I was going to support you in everything! Don’t you know that? Don’t you know me?”
He didn’t answer. The lower part of my back bumped against the table. Nick, he grabs my hip and lifts me onto the table.
“Don’t let him distract you with this, Samantha”
I wish my body got along with my head.
His mouth and mine are at a short distance that is too tempting. When I think he’s going to kiss me and get me out of this small torture of having him so close without being able to touch him, he brushes his lips against mine, moving them and playing with them.
“I miss touching you,” I love his warm breath on my face.
My fingers start moving on their own. Touching his cheek and chin. Both of us are breathing heavily. The room suddenly got quite hot.
Before I lose what little sanity I have left, I pull my face and my body away from him.
“This is no longer working for me. I can’t continue knowing that you’re capable of hiding things like this from me.”
The fear in his eyes didn’t go unnoticed. I tried to ignore it and went back to picking up my things to leave again with Eva.
Before I crossed the threshold he grabbed my shoulder and turned me around.
“No, you don’t go. I’ll go. Just please, don’t leave and think about everything I told you.”
And without waiting for a response, he walked out the door.
Now
I’m sure I should call him. Tell him to come back. But I can’t. How could he hide something like this from me? I’m his girlfriend. The supposed love of his life. The person he can’t live without. And he doesn’t trust me. He hides things and lies to me.
I admit that I’m not completely honest with him either, regarding Jackson’s messages. I feel a pang of guilt when I see a new message from him and don’t tell Nick, but if I do I know he’s going to go look for him and I don’t like the idea of seeing my boyfriend behind bars.
The difference is that I don’t tell him because I want to protect him, he hides it from me because he doesn’t trust me.
I retract. I shouldn’t call him. He doesn’t have to come back. But I miss him horribly. The emptiness I feel without sensing his presence around me perturbs me. Not feeling his hands touching me and his mouth kissing me. Not hearing his voice comforting me as I try to sleep. Damn it, I miss him. And I don’t want to think he’s in some bar or walking alone, dying inside thinking that I won’t forgive him, when I know I will.
The people you always forgive, get used to hurting you, but how do I do it? What would be the solution to this emptiness and all these feelings contradictory to my coherence.
I don’t know why I think there’s a reason for this. For the way he is. Behind him, there’s a past, that made him the way he is today. I can change that, I want to. I want him to trust me. I want him to stop hurting me. I just want him to be as happy as I am when I’m with him. I just want both of us to be happy, but we can’t this way.
This game we’re playing, this damn monotony of I love you and I hate you. I don’t want you, but I need you. Go away, but come back… is it always going to be this way?
A lot of things are difficult in life. The hardest thing for me has always been Nick and it still is. But ever since I got here, my most complicated and repetitive decision has been whether to walk away or try one more time.
Sometimes you just can’t change what destiny says. He brought us together. No matter how hard I try to stop loving him, I do regardless of the lies, the fights and I will do so unconditionally always.
My cell phone vibrates in my pocket. I grab it and see his message.
“Are you going to leave me?”… “No.”
“Can I come back?”… “Yes.”