Four Week Fiance 2 (14 page)

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.

T
he 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.

"Do you believe in soulmates?" I had asked him softly, not able to stop myself.

"Soulmates?"

"You know, your one true love?"

"One true love?" He laughed, his eyes looking at me for a few seconds and then away from me. "I think there are many loves for everyone."

"I see." My heart dropped and I gave him my best fake smile and looked back at the sky.

"Why? Do you believe in soulmates?"

"I do," I said earnestly. "I believe that there's one perfect person made for everyone."

"Made by whom?" He laughed again.

"By God," I said stiffly, feeling awkward.

"Oh, okay." His voice trailed off. "Sure thing."

"Or, if you prefer, the universe. I think that there is one perfect person out there for everyone and when you meet them you just know."

"You just know what?"

"That they're the one, of course." I was starting to get annoyed. "You know that they are your true love. The one you've waited your whole life for. The one that just gets you. The one that your heart was made to love. In fact, they're already in your heart. And when you meet them, when you realize that they are the one, then you feel whole, as if everything in life makes sense."

"That's a nice fairy tale." he said with a laugh.

"I don't think it's a fairy tale."

"Well, good luck to you then, Mila. I hope you meet this perfect man, your soulmate, or whatever." His voice had been stiff and the air had gone silent.

That was the moment that I started to question everything. That was the moment I knew I loved him as more than a crush. That was the moment I knew that my fairy tale might never come true.

***

T
here’s a numbness in pain that I welcome. It’s a welcome change from gut-wrenching pain and emptiness that you feel when you love someone who doesn’t love you. There is nothing worse than the feeling of rejection. There is nothing worse than not being good enough. There is nothing worse than the feeling in your heart when you realize that the man that you love doesn’t love you back; even if you would have bet your soul on it that he did. I didn’t trust my heart anymore, or my brain. They both lied to me. They told me that TJ loved me. I knew he didn’t want to love me. I knew that he’d never told me he loved me, but something in me had still believed it to be true. Something in the way that he smiled, in the way that he looked at me, his possessiveness, that way he held me close, the way he talked to me. All of those things had told me he was the one. But it was all in my head. It was all a dream. A fantasy. I’d gone and made a fool of myself and I was embarrassed and ashamed and devastated. And my heart—well, I was surprised my heart was still functioning.

I’d left TJ’s house that morning, anxious to get away from him and to see Nonno. Though a part of me had hoped that he would say, “Don’t go. Spend the day with me, Mila,” but of course he hadn’t said those words. He hadn’t said anything and I’d left and told him I’d see him later and he’d told me to enjoy my day with Nonno and to make it special. I’d smiled, but I hadn’t been able to look him in the eyes. I hadn’t wanted him to see the heartbreak in my irises.

I resisted the urge to check my phone again once I hit a stoplight. I knew that there wouldn’t be any texts from TJ. I hadn’t heard my phone beeping. He didn’t care. He wasn’t thinking of me as much as I was thinking of him. That didn’t matter to me though. As soon as I was stopped, I grabbed my phone and quickly punched in my code to check my messages. My heart fell as I saw no new messages. It wasn’t a shock, but just another confirmation that I was a sad case. This was the fifth time since I’d left TJ’s home that I was checking my messages, praying and hoping for a sign that maybe—just maybe—he could love me back. But there was nothing. I continued driving to Nonno’s house and I allowed myself five more minutes to cry before I was going to have to stop. I didn’t want to show up to Nonno’s house with a red nose and swollen eyes from all my tears.

I turned on the radio to see if I could cheer myself up with some new music, when Adele’s new single, “Hello”, started playing. I sang along and felt the tears streaming once again. I wasn’t sure why I allowed myself to listen to sad songs, when I was suffering from heartache. I knew it wasn’t smart, but somehow it made me feel better. It made me remember that other people had gone through heartache as well and still ended up okay on the other side. My stomach felt empty as I sang along and drove. I wasn’t sure that I was going to feel better once this was all over. I wasn’t sure it was smart to even stay in this relationship with TJ. How could I keep giving myself to him? Sleeping with him? Loving him? Knowing that every moment with him made me love him more and made him feel like I was still nothing.

I turned onto the interstate and switched the radio off. I needed to dry my eyes and pretend to be happy for my meeting with Nonno. It always made him upset to see me hurting.

***

N
onno opened the front door and pulled me into his arms. “Mila, so good to see you, mi cara.”

“You too, Nonno.” I kissed his cheek. “I’m sorry I haven’t called or seen you in a while. I’ve just been preoccupied with TJ and the engagement.”

“I understand.” He smiled at me graciously as we walked into his home. I smiled as I saw that he had an old photo album out on the couch, and I walked over to it.

“Looking at photos of Nonna?” I asked him, smiling at how nostalgic he was.

“Every single day.” He nodded and walked over to me and we sat down together on the couch and looked at the photos.

“She was so beautiful,” I said as I picked up a photo of Nonna that must have been taken when she was 18. She was scowling at the camera, her long black hair flying behind her as she stood there with a basket in her hands. I laughed at the photo and Nonno took it from me and held it close to his eyes.

“This day, your Nonna, she was mad at me.” He chuckled. “She was mad because she’d seen me talking to another girl. So when I came up to the camera, she told me to get away from her.”

“Oh Nonno.” I looked at him in surprise and smiled. “Were you flirting with the other girl?”

“Yes.” He laughed. “I wanted to make her jealous.” He looked over at me and winked. “She’d been talking to Alberto, the banker’s son, the day before and I knew he had intentions to get to know her better. I needed to make sure she knew that she liked me.”

“And so you flirted with someone else?” I said and shook my head.

“The games of love have been around for a long time, my dear.” He laughed and put the photo back in the album carefully. We went through the pages and I stared at all the old photos of Nonno and Nonna as they’d gotten together. I stopped him from turning the page as I looked down and saw a photo I didn’t remember seeing before. It was a photo of Nonno and Nonna and she was staring at the camera and he was staring at her. Even though it was only a photo, it was easy to see the love and devotion in his eyes as he gazed at her tenderly. And even Nonna was grinning into the camera softly, her eyes looking bright. There was a magic in the photo, an air of love. It was clear to see and it made me shiver at the power of the shot.

“This is beautiful, Nonno,” I said to him and he took the photo from me and held it tightly.

“She was beautiful,” he almost whispered as he sat back. “My love, my amore,” he said as he stared at the photo. “That day, the day this photo was taken, that was the day that I knew your Nonna and I would be together forever, that nothing would ever part us. That was the day I stopped worrying that she would meet someone else.

“Oh?” I asked him, my heart pounding. I was starting to feel emotional. I sat there wishing that TJ would feel that way about me and that made me feel guilty. I didn’t want to turn every situation into one where I was thinking about TJ.

“Your Nonna wrote me a poem. She read it to me right before that photo was taken,” he said and looked at me, his eyes looking far away as he remembered the moment. “It was so unusual and I hadn’t expected it. I was the romantic in the relationship and even then I was far from a Romeo.” He smiled and then sighed.

“Do you remember the poem?” I asked softly.

“Do I remember?” He chuckled again. “It has been burned into my brain for decades,” he said and looked back down at the photo. “It is one of my fondest memories.”

“Tell me,” I said and reached over and grabbed his hand. “Tell me, Nonno.”

“Okay.” He nodded and then he cleared his throat. He was about to start talking again when he had a coughing fit.

“Nonno, are you okay?” I asked as I watched him coughing. I felt helpless and wasn’t sure what to do. I was about to start patting him on the back when he finally stopped coughing. “Nonno?” I asked again as I saw spots of blood on the tissue he had been coughing into.

“I’m fine.” He shook his head and frowned. “Just a bad cough.” He took a sip of water and then looked over at me and smiled. “Stop worrying and start listening.”

“I am listening,” I said and laughed.

“That moment when your heart skips a beat. When all worries turn to joy. When all fears fade away. That moment when our eyes meet. And our souls reconnect.

And the silence sings a song. That’s the moment that I remember. That’s the dance that I live for. That’s the journey that I pray for. That’s the you that I dream of. This is the moment I was made for.” He stopped and I looked over at him, and saw tears running down his face.

“Oh, Nonno,” I said and reached my arm around his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.” He shook his head and gazed into my eyes. “She was my true love and I miss her, but I will see her again.”

“Oh, Nonno.” I bit down on my lower lip. “You both had such a true love.”

“There is nothing else in this world more precious than true love, Mila.” His eyes were bright as he gazed at me. “There is nothing worth living for if you don’t have love.”

“Well, life itself, right?” I said, trying to make light of the situation.

“Life is for the living.” He nodded. “And love is what makes life great.”

“Yeah, I guess,” I said as my heart lurched and I thought back to TJ again. “Some of us aren’t as lucky as you and Nonna. Some of us don’t have happy endings.”

“What are you talking about, Mila?” His eyes narrowed as he looked at me.

“Nothing,” I said and shook my head, embarrassed to tell Nonno exactly what was going on with me.

“Are you not happy, my Mila?” He studied my face shrewdly and I could feel the tears starting to build up. I didn’t want him to know exactly what was going on. I knew that he had to know that something wasn’t completely right. I mean, TJ had essentially just fallen into my pocket in a matter of seconds. Real life didn’t work like that.