I can only cover my face. Dani blushes as she realizes she just made a serious mistake. That’s what I like to call verbal suicide. They’ll make fun of her forever and ever with that.
While they tease Dani, Ares whispers to me: “Want to walk along the beach?” God, I love his voice. I straighten up and look at him.
“Only if you promise to behave.”
He smiles openly at me.
“I won’t make promises I can’t keep.”
“Ares.”
“Well, I promise not to do anything you don’t want me to do.” He takes my hand, a mischievous smile dancing on his lips. I narrow my eyes.
“Nice try. You already used that strategy once. I won’t fall for it.” He pouts in mock frustration.
“I didn’t think you would remember.”
I tap him on the forehead. “I remember everything, Greek God.”
“That’s obvious,” he says, rubbing his forehead. “Who would forget the wonderful fuck I gave you that morning? You moaned so much and—”
I cover his mouth.
“Okay, let’s walk.” I stand up abruptly. “We’ll be back,” I say quickly to the group.
Ares follows me silently, but I can feel his stupid smile even though I don’t see him. We reach the shore, and I take off my shoes, holding them in my hand, and letting the waves wash over my feet every time they lap the shore. Ares does the same. We walk together, our free hands intertwining, and the silence feels so good. We both know we have a short time left together, but we don’t talk about it. What’s the point of talking about it? I’d rather enjoy every second without having conversations that will only cause us pain.
As my mom would say, Don’t suffer before it’s time. When the time comes to cross that bridge, you will.
However, from Ares’s expression, I can see that he wants to say something about it, so I decide to talk about something else before he opens his mouth. I remember my conversation with Samy.
“Can I ask you something?” I ask. He brings my hand up entwined with his and kisses it.
“Of course.”
“Claudia and Apolo, do they have something going on?”
“I’ve already told you . . .”
“Okay, okay, just tell me one thing,” I consider my words. “Dani is crazy in love with him, and I don’t want her to suffer, Ares. You don’t have to tell me what’s going on exactly, just tell me if I should tell my best friend to forget about him or to keep her hopes up, please.”
Ares looks at me, twisting his lips. I see him hesitate. Finally, he speaks.
“Tell her to forget about him.”
Oh.
That hurt me, and I’m not even Daniela. I guess that’s the thing with best friends, you feel for them, with them, sharing not only stories but emotions too. Ares doesn’t say anything else, and I know I won’t get anything more from him, so I drop the subject. I just watch him walk beside me and I remember so many things that my heart gets tight.
You think I don’t know about your little childish obsession with me?
Yes, I want you, Witch.
I’m at your service, always, Witch.
You are beautiful.
Please stay with me.
I can be your Christian Grey anytime you want, you perverted little witch.
I’m in love, Raquel.
I can only see the outline of his pretty face as my mind makes me relive it all over again.
“Ah, I’m a masochist,” I say in a whisper. Ares looks at me.
“Sexually? Because I’ve noticed that you like to be spanked and . . .”
“Shut up!” I tell him immediately. “No, I mean emotionally. You were such a jerk to me at first.”
“Define jerk.’”
I let go of his hand and give him the finger.
“It’s just, how could you consider giving me a cell phone right after we had sex for the first time? Common sense, Ares, common sense.”
His happy expression fades.
“I’m sorry, I won’t ever be able to apologize for all that, I have no excuse. Thank you for not giving up. I’ve changed for the better because of you.”
I don’t take his hand, playing hard to get. Ares jumps and points at the sand near my feet. “Crab!”
“Ah! Where?” I instinctively hug him. He hugs me back sideways.
“Come, I will protect you.”
“Ah.” I push him as I catch on to his lie.
Ares steps forward and kneels in front of me, offering me his back.
“Come on, up.” The memory of him doing that the night I was robbed comes to me. I think about how he had made me feel safe, and how nice he was to me that night.
I won’t leave. Not this time.
I think about breakfast the next day, when he had taken my hand to gently let me know that I was safe, and that he wouldn’t let anything happen to me. It was the first time I saw the tender side of Ares.
I climb on his back and he stands up, letting me wrap my legs over his hips, and I put my hands around his neck to hold me. Ares carries me along the shore, and I realize that this day is full of special moments. I rest my face on his shoulder. The sound of the waves fills my ears and the warmth of Ares’s body mingles with mine. How will I survive without you, Greek God? I push that question out of my head.
“Ares.”
“Huh?”
I lift my head from his shoulder to lean closer to the side of his face.
“I love you.”
He’s quiet for a moment and it makes me narrow my eyes until he speaks.
“I’ll stay.”
“What?”
“You know, if you ask me to, I’ll stay. Right?”
“I know.”
“But you’re not going to ask me to.”
“No.”
He sighs and doesn’t say anything else for a while. I could never ask him to stay or to give up his dream for me. I can’t be so selfish. I can’t take that away from him. It wouldn’t be fair that, while I fulfilled my dream, he would have to do something he’d hate.
I always thought that when people said, “love is not selfish,” they were fooling themselves. But now I’m guided by the principle that it’s okay to put aside what you feel for the welfare of another—for someone else’s happiness—as long as you don’t compromise yourself. Now I think there is no greater proof of love than that.
I rest my head on his shoulder again. I hear him whisper so low I can barely hear him.
“I love you too, Witch.”
With those words, I let him carry me along the shore, savoring every second of this moment.
FIFTY-NINE
The Farewell
The day has come . . .
The day he has to leave. He’ll go from being a few meters away from me to being hundreds of miles away. Silence reigns between us. It’s not uncomfortable but painful because we both know what the other is thinking: this is the inevitable reality. The sky is beautiful and the stars are shining in their maximum splendor, perhaps in an attempt to lessen this heartbreaking sadness.
There is a certain inexplicable pain in the inevitable. It’s much easier to walk away from someone when they’ve broken your heart or when they’ve hurt you. It feels impossible to do so when there’s nothing wrong between you, when the love is still there, alive, beating like the heart of a newborn, full of life, exhaling promise for the future.
My eyes fall on him, my Ares.
My Greek god.
There he is, with his hair tousled and his eyes red from the long night, and yet he looks beautiful.
“Ares . . .”
He doesn’t look at me.
“Ares, you have to . . .”
He shakes his head.
“No.”
Oh, my beautiful boy.
I struggle with the tears filling my eyes, and my lips shake. My love for him consumes me, suffocates me, gives me life, and takes it away. His flight leaves in half an hour. He has to enter the area where he’ll wait to board the plane, where I can’t go. We’re in the waiting area of the airport, and we can see the sky through the huge windows.