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“What do you mean by that?”
“You don’t have to forgive me. You don’t have to accept anything from me. I have no right to demand anything from you. Whether you choose to forgive me or not is entirely up to you, and I’ll have to live with your decision, even if I don’t like it.”
We sit in silence. Words hover in the air as we stare at one another, my hands still holding hers, with our fingers linked. My heart constricts, and my stomach twists. Our tortured history mixed with my feelings stirs the storm within me. I never stopped loving her. Because of her, I was never able to commit to Camila, despite years of trying. Now I have the opportunity to resolve all of that, to finally settle the chaos Lena left in her wake after leaving.
The waitress breaks our silence when she begins putting food on the table, and we let go of each other’s hands. Talk about bad timing. I was hungry, but with our conversation being so heavy that I’m in my feelings, my hunger has subsided.
“Why’d you come back to Boston?” I ask.
She stares at me, lets her response teeter on her lips before saying, “For you. When I left, I knew it was the right thing to do for you, even if I knew it would destroy us, destroy me. I came back to set the record straight and give you the truth you deserve to hear. I knew that you needed it. I needed it. I wanted to apologize and ask for your forgiveness. Neither of us had closure, which we need to move forward.”
“Now that you’ve done that, how do you want to move on?”
She shakes her head. “No, Massimo. Not this time. I’m done making decisions for others. You decide.”
I contemplate her words, the sincerity in them, and say, “Call me a masochist, but despite you shredding my heart, I could never let go of you.”
Her eyes widen at my confession. “Oh. So, what does that mean?”
“I want us to try again.”
She fidgets with her glasses and adjusts them to sit on the bridge of her nose. “What about your relationship with the boys’ mother?”
“Camila? What about her?”
“Uhh, she’s the mother of your children, and you’re in a relationship with her.”
“She is their mother, and that’ll never change, but we’re not together anymore.”
Lena’s mouth goes slack. “You’re not?”
I shake my head fervently. “Camila and I have been over for a long time, but I made it official and moved out earlier this year. She’s an amazing mother to our boys, and she deserves someone who will love her completely, but that isn’t me.”
Lena’s face is still, her eyes wide.
“I met her a couple of years after you left and believed I was ready to move on. I tried. I thought a new relationship would help get you out of my system, head, and heart. Then she got pregnant, and I took it as a sign that I was supposed to let you go—especially because I desperately wanted kids. By that time, you had been gone for almost four years. I wanted it to work out for us because of Lucio. We were doing well for a while, or so I thought, which is why I agreed to have another child with her. But no matter how hard I tried to convince myself that I should be committed to her, my heart wouldn’t let go of you. It’s like a part of me was missing.”
“Oh.”
“Is that so hard to believe?”
“It’s just that I thought you were married.”
I shake my head. “I couldn’t commit. She kept asking me to get married, wanted to make our family official, and I couldn’t do it. I wanted to, for her, but I felt like a phony, a failure. When I thought about marrying her for our kids it felt wrong and deceitful because my heart wasn’t in it.”
“Does she know why you couldn’t commit?”
“At first, I didn’t tell her. But she wanted to know, so eventually, I did, even if I was reluctant to do it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It was the best decision for her. I would’ve never been able to give myself over completely, and that would’ve been an unfair mistake. I had already made way too many mistakes and hurt her enough. She’s still upset with me, but she’ll eventually get over it, and she’ll find a good man that loves her completely. In the meantime, we have our boys that we have to raise. We will be the best parents we can be in two households.”
“So, where do we go from here?”
“I don’t know, but you’re back, and suddenly I feel like a darkness has lifted. Even with all the stuff I’ve learned lately. The gaping hole in my heart is already starting to heal. I want to see you, spend time with you again.” I stretch my hand across the table, caressing her beauty mark, and she leans into my touch. “Maybe everything I remember about us is just history that I’m nostalgic about,” I tell her. “But maybe we’ll be able to bury the past and start fresh. We were really fucking good together! I don’t know, I’m thinking out loud here.”
“Wow. I’m not gonna lie, that’s surprising and not what I expected to hear.”
