“It wasn’t working. We all knew that. She knew that.”

“Holy shit,” I swore. “Sorry. I’m just…I’m shocked. I don’t know what to say. Was she…upset?”

“Of course,” he said simply. “She doesn’t want a divorce at all, but I cannot force myself to love her. I think deep down, she does not love me either. That this has been this way for years because of Chloe Ann.”

Shit. This was so real.

“When will you…when will it be final?” I asked softly.

“That, I do not know. It all depends. She agreed to it. However, I did not agree to the judge’s ruling about joint custody.”

“They see you as an unfit parent?” If I knew anything it was how much Mateo loved his daughter.

“Not at all. But in Spain, the mother always gets custody. You have to appeal for joint. I would let her have full, but I don’t particularly trust her when it comes to visitation rights. She could take my daughter away from me and I’d never see her. I’ve seen that happen to a few friends of mine and I couldn’t bear that.”

This was so heavy. I was too young to know anyone who had gotten divorced, and I had no idea how any of it worked. For a second there, my age started to weigh on me. But there were bigger things to worry about. This was Mateo’s burden and I had to be there for him, as much as I feared I had something to do with it.

“Do you have to pay alimony to Isabel?”

“No,” he said. “Because she had money coming into the marriage. The judge only forces alimony payments if the other party is clearly disadvantaged economically. I am sure it pains Isabel to not get a dime from me, but her parents and lineage will take care of her, perhaps better than I can. But for Chloe Ann, I will pay more than I should. I will give her as much as I possibly can.”

“I’m sorry,” I said softly, feeling pained for him. “I can only imagine how hard this is going to be.”

“Do not be sorry,” he said. “Yes, it will be hard. But I will fight. I have faith this will work out. I want this, Vera. And I want you.”

The blood in my veins slowed to a whoosh.

“You didn’t do this for me,” I croaked, a statement, not a question. “Please tell me you didn’t do this for me.”

“My Estrella,” he said. “I did this for me. Even if you don’t agree to what I’m about to ask of you, I know it had to be done. Eight years is a long time to be unhappy.”

Now my breaths were slowing, catching in my throat on the way out. “What are you going to ask me?”

“Come live with me.”

There was an undercurrent of desperation in his voice that reached down into my heart, opened the steel gates, and let loose the butterflies. I closed my eyes, surrendering to the feeling, that this man loved me, wanted me so much.

But one by one, the butterflies fell. And my heart closed up again.

“I can’t,” I managed to say. “You know I can’t.”

“I’ll fly you out here. I’ll take care of you. You won’t have to worry about anything.”

“My school,” I said. “My degree. I can’t just quit school now. I have one more year.”

Silence made the room a wasteland.

“Maybe in a year,” I went on, grasping for something.

“No,” he said adamantly. “I cannot wait a year. In a year you could become someone else’s star. I can’t let that happen. You belong to me and only to me.”

“I’ll wait for you,” I said feebly, feeling like I was living a World War II film.

“You’re twenty-three years old,” he said gruffly. “I would never ask you to wait for me. Vera, I need you. I love you. I want you here, now, tonight if I could have you.”

My fingers curled into fists above my chest, feeling the squeeze. God, I wanted him so much, just to be in his arms, to feel his heart against mine, to kiss his beautiful face. Oh fuck, this was killing me fucking slowly. All this time, every day since we parted, I was slowly being drained of life.

“Maybe you could come here?” I said, willing the tears to stay away. “You could open up a new restaurant…”

“You know I would in a heartbeat,” he assured me. “But I will not leave my daughter, and I would not be able to take her with me. I have to stay in Spain. In Madrid.” I heard him swallow over the phone. “You’d love Madrid, Vera,” he said quietly. “You could find a job if you wanted to or I would take care of you. We could create that universe. It would be so beautiful. Please. Please, just think about it.”

I had no choice but to think about it. The love of my life just asked me to move to Spain to be with him. It was all I would be able to think about until the day I died.

“Mateo, I love you,” I told him. “Please know that.”

“I know that,” he said. “And I don’t want you to love me from afar. I want you to love me, right here, in my arms.”

The butterflies stirred again, their wings brushing my ribs, leaving a trail of champagne bubbles in their wake. This damn man. This lovely, beautiful, passionate man. He was instilling me with hope all over again, that dangerous, ruthless thing.

“Don’t give up on us,” he whispered, fueling the flames. “I haven’t.”

“I’ll call you soon,” I said when I found my voice. “Adios.”

The line clicked dead. My room was as silent as a tomb. I was all alone again, but this time I had that burden of hope, a box of butterflies and chaos in the corner.

Waiting to be opened.

The next morning I got up early and went down the hall to talk to Josh. I wanted to catch him before he went to work. The truth was, I hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep after Mateo’s call, and I spent the rest of the night going over pros and cons lists in my mind. I couldn’t believe I was actually considering it.

“Josh?” I said, knocking gently with one hand on the knob. “Are you awake?”

I heard him grumble through the door. My mom was in her room, getting ready for her day, and I wanted this to remain completely private. I took a chance and opened it a crack, peeking my head in. To my surprise it didn’t reek like weed as it normally did.

He opened the door, squinting at me with one eye open, his hair a mess on his head.

“It’s called sleeping in, Vera,” he groused.

“Are you decent?”

“I have clothes on if that’s what you mean.”

“I need to talk to you,” I said. He took one look at my face and gave me a grave nod.

“Okay,” he said, letting me in.

I closed the door behind him and cleared off his desk chair that had a stack of porn on it. I frowned, picking a magazine up and waving it at him. “People still buy these? I mean, the internet is full of porn. Free porn.”

He sat down on his bed and shrugged. “I’m old-fashioned, what can I say?”

I rolled my eyes. “Ew.”

“So what is it? I’m guessing you didn’t come here to discuss Hustler with your brother.”

I grimaced. “No, I certainly did not, you fucking weirdo.” I sighed, realizing I was stalling. “So…Mateo is getting a divorce.”

His eyes bugged out. “No shit.”

“No shit at all,” I said. “He called me last night to tell me.”

“Damn. Well…I suppose that’s good, right? I think so. He called it off, did the right thing. No more lies.”

“Yeah, but how is his daughter going to handle it? Look at how I turned out.”

“I think a divorce when you’re a kid is a lot easier to handle than a divorce when you’re a teenager. You were thirteen. I think you handled it way worse than I did, and I was eleven.”

“It’s my fault.”

He frowned and gave me a wry smile. “Vera, you’re not quite off the hook, but I wouldn’t go around calling you a homewrecker either. It just happened this way. Obviously he was unhappy. Fuck, isn’t it better to be happy than not?”

“But at what cost?”

“Look, Vera, I know you want to victimize yourself here and all that, but honestly, this is for the best. You know it, and knowing it does not make you a bad person. Shit, there are worse people out there in the world, doing hurtful, spiteful things. You just fell in love with each other at a very messy time. It’s life. It happens. Mateo never set out to fall in love, to hurt his wife, to get a divorce. You never intended any of that to happen either. You aren’t some femme fatale from one of your noir films, prowling on married men. Give yourself a bit of a break here. This is a good thing.”