I cleared my throat. “He asked me to live with him.”

Now he was stunned. “Sorry, what?”

“He asked me to come live with him in Madrid. Now.”

He laughed dryly. “Well, you can’t.”

“I know.”

“You have school.”

“I know.”

“You have no way of getting there.”

“He would fly me out.”

He bit his lip and nodded. “I see.”

“Yeah.”

We lapsed into thick silence, both of us wrestling with the same question.

“So,” he said, “are you going to tell him no?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Vera…”

“I’m not telling him yes either. I just…I need to talk about it. I need to work through it.”

“Well, I can help you work through it. The main reason you can’t go is because you have school. Why not wait until you’ve graduated?”

“I don’t want to wait,” I said. “Waiting drowns me.”

“So dramatic.”

I waved my arms in the air. “What is the point of me staying here? I’d go to school and I’d hate every minute of it. Yeah, I want to finish my degree, but Madrid has programs too. I’m just…I feel like if I don’t act now, what we had is going to totally disappear and I can’t lose that.”

“I guess if you can’t be reckless and adventurous at twenty-three, when can you?” he mused.

I nodded. “I’m not worried about school. What’s an extra year? I know myself. I know I’ll get my degree somehow. That’s not the issue.”

“What is the issue then?”

“I’d be giving up a lot on uncertainty. What if it doesn’t work out?”

“Then you come back home.”

“But…” I could barely think about it. “I don’t think I’d survive it.” I caught a look in his eyes. “And don’t tell me I’m dramatic. I have no idea if our relationship is strong enough to handle me going all the way over there and trying to start a new life with him. I’d have nobody except him.”

“What about your friend Claudia?”

I breathed out through my nose. “Yes. Thank god. But even so, it wouldn’t be the same thing. What if the relationships I made at Las Palabras were only meant to survive right there in that bubble? What if they don’t stand a chance outside of that world?”

He ran a hand through his hair, making his bedhead worse. “Look, Vera. You’re in love with him and he’s in love with you. Obviously your relationship is strong enough to get this far. And long distance, that’s the fucking worst. I will be here for you no matter what you choose. I just want you to promise me one thing.”

“What?” I looked at him curiously.

“If you do decide to stay here, please stop crying and moping around about him.”

“But if I stay here, that’s all I’ll do.”

“Then you have your answer.”

Shit. Fucking Josh, when did he get so damn smart? He was right. As frightened as I was about taking a chance on uncertainty, a risk on love, shit, moving to another fucking country for a guy, I knew this was the best solution to the life I was living. If I told Mateo no, I would break my own heart and I would break his. I would be miserable for a very long time and I would spend the rest of my life wondering if I made a mistake.

I did not want to live a life with regrets. You only regretted the shit you didn’t do. That’s what I told myself when I signed up for Las Palabras in the first place. I didn’t want to be thirty, married to some dude and thinking back to how different my life could have been if I had just followed my heart.

Because my heart, as abused as it had been lately, was beating to the pulse of Spain.

I took a deep breath and got up. “Well, I guess I’m going to Spain.”

Josh smiled. “And I guess I’m going to lose my fucking sister again.”

I pouted, despite the butterflies that were taking flight and filling me with excitement. “Oh, come on.”

“I’m just joking,” he said. “Maybe I’ll come visit someday.”

“He does have a sister who’s twenty-five.”

“Oh, older women, my favorite,” he said wryly.

I picked up a porno and threw it at him.

He laughed and picked it up. He stared at it blankly for a moment before he put it aside and looked back up at me. “When are you going to tell Mom?”

Oh, god.

Why the hell did I think I could just jet off to Madrid and not tell my mother about it?

Oh, fuck. She was going to kill me.

I couldn’t move. Josh got up and put his hand on my shoulder. “Hey. Let me know when you tell her and I’ll back you up, okay? Now get out of here so I can go back to sleep.”

I nodded weakly and left his room. I could hear my mother in her room down the hall. This was not going to be easy, and it was not going to be fun. I decided I better tell Mateo and get the plane ticket all squared away before I had that conversation with her. She had paid for my tuition already, so it was going to be extra tricky to reason with her when she had so much at stake.

In the end, I had more at stake. I just had to get her to see that.

Things moved fast. As soon as I had made up my mind, I told Mateo. The joy I heard in his voice only added to the joy in my heart. I was so excited and nervous but so fucking happy. It felt good. It felt real. It felt like the right thing to do. He bought me a ticket on Iberia Airlines, flying from Vancouver to New York to Madrid on August 25th.

Naturally I had to tell Claudia. She was totally excited, pretty much as excited as I was. That felt good, to be missed, to be wanted. I started feeling like maybe I was going to be able to build a new life there after all.

A new universe.

I called Jocelyn too, to let her know. I wasn’t sure how she was going to react, maybe call me crazy. I had been writing her all about Mateo, and when she came to visit Vancouver after I had just returned from Spain, she got a teary earful about how doomed our relationship was. She’d never seen me that way and I think I scared her all the way back to Saskatchewan. But she took the news of me moving to Spain surprisingly well, with no judging on her behalf.

“Do what makes you happy,” she said lightly.

“Doing Mateo made me happy,” I joked.

She sighed. “Such a romantic name. Mateo Casalles. Vera Casalles sounds good too. You sound like a Spanish queen.”

I flinched at the mention of Spanish royalty. “Well, no one is getting married here.”

“No, I suppose not,” she said. “You’re only twenty-three and have your whole life ahead of you, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he never wanted to get married ever again, or even have kids.”

Ouch, that hurt. Did I mention that Jocelyn could be really blunt?

“I meant that more as in we don’t really know each other that well and should probably live together for a while first before that happens. Or, you know, what you just said.”

“Oh. Sorry, Vera. But, I mean, you should probably keep that in mind when you get there. I totally support the move to Spain for your true love kind of notion, even though I won’t see you as often, but try and keep your heart protected, too.”

Didn’t she know it was way too late for that?

After I told her, I knew it was only a matter of time before it would pop up on my Facebook or it would slip out somehow. It was time to tell my mother.

Unfortunately, I picked a day that Mercy was over. She and my mom were in the kitchen, baking dinner together. Josh had picked up extra shifts that week and happened to be home, so if I wanted his support, I was going to have to jump on it.

My chest felt like it was filled with cement. Ugh. This was going to suck so badly.

I went to Josh’s room and gave him a look. “It’s time.”

He nodded and came out to join me, and we walked down the hall. You’d think I was going to war.

We went into the kitchen. Mom was sipping her wine and peering at Mercy over her glasses. Mercy was wearing a stylish apron that she must have brought from her apartment, her hair pulled back in one of those effortless topknots that makes me look like I have an animal on my head when I try to do it. She was grating a block of parmesan into a bowl, gluten-free lasagna being assembled in a pan beside it.