29. Mila
Mila
The 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 badass 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 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 was going to be the summer that Ryker and I would finally get together.
It was late that night, about eleven p.m. I remember the time because he’d told me we had to be there by nine 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 wait. That there were several things I’d never heard of before.
And so we lay back and waited. He told me that Capricornus was represented by an image of a hybrid goat-fish.
I joked that he was as moody as a goat, and he said I was as antsy as a fish.
I told him that I was on break from college, so I 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 ever so softly 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, my heart had swelled.
He looked over at me, gave me a small smile, 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 his hand found mine and squeezed.
We lay there, hand in hand, staring at the sky, and as the cool breeze ran across my face, I thought 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, not able to stop myself.
“Soulmates?”
“You know, your one true love?”
“One true love?” He laughed, and his eyes glanced at me, then away. “I think there are many loves for everyone.”
“I see.” My heart dropped. 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 know.”
“You just know what?”
“That they’re the one, of course.” I was getting annoyed.
“You know that they are your true love. The one you’ve waited your whole life for.
The one that 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.
There’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 Ryker 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, the 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, ashamed, and devastated.
And my heart—well, I was surprised my heart was still functioning.
I’d left Ryker’s house that morning, anxious to get away from him and to see Nonno.
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, so 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 Ryker.
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.
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 Ryker’s home that I checked 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 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 music, when Adele’s “Hello” started playing.
I sang along while the tears streamed. 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.
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 Ryker.
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.
Nonno opened the front door and pulled me into his arms. “Mila, so good to see you, mia 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 Ryker and the engagement.”
“I understand.” He smiled at me as we walked into his home. I smiled when 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, 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 eighteen.
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 her with 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 winked. “She’d been talking to Alberto, the banker’s son, the day before, and I knew he had intentions of getting to know her better. I needed to make sure she knew that she liked me.”
“And so you flirted with someone else?” I shook my head.