Chapter 40
The Stones Along the Way
victoria
Elena and I have been communicating only through messages for a couple of days now.
It feels like a couple of weeks have gone by instead of forty-eight hours, and I’m so eager to see her that I’m climbing the walls.
Ever since the other night we spent together, it’s become clearer to me that I need to get my life in order if I want things to work out, and yesterday, after talking with Carolina, I realized that it’s not just the issue with Joana, but my job and everything that comes with it.
I hadn’t confessed to anyone that I felt overwhelmed at the newspaper; I love what I do, my position as head of the international desk is incredible, but I can’t stay in a place that drains my energy and forces me to survive on coffee.
Sooner or later, the things that excite you the most can end up being the ones you hate the most, and that’s what’s happening to me right now.
I’m no longer sure if I want to spend my whole life at the newspaper, much less if I’m willing to give everything I have just to see my name in the credits.
Over the last few days, I’ve been calling Joana nonstop.
I haven’t stopped dialing and hanging up; I’ve been so persistent that I feel like sooner or later she’ll pick up—but I’m already tired of her angry, tense attitude.
I don’t understand why I have to be chasing after her all the time; I’m not eighteen anymore, and my patience is running out with every passing second.
As soon as I get to Madrid, I’m going to go find her to talk and end our relationship once and for all, and I won’t care how she reacts.
Ideally, things would be simple, but it’s clear it’s going to be much harder than I expect.
“Damn the day this started…” I repeat aloud once the answering machine picks up and I hear her recorded message.
I let out a sigh and run one hand through my hair.
“It’s just… damn it!” I exclaim, and just as I’m about to throw the phone, Joana calls me back, and it takes me no more than a second to answer.
“Hallelujah! Have you gotten tired of my persistence yet?”
“I just got back from Paris. Can you tell me what happened that made you call me so much?” she asks with a snort. “You told me you’d be busy with your friends.”
“In Paris?”
“Yeah, well, Alfredo asked me to go with him,” she says half-heartedly. “But I’m back now. Tell me, honey, I’ve got over thirty calls and a hundred messages. I think it’ll be quicker if you just tell me.”
“I’m going back to Madrid tomorrow.”
“Why?” she asks with interest. “Do you miss me that much?” Suddenly, I realize that our relationship is still intact on her end and that I can’t tell her everything over the phone. “Vic? Are you there?”
“Yeah, sorry, I was distracted,” I reply. “So, is Alfredo already in Paris?”
“No! Not at all!” she exclaims. “He’s in Madrid.”
“Oh, okay, great,” I murmur, a little uneasy. “I wanted to talk to him about a few things, and that’s why I need to go home.”
“You haven’t talked to Pepa, have you?”
“Should I have?” I ask bluntly. “I haven’t even gotten a message from her.”
“There’s a rumor that they’re making changes to the staff,” she mentions, and a light bulb goes off in my head.
Suddenly, the conversation I had with Alfredo before flying to Ibiza comes to mind, and I tense up as my heart skips a beat.
“Apparently, they’re going to fire some people, and others are going to be promoted. ”
“When I spoke with Alfredo, he told me they were looking for someone to fill the deputy editor position,” I explain, somewhat confused and at a loss. “He mentioned Le Monde, but I didn’t imagine it would happen so quickly.”
“Well, the sooner, the better. I hate having my future up in the air.”
“Don’t worry, your job is secure.”
“I hope yours is too,” she says simply. “I wouldn’t want to be left alone at the newspaper, to be honest.”
“Yeah, well…” At that moment, I get a text from Elena, so I switch to speakerphone so I can type a reply. “We’ll see what happens in the future,” I manage to say, and then I let out a sigh. “Tomorrow when I get in, I’ll look for you, okay? I want to talk to you about something.”
“So mysterious…” she murmurs suggestively. “I can’t wait to see you. The last time we did this, things didn’t go very well, and I miss you.”
“You didn’t even let me speak,” I recall briefly. “Everything would have been so much easier if you hadn’t left my house. I needed to tell you how I felt and…”
“You wanted to break up with me; I saw it in your eyes, that’s why I left,” she interrupts me.
“I didn’t want that,” I admit frankly.
“Whatever you say.”
“Look, the only thing I wanted you to understand is that Elena will always be the woman of my life,” I say without thinking too much about it.
“She and I grew up side by side and fell in love. My life with her was wonderful, and I was the one who decided to get a divorce,” I add.
“I made a huge mistake doing that; I’ve carried it in my heart for five years now, and it’s a thorn that won’t go away no matter what.
Not even because you’re seeing someone else. ”
“So you’re still in love with her.”
“I just told you. I always will be,” I assure her, dropping a couple of hints about what will happen once I get to Madrid. “But anyway, we’ll talk about all this tomorrow or the day after, okay?”
“Okay.”
“I’m meeting my friends for dinner, and I promised them I’d go with them,” I lie as I stroke my neck. “Promises aren’t meant to be broken.”
“Don’t worry. Have fun.”
“I will.”
Once the call ends, I try to swallow and loosen the knot in my stomach.
Joana has no idea what’s going to happen tomorrow, or maybe she does and is pretending not to.
The only thing I’m sure of is that there are so many things I want to do once I get to Madrid; first with our relationship, then with my job, and finally, with the future I want to share with Elena.