Chapter 24 #2
Alana closes the window and settles back in her seat. She puts an eye mask over her perfect lashes, and sprays an aromatherapy scent— presumably one she stole from our last hotel— over her face, making our seats smell like lavender.
“There,” she says, satisfied. “Now we’re free.”
I look at the landscape streaming past— open and wide and completely indifferent— and think: free is one word for it.
* * *
An hour later, and the train’s dining car is a welcome escape. Forks clink against plates. Tourists hold conversations in low, happy tones.
I have been sent here for a grilled cheese.
Alana’s exact words were: “Get me a grilled cheese, and if they don’t have grilled cheese, get me whatever is closest to grilled cheese, and if they don’t have anything close to grilled cheese, come back and tell me so I can be upset about it.
” No one can say Alana isn’t an excellent delegator.
I’m standing at the counter, waiting for the man to acknowledge me, when I hear footsteps behind me and know— before I turn, before I see him— that it’s Rodrigo.
His footsteps have a particular quality: steady, deliberate, and patient, as if everything will happen in its due time.
Tyler’s footsteps are shuffly. I hate myself for comparing them.
“I’ve been sent to tell you she wants tomatoes on her grilled cheese,” Rodrigo says, appearing beside me at the counter. I notice, for the first time, that his smile is a little crooked. Yet another charming quality I can add to the list. Why does this man have to be so handsome?
“You care deeply, about the quality of her lunch, I assume?” I say, testing.
“No,” Rodrigo shakes his head. “I care about an excuse to come see you.” He waves a hand at the man behind the counter, grabbing his attention in mere seconds when I’ve been waiting for what feels like forever.
He orders for both of us. Two coffees, two bocadillos— small sandwiches with jamón— and he does it in Spanish, which is unfair, because hearing him speak Spanish does something to the base of my spine that I cannot be held accountable for.
The man behind the counter moves with fractionally more energy than he displayed for me, which I choose not to take personally.
We sit at a small table by the window. The countryside is streaming past in long, golden panels— dry earth, olive groves, the occasional white farmhouse.
Rodrigo sets the coffee in front of me.
“We have a problem, now that my phone is gone,” he sighs, acknowledging the worst of our situation.
“Maybe Melissa can track us some other way—” I say hopefully.
“Perhaps,” he agrees. “We will need to try to get a message to her.”
“I can’t believe she came here for me,” I say, shaking my head. Melissa— eight months pregnant, swollen-ankled, cantankerous, wonderful Melissa— is here in Spain. For me. I may not have many friends, but at least I have one good one.
“She brought Steve,” Rodrigo adds, clearly trying to assuage my guilt.
“She shouldn’t be flying,” I say, and my voice comes out smaller than I intend. “She’s due in four weeks. What if something happens on the plane? What if the baby comes early because of the stress and?—”
“I said this to her,” Rodrigo says. “Almost those exact words. She told me if she has the baby here, perhaps it will get dual citizenship.” He pauses. “Your friends love you very much. I can see why.”
The way he’s looking at me knocks the breath right out of my lungs. Thankfully, the sandwiches arrive before I have to formulate a response.
I take a bite, and it’s so good that I make a sound I’m not entirely proud of. “Why is all your food here so amazing?”
“Because your food in America is so terrible,” Rodrigo jokes. He pauses as if he’s trying to think of a way to tell me something. “You are not disappointed, that Tyler did not come?”
Tyler. The name makes a lump form in my throat. I’ve basically cheated on him. The name sits between us on the table like an object neither of us wants to pick up.
Rodrigo’s expression shifts— not much, just a small tightening around the eyes that says he’s choosing his words with care.
“Melissa was trying to reach him. To explain what happened. To get him on a plane as well. She said he was quite upset after the breakup text Alana sent him. I do not know if she convinced him to get on a plane or not.”
There it is. The information, landing with its careless, familiar weight.
“Technically,” I say, and I hear myself say it, “I’m still with him.” I hate myself for saying it outloud. It’s like the words pop a magical bubble I wanted so badly to keep.
The sentence hangs in the air between us, and I watch Rodrigo receive it. He nods. His expression doesn’t close— it stays open, stays warm— but something in it acknowledges a boundary.
“Of course,” he says. “I understand.”
A beat. The train sways gently. Outside, a hill covered in scrubby green passes like a slow breath.
“But if he does not come for you, Billie,” Rodrigo adds, his tone softer, quieter. “He is an idiot. And he does not deserve you.”
I stare into Rodrigo’s eyes, feeling lost in them.
“Did I cheat on him?” I say, thinking out loud.
I never intended to talk about this with Rodrigo, but there’s such a gentleness about him— like he’d understand my deepest fears— that it’s hard not to confide in him.
“I’ve been with Tyler so long… I can’t even imagine what my life would be without him.
Have you ever had that happen? It’s as if…
” I motion out the window at the countryside blurring past us.
“… It’s as if your life is a train and you’re just a passenger on it, and you want to change the destination but you can’t? ”
Rodrigo nods. “Yes, I know this feeling,” he agrees, and I see memories of past mistakes flash across his face.
“I accept that I may not be the author of my fate, at least not entirely. But I try not to overthink it,” he smiles that crooked smile at me.
“Instead, I simply—” he waves a hand in the air. “— decide to know the things I know.”
“And what do you know?” I ask him.
There’s a long pause as he leans toward me. Then, he takes my hand across the table. “I know that I do not regret that kiss.”
For a second, I consider lying to him— telling him that I do regret it, only because it would make everything simpler— but instead, I tell him the truth:
“I don’t regret it either,” I say.
And there it is— the truth.
Rodrigo lets go of my hand, satisfied. He turns his coffee cup a quarter-inch.
“I have a habit,” he says, “of rushing into things. Relationships. Feelings. All my life I have seen a woman and thought— yes, this is the one— and jumped, without taking the time to really know her.” He glances up.
“It’s how I ended up with Alana. I saw something beautiful and I leaped, and I didn’t ask enough questions.
It’s nice that you and Tyler— that you really know each other. That there’s a foundation.”