CHAPTER 40 #2
“Now?” My father takes a step forward, tense. “Now you feel the need to tell the truth, after everything you’ve done?”
“I know,” she murmurs, lowering her voice. “I know I’ve done everything wrong, that there’s no excuse.”
“That’s an understatement,” my father snaps, his jaw clenched. “I told you once before: if you ever hurt her again, I’d never forgive you.”
The words cut through the air between us like a truth rising to the surface.
This has happened before. My father witnessed how I fell apart after the divorce, how I had to learn to sleep in my bed without Barbara on the other side, how I filled my life with routines so I wouldn’t think about her every second of the day.
Barbara lowers her head for a second, as if carrying that guilt truly weighs on her shoulders.
“I’m not here to ask for forgiveness so I can feel better about myself,” she says slowly, choosing each word carefully. “I’m here because Lidia deserves the truth. The whole truth.”
I roughly wipe away another tear with the back of my hand.
“How curious,” I say at last, looking her straight in the eye. “Now it turns out you care about the truth.”
My voice comes out low, broken. But also sharp, laden with all the resentment I’ve been carrying inside. Barbara looks at me, and I feel the air grow thick between us.
“It’s always mattered to me,” she replies, her voice trembling but firm.
I let out a bitter laugh that scratches my throat.
“Don’t say that. Not now.”
“It’s true,” she insists, taking a small step forward.
“The same truth you hid while you were sleeping with me?” I ask, staring at her mercilessly. “The same truth you hid every time your phone rang and you told me it was work, that it wasn’t anything important?”
Her face contorts. She knows I’m not the type to raise my voice and make a scene to hurt her, that it’s enough for me to state the obvious, to call out the lies that now weigh like stones.
“Lidia…” she begins, her eyes brimming with tears.
“No.” I jump to my feet. My legs are shaking, but I force myself not to fall.
My father takes a step toward me, worried, ready to intervene.
“Daughter…”
I raise a hand to gently stop him. Because, even though I’m falling apart, I need this. I need to look her in the face, I need to hear her out and hate her with real reasons, not with these assumptions that are eating me up inside.
Barbara doesn’t take her eyes off me. Her hands are open at her sides, tense, as if she wants to touch me and knows she can’t, that any contact now would simply be one more mistake.
“You have no idea how I feel right now,” I say, my voice breaking again, but without looking away. “You have no idea how humiliating it is to realize that I’ve put myself in your hands again so you can tear me apart once more, as if I hadn’t learned a thing.”
Her eyes fill with tears, and that infuriates me even more. I don’t want her to cry. I don’t want her to seem vulnerable. I don’t want to feel sorry for the person who has broken me again so easily.
“I know,” she whispers, almost voiceless.
“No. You don’t know. Because if you did, you wouldn’t have done this. You wouldn’t have played with both of us at the same time.”
The silence grows so thick that even the sea seems to fall silent for a moment, respecting the gravity of what is happening. Miriam stands up slowly and approaches my father. She places a hand on his arm to restrain him, to remind him that this moment is mine.
I remain rooted in place in front of Barbara. In front of my favorite ruin. My worst habit. My greatest love and my deepest wound, all at the same time.
She takes a step toward me and my father tenses up immediately.
“Don’t even think about it,” he growls, his voice low and threatening.
Barbara stops dead in her tracks. When she speaks again, her voice is broken, as if uttering each syllable requires an immense effort.
“I’m not here to ask you to understand me. Or to ask you to forgive me. I don’t deserve it, I know. But I need you to listen to me. Even if you hate me for the rest of your life and never want to see me again.”
It hurts so much to hear her that I can’t breathe.
Part of me wants to send her to hell, to scream at her to leave and never come back.
And another… another part still needs to know.
It needs to understand how someone can look at me the way she did an hour ago, with so much love in her eyes, and yet hide a whole life behind smiles and kisses.
My father watches me closely. I know what he’s thinking. That I shouldn’t go near the fire. That I shouldn’t stand in front of the flame that already burned me until it left scars.
“Lidia,” he says with a gentleness laced with fear, “you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”
I look at him. And seeing him like this breaks my heart. My father, who has always been my safest haven, is scared for me, afraid that I’ll break completely.
But this time I can’t hide behind anyone. Because if I don’t listen to her, this wound is going to haunt me like a ghost.
I take a deep breath, trying to fill my lungs. My fingers are trembling. My chest hurts, but I know I need to settle this once and for all. Even if it breaks me completely in the process.
“Dad…” My voice comes out barely a whisper, weak but determined.
He frowns, shaking his head slightly.
“No.”
“Let her,” Miriam pleads.
“Lidia…”
“She’s right,” I say, swallowing a sob that threatens to escape. “We need to talk. I need to hear it from her.”
My father holds my gaze for several seconds. I can see fear, anger, and love battling inside him, fighting to take control.
“Are you sure?” he asks at last, his voice deep.
I’m not. I’m not sure of anything. Not whether I can bear another lie. Not whether hearing it will save me or drag me deeper into this pit. But I don’t want to spend the rest of my life wondering what she would have said, what excuse or what truth she was saving for me tonight.
I nod slowly, swallowing hard.
“Yes.”
My father clenches his jaw, defeated but resigned. Then he strokes my cheek with the back of his fingers, just as he used to when I had a fever and he stayed by my side all night.
“If she hurts you again, I swear I’ll…”
I don’t let him finish. I kiss his hand tenderly, thanking him for his protection.
“I know. But I have to do it.”
Miriam comes over and kisses my forehead affectionately, like a mother trying to give me strength.
“We’ll be right here,” she whispers close to my ear. “You’re not alone.”
I nod, unable to say more.
I wait for them to walk away. For their footsteps to fade among the empty tables and the tired lights of the party that is no longer a party. And then the silence falls again, heavy and absolute.
It’s just the two of us left. Barbara and I, face to face. Surrounded by the remnants of a night that just a few hours ago seemed perfect, and I cross my arms so I don’t start trembling again, to protect myself from what’s coming.
“You have five minutes,” I tell her in a cold voice, even though inside I’m shattered. “Five minutes to tell me something worth hearing, because I can’t take any more nonsense.”
Barbara closes her eyes for a second, and when she opens them, I glimpse in her brown eyes a storm worse than the one on that night when everything broke apart for the first time.
And for the first time in weeks, I wish with all my soul that I had never loved her, even though a treacherous part of me knows that’s a lie.