I missed the moped, but I didn’t ask if he wanted to rent another one. I was kind of pissed off. I felt extremely disappointed. Almost betrayed. Even though I hadn’t told him that Filippo had texted me when we were still in Santorini and told me, among other things, that he loved me.
I felt almost betrayed and kind of like a traitor myself. When I woke up, the fact that I had texted Filippo after listening to David’s conversation with Idoia made me feel uncomfortable. But his answer provoked a strange mixture of hope and terror in me. He said:
You were always the love of my life, even before I met you. We’ll be holding each other again soon and, when we do, this whole summer will disappear.
And in that moment, I felt like I’d never wanted anything more than I wanted him to be right and like when I sank into Filippo’s strong arms, my head would erase everything that I had lived through since I ran out in my wedding dress, like a kind of magic.
I guess I still had a lot of inner work to do to understand why not forgetting scared me so much. New things that demand more strength, more passion, less control…are always terrifying at first.
Usually, when I woke up, the ghosts of the night before were gone. But this time they were still sitting at the end of the bed, and they seemed even scarier in the light of day.
And the fact that David didn’t tell me about his conversation with Idoia as soon as he opened his eyes felt like him stabbing me in the back.
I gave him an extension, at least until breakfast. I thought maybe he needed coffee or to stuff two dozen buns into his gut to build up his strength. But it didn’t happen. Of course not. David didn’t want to tell me about his conversation with Idoia because it was private and special and had nothing to do with me.
When he cleaned his last plate and was talking to me about something else, I absent-mindedly asked myself what exactly I wanted him to say: “Last night Idoia called; she wanted to get back together and she made me promise that I don’t love you.” Fuck. It wasn’t a crime. It was, simply, reliable and tangible proof that our plan had worked. Why did it hurt me so much when Filippo’s message taking our reconciliation for granted had felt like a salve on an open wound?
We went to Panormos, a very pretty beach that, according to the girl in reception, wasn’t usually as crowded as all the others. We went in a shuttle from the hotel, in silence, listening to foreign versions of Luis Fonsi’s hits on the radio and looking out the little window. In my head, which was prone to turning any minor discomfort into World War III, I tried to accept that soon David would no longer be in my life.
“What’s up with you?” he asked when I went straight to put my stuff on an empty lounger without even checking with him. “You’re very quiet this morning.”
“Nothing. What about you?”
He raised an eyebrow. My tone was pretty hostile.
“You have big bags under your eyes.” I softened.
“I have big bags. And, well…I didn’t get much sleep.”
“Why not?”
He bit his lip and diverted his gaze over to the bar.
Please, David, I need to hear it, whatever it is you want to tell me.
“No reason. Listen…how ’bout I grab a couple beers? Come on, I’ll be right back.”
“I hope you get diarrhea, you bastard,” I muttered resentfully as he walked away.
When he came back, he was holding something for me to eat. He told me, with a soft and attentive tone, that he thought I might be hungry. He had noticed, it seemed, that I hadn’t been able to have anything but coffee and everything else on my plate had made me queasy. Being sad made me hungry, but being angry felt like my stomach was being clenched with an iron fist. And even though it was a kind gesture on his part, I couldn’t help but stand firm in my silent hostility. Perhaps because I knew I was wrong and I’d rather keep quiet than say something I would regret and that I was sure even I wouldn’t understand. So for the next two hours (yes, I said two hours…I’m a very stubborn woman), I pretended to be super engrossed in reading my book, turning the pages randomly every few minutes, not really absorbing anything. But he spent the whole time staring out at the sea with his headphones on under the umbrella. We were the living image of the cliché couple who organize a trip hoping it’ll fix everything. The cliché couple both in love with someone who wasn’t there.
And I grew angrier with every passing minute. And he seemed less honest.
My book flew onto the sand, between the two loungers, after he snatched it from me.
“Hey!” I grumbled.
“Enough already.”
I looked him in the face. He wasn’t angry. No. He was worried.
“Can you give me back my book?”
“No.”
“What do you want?”
David gaped, but he didn’t say anything. Words wouldn’t come out. They were clogging up his throat the same way and in the same place as my emotions. Forming a ball, causing a jumble of incoherence and contradictions that hurt and burned.
He sighed.
“Can I play a song for you?” he asked.
“You threw my book in the sand so you can play a song?”
“No. But who cares? You weren’t even reading it.”
He dangled a headphone in front of me, jiggling it until I took it and put it in my ear. He looked at me for a few seconds and pressed play. I recognized the song right away. Like the other times, I found myself wondering how much he understood the lyrics of the songs he was sharing with me. If you’ve ever heard “Sacrifice” by Elton John, you’ll understand why I’m pretty sure it’s the only song that could have softened my mood right then.
Even though it might tell a specific story that happened before I was born, it speaks of things not going well, jealousy, infidelity, a misunderstanding when things are already done, being at sea somehow…
I listened to it like it was the first time. I listened as I watched David’s expression with a trace of anxiety on the surface of his features. We didn’t get angry. And if we got angry, we kissed four times in a car and that was that. At least, that was how it had been in our only fight. But maybe…maybe in just a couple of days everything had changed too much. And in the coming weeks, even more would change.
His brown eyes were lightened by the reflection of the sea, and his eyebrows were mussed. I had to hold myself back from using my fingertip to comb them. I wondered if he knew how handsome he was, if he used it, if one day his beard would grow in evenly, if he had lied in his conversation with Idoia, if he felt something for me. Something real. Something I was scared to ask myself if I felt for him.
When the song ended, he surprised me by playing it again. The whole story sounded in my ears again from the beginning. And he was there, in front of me, trying to hide the lump in his throat, the twin of the one I had. I couldn’t take it anymore and yanked the earphone cable out of my ear. He did the same and pushed the iPod away.
A couple of seconds of silence, hesitation, and, finally, the elephant in the corner that was filling the whole room but no one was mentioning barreled into the conversation:
“You heard me talking to her, is that it?”
“Yes,” I admitted, no energy left to lie.
“And what bothered you? That I didn’t tell you or what you heard me say?”
“Both.”
“I didn’t say anything that could have offended you, Margot.”
“Can you summarize your conversation? So I can confirm you remember what you said.”
“It was a conversation between two people who aren’t ready to give up on their relationship. Nothing you didn’t already know.”
“Her not being ready to give up is a surprise, to be honest,” I pointed out viciously.
“That was harsh.”
“Well, that was exactly what I thought when I was listening to you last night. That you sounded pretty harsh,” I retorted.
“I don’t understand why.”
“Because it sounded like you were using me and I felt like a toy. No, even worse: I felt like a warm hole in the mattress where you can put your dick until Idoia wakes up and comes back.”
“You’re taking it out of context. You know the role I had to play to her and how I had to represent our relationship to her. I am using you.” He nodded. “Of course I’m using you. That was the deal. You were using me to have fun and I was using you to make Idoia jealous, right?”
“What’s going on with you?” I asked him, hurt. “Why are you talking like this?”
“Nothing’s going on with me, Margot, but…I mean…this is ending, right? We’re going to go back to our lives and…”
“Fuck.” I looked away and pressed on my temples. “This shit isn’t like you. Don’t even try it.”
“What shit, Margot? Maybe using isn’t the right word, but…you and I are two friends, and everything I said to Idoia about us fits with that perfectly. If you don’t agree, that’s where your problem is.”
“Do you know what this looks like?”
“Surprise me.”
“Don’t use that tone with me,” I demanded.
“I’m not using any tone.”
“Of course you are… What are you trying to do? Seem more sure of the things you’re saying?”
“I’m very sure about what I’m saying to you.” He furrowed his brow. “What I’m not sure of is what the hell you’re understanding.”
“Can I tell you something? You told Idoia you love her and that she was always scared of that, right? Well, I think there’s something about this trip that scares you.”
“Nothing scares me.” He shook his head.
“You’re a terrible liar.”
“Well, you are too, if we’re gonna go there,” he said, jabbing his index finger at me.
“What are you talking about?”
He rubbed his face and then pushed his hair off his forehead.
“It’s been five days since you’ve even mentioned Filippo.”
“So?” I swallowed.
“This is getting really messy, Margot,” he warned, his voice trembling.
“Because I didn’t mention Filippo? How is that messy?”
“That might work for you at your job, where people are scared of you and everyone shuts up because they don’t want to argue with the boss, but not with me. You haven’t heard from him?”
I bit my cheek.
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?” He tightened.
“Yes, I’ve heard from him, but you already knew that.”
“Of course, because I’m not as big an idiot as you think. Turning your phone off and putting it face down on the bedside table doesn’t make things disappear.”
Uh-oh.
“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt,” I muttered, looking down at the sand.
“Ah, fucking great.” He laughed ironically. “So that’s why you suddenly stopped telling me you’ve been talking to him?”
“We had just fucked, David. Maybe I don’t feel that comfortable telling you how romantic the message from my ex was when I’m still wiping your semen off my tits.”
I felt like I had been punched in the gut by newly discovered feelings. The memory of his mouth hanging open, panting, as he came on me, with his eyes locked on my face. The pleasure of feeling capable of enjoying so much. The smile, the kiss, the stroking my hair, my back, my left thigh, while we spooned naked afterward.
David made me look at him again.
“You’re allowed to feel uncomfortable and keep things quiet, but I have to tell you about the thing with Idoia even though I could still taste you in my mouth, right? ‘Listen, Margot, I know right before we fell asleep we were fucking like dogs, I was eating your cunt, and I came on your tits while I was saying filthy things to you, but…wake up, my ex called and she says she misses me.’”
“If it’s all as clear as we want to pretend, we shouldn’t have any problem talking about this stuff, right?”
“I don’t know, ask yourself. You were the first one to hide information,” he spat.
“You’re pissed off,” I said in an informative tone.
“Yeah.” He nodded. “Of course I am!”
“Your anger has nothing to do with me. You’re angry with yourself and your own shit.”
“Oh, but your anger has everything to do with me, right?” He threw his hands up in disbelief.
“Yes.”
“Fuck outta here,” he thundered through clenched teeth. “I’d bet my right hand you can’t give me a logical explanation for all this rage.”
“What about yours? You can’t either.”
“Yes, I can. I’m angry because we haven’t been honest with each other. And I’m pissed off for being so naive to think that fucking you wouldn’t ruin everything.”
He jumped up, threw his iPod aside, and marched straight into the sea. Oh, no. We weren’t going to leave it like that. I followed him.
“Wait…what the hell are you talking about?” I screamed. “Now you’re worrying about it? Now? When we’ve already done it in every position on the planet! You insisted! ‘Come on, Margot, let’s live life, let’s be free!’” I added in the worst imitation of my life. “And now your ex calls because she wants you back, you realize that we fucked it up by fucking like rabbits, right?”
“No. Not now that my ex calls, now that we’re lying to each other, we’re hiding things from each other and…”
“And what? What else?”
“Now that you’re all jealous like this, Margot. Look at yourself, for fuck’s sake.” He gestured at me disdainfully. “You’re rabid!”
“I’m not jealous!” I lied.
“Of course you are! You’re jealous because I told Idoia I miss her and I think about her!”
“I’m confused. Not jealous or rabid, David. Confused because you say one thing and you do another and…”
“Me? What about you? I have no idea where you’re at with Filippo. At this point, I can only think of two options: Either everything is fixed with him but you don’t want to mention it so you can keep enjoying the little toy you brought on vacation who’s a good lay. Or this means something to you that isn’t really there between us.”
“And what is there between us?”
“A friendship,” he answered firmly.
“It’s time to accept that friends don’t fuck, you know?”
“And while you’re at it, it’s time to accept that just because you fuck someone doesn’t mean you have to have feelings for them. It’s an exercise in physical needs, not emotional.”
I took the hit with dignity.
“You’re not even making sense anymore. How would anyone even know what you’re saying?” I sniped back, feigning levelheadedness. “Can you figure it out with yourself and then give me the official version? Did we fuck it up by sleeping with each other, or are we just friends with benefits so it doesn’t even matter?”
“I don’t know!” he yelled.
“So?”
“So it bugs me that you didn’t tell me about Filippo and it would bug me if you did too. It bugs me that you care that we fucked and it would bug me if you didn’t. And you know what else? It bugs me that you’re acting like this just because you heard me talk to my fucking girlfriend.”
“She’s not your girlfriend,” I pointed out.
“You know exactly what I mean!” He snorted and pushed his hair off his face.
“What the fuck is going on with you?” I screamed back. “Are you scared? Do you think I’m going to stalk you or follow you around when we get back? Like I’m going to be crying at your door for love?”
“No, don’t worry, it’s very clear that if you’re groveling for anyone, it’ll be him because that’s the easy way out.”
“Now who’s jealous?”
“I’m not jealous. I’m just pointing out the obvious. A girl like you only chases someone with a pretty full wallet.”
I raised my eyebrows, surprised.
“You’re asking if I’m afraid you’re going to chase me,” he continued, “but I’m not worried because boys like me are only good for sticking their cocks in you, eating you out, and making you feel wild for a few weeks until you return to the arms of the magnates you deserve.”
“I never thought you’d say something so sexist.”
“Sexist? You’re not understanding me. I’m not talking about you as a woman. I’m talking about you as a class.”
“I can buy Filippo and his whole family with the loose change in my bank account,” I spat, enraged. “You think I need him to get the life I deserve? I don’t need him or anyone else. My love can’t be bought.”
“Don’t get off topic, Margot, or try to make me think that money doesn’t make an insurmountable difference. Not even everything you have can paper over the fact that I’m a street dog and you’re a little purebred lady.”
I furrowed my brow. I didn’t understand anything, especially not the turn this conversation had taken.
“Are you aware of how screwed up your head is, David? You’re accusing me of being jealous, of giving our relationship more importance than it has, and now you’re accusing me of not wanting you because I’m a snob. What do you want?”
“And do you know what you want, Margot? Tell me. Because the life you deserve has absolutely nothing to do with what you can or can’t buy. And you know what you can’t buy at the end of the day? Dignity.”
“You’re talking to me about dignity? You?” I thrust my finger into his chest. “You’re the one who wants to get back together with a girl who says you’re not enough for her, and you’re a poor slob, and you have no future, and you’re mediocre. You’re so dignified, you’re dying from lack of affection, but you’re so used to the beatings your bitch of an ex gave you that you think love is having some clown make you feel important.”
“Go to hell,” he spat ragefully.
“Why don’t you? But not to hell, David. Why don’t you go back to Madrid and get your life together instead of staying here scared that I’m falling in love with you? Or that I’m using you. I can’t even keep track of what you’re accusing me of anymore. Go!” I shrugged. “Go already! I’m not going to die without you, you know? I’ve known you for about five fucking minutes. You have absolutely nothing to do with me or with my life. Go and bark up her tree. She’s more your type.”
David nodded, swallowed, and licked his lips. He took a few steps back toward our chairs, but he changed his mind and turned back to face me.
“I’m going. And I’ll be the bad guy, but you’re a poor little rich girl, and you’re so lonely that you had to spend your vacation with someone you just met. Your advice is really worth a lot…and I don’t give a shit what happens in your life, princess.”
I watched him walk away, unable to move a muscle. I think I even stopped breathing.
When he disappeared from sight, it felt like flowers and other things that no longer existed were appearing in the sand.