Maybe our lives have been set in motion from that kiss.
Maybe everything after this is inevitable.
Chapter 11
Thalia
I’m running.
I don’t really know where, but the sun is just coming up and I’m hitting the streets of Madrid before the heat and humidity rise. Even though the summer is coming to a close in these early fall days of September, it’s still hot as hell here, and if I don’t jog in the morning, I won’t get to jog at all.
I know I could always use the treadmills at the gym at Valedebebas, but since it’s my day off, it’s the last place I want to be right now. There’s so much damn tension there that it’s probably for the best that I stay away if I can.
Most of that tension has to do with the team’s losing streak.
The rest of the tension is between Alejo and me.
Granted, I haven’t seen him since he kissed me on the football pitch.
He didn’t show up for our therapy session the next afternoon and then I found out he was on the bus, heading with the team to the game. I think it probably did him some good to go and support them and get his head back into that space after being injured and cut off from it for so long.
But I also think he left because of me.
In a way, I don’t blame him.
For better or for worse, that kiss changed something in me. It might have changed something in him. It for sure changed our relationship. I was able to recover from that incident in his bedroom and he seemed to as well. But this was something else.
And yet, I have no choice but to be professional about it.
I can’t let it come between us, even if it’s changed the way I view him.
That kiss brought him from a beautiful boy to a magnificent man, the kind of man who is comfortable baring his soul, the kind of man who can almost bring me to my knees with his lips.
I try to shake it out of my head. I keep running, hoping that I can sweat the angst out of me. Maybe it will clear my head, help me figure out just what the hell I’m supposed to do next.
Before I know it, I’m running past the royal palace and on the path alongside the river, running until I can’t breathe anymore and have to stop.
I rest, bent over with my hands braced on my knees, trying to get a grip.
Apparently I can’t run away from my problems. That might just make things worse.
Or give me a heart attack, at the very least.
Suddenly my phone rings from the armband on my bicep, and I quickly fish it out to answer it, blinking in surprise at the display.
It’s my mother.
“Hello?” I answer.
“Oh good, you’re up.”
“What time is it there?” I ask, and my heart beats even faster because I’m usually the one calling her. “Are you okay? Is Dad?”
She chuckles. “Of course. We’re fine. It’s only ten p.m. We were just at the Stephaniuk’s for dinner and you came up in conversation. Made me realize I hadn’t talked to you in a while.”
I should be annoyed that it takes other people to make my mother realize we haven’t spoken, but I’m used to it by now. She’s always lived in her own little world. She’s a retired school teacher, but I always felt with her teaching classes and then having five kids at home, she shut out everything the best that she could.
Including my father.
My parents were the type of parents that fought bitterly the entire time I was growing up, and yet they never, ever divorced. Things seemed to calm down as soon as my mother retired, but until then it was a battle every day. I remember bringing it up once, when I was old enough to recognize it and the thought of them divorcing wasn’t traumatizing, and she said marriage is until death do us part.
You can imagine she hasn’t been too thrilled her only daughter is divorced.
“How is everything?” she asks.
“Fine. I’m just up early, jogging.”
“How is the team? I’ve seen you on the sidelines once. Your father was able to watch part of a game on the internet.”
“Well, my job is good, if that’s what you’re asking. The team has lost a few games, but they’ll get back at it.”
“I’m sure they will. That’s the good thing about your job, you don’t have to worry about the wins