The Spanish Love Deception by Elena Armas (novels for students .TXT) 📕

I somehow thought I had you, and then just as quickly, I didn’t. And as much as I was set on not letting you quit on me, I saw it in your eyes. You had really given up on us. You believed in your decision.”

A shadow came over his face, and I instinctively leaned to place a kiss to the corner of his lips, dissipating that temporary darkness.

“The possibility that I could really lose you started solidifying in my head. And I just …” He shook his head. “God, it’s not the same, I know. But I finally got it. I understood how hard it’d hit him, losing Mom. How lost he must have been at the reality of not having a way to get her back. How many reckless decisions he must have taken. It did not justify that he pushed me away, but I am to blame too. I had been so lost in my own head that I let him do that. And then I allowed both of us to keep it on for years.”

“Neither of you is at fault, Aaron. We are not programmed to lose those we love; there’s no right or wrong way to grieve.” My hand trailed up his chest, my palm settling against his collarbone. “We just try our best, even when, often, our best is not good enough. Blaming yourself now is not going to change the past; it’s only going to take away energy that you should be spending in the present. And look where you are now; you are here. It’s not too late.”

He brushed a kiss over my head. “That day, when everything with Gerald went down, I got a call from the hospital. They told me that things didn’t look well for him. Apparently, my dad had asked for me. Several times. Demanded that I had to be contacted.” His voice trailed off, and I let my fingers play with the hair at the nape of his neck. Letting him know I was here. Listening. Having his back. “It’s like everything lined up, and suddenly, not only did I understand him in a way I hadn’t before, but I also had this urge to see him. Not to apologize or to mend things between us, but to at least say good-bye. And I knew this was probably my last chance to do that.”

“Did you do that? Say good-bye?”

“The moment I got here, I went into his room with the intention to do that. Say good-bye, walk out, and just wait. But I … somehow ended up talking to him. Telling him everything I hadn’t said in all these years we were apart. He wasn’t conscious. I can’t be sure if he was even listening, but I just went on. I couldn’t stop. I talked and talked, Lina. Told him everything. I don’t even know how long I was there. And I don’t know if it was for nothing because maybe not a word was getting through to him, but I did it anyway.”

“You did good, amor.” I brushed my lips against the skin of his neck. “You did so good.”

Aaron melted a little more into me, into my touch. “They told me a few hours ago that he seems to be doing a bit better today. That he might get more time. They don’t know if it’s days, weeks, or months. But they are hopeful.” His chest deflated, the arms around me losing that desperate edge they’d had a while ago. “I am hopeful too.”

A voice coming from somewhere on the other side of the waiting room reached us. Bursting the bubble we had been in. “Mr. Blackford?”

We both turned and looked over. A nurse stood a few feet away, his smile trained to be polite and calming.

“Yes,” Aaron said, his back straightening in the chair.

“He’s finally awake. You can see him now.” The nurse slipped his hands in the pockets of his scrubs. “Only a few minutes, okay? He needs to rest.”

Disentangling my body from his, I placed both feet on the floor and stood in front of Aaron, making space for him to walk to the nurse. He followed suit, his head still turned toward the entrance of the waiting room.

“Okay, yeah,” he said almost absently. But before he even stepped away, he looked at me. “Come with me, please?”

My heart skipped a beat just then, the answer sounding loud and clear in my head. I’d go anywhere with you if you so much as asked. “Yes, of course I will.”

I didn’t wait for him to stretch out his hand and take mine. I did that myself. And I kept my hold tight and as reassuring as I possibly could as we followed the nurse to the room where Aaron’s dad waited. We stepped in, and I did not know what to expect. Perhaps I should have readied myself on the way to the room, and the realization that I hadn’t made a part of my bravado scatter away. This was the only living family Aaron had left, and I was about to meet him. And I … I suddenly tumbled a little under the importance of the moment. I wished it could have been under different circumstances, that there was more time, or that I was sure about what to say, how to handle this situation so everything went as well as it could.

But there wasn’t time. This was what we had. What Aaron and his dad had. And even if a little scared or uneasy, I was humbled that Aaron wanted to share it with me.

“There’s someone here to see you, Richard,” the nurse announced into the room and then looked over at us. His smile inched up. “I’ll be back in a few minutes, okay?”

Aaron took a step forward, and I remained a little behind him. Letting him have this moment to himself.

“Son,” the man perched on the bed said in a raspy voice.

I looked over at him and found the ghost