Chapter 14 - Stand Up and Say It
Laura didn’t move toward the sketchbook.
“Elena is outside.”
“I saw her.”
“Then you know I’m not staying.”
Marcos looked thinner.
For the first time, the exhaustion on his face seemed real.
It did not make her feel responsible for fixing it.
“I need five minutes.”
“You’ve had two years.”
He glanced toward the terrace.
The pool shone beyond the glass.
Everything looked painfully familiar.
The stone.
The sofa.
The table where the champagne bottle had broken.
“I was hurt,” he said.
“I know.”
“I thought I’d never get my life back.”
“So you took mine?”
His face tightened.
“That isn’t fair.”
Laura almost laughed.
He heard it in her breath.
“I started getting better,” he said. “And everything was already arranged around me. You handled the house. The appointments. The money.”
“You mean I worked.”
“I mean you were good at it.”
There it was.
Not confusion.
Not shame.
Convenience.
She had been good at disappearing.
“You could have told me.”
“I was going to.”
“When?”
He looked away.
“When the debts were settled.”
“And then?”
“When the studio situation was fixed.”
“And then?”
He said nothing.
Laura understood how a lie lasted two years.
It didn’t need a two-year plan.
It only needed another reason not to end today.
She took one step toward the hall.
He moved with her.
Outside, Elena knocked hard against the front door.
“Laura?”
“I’m here.”
Marcos lowered his voice.
“You can still stop this.”
“No.”
“I’ll return what I can.”
“Talk to Nora.”
“If this goes forward, they’ll take everything.”
Laura looked at him.
“You said that when I wanted to keep my studio.”
He reached for her arm.
She stepped back.
“Don’t touch me.”
Elena knocked again.
Louder.
Marcos’s hand fell.
For a moment, he looked furious.
Then he looked frightened.
Laura recognized the switch.
It had always been there.
She had simply been too busy responding to it.
“You loved me,” he said.
“Yes.”
The answer seemed to unsettle him more than anger would have.
“And you used that.”
She picked up the sketchbook.
He moved aside.
At the front door, Elena was already calling for help.
Laura stepped into the daylight.
Behind her, Marcos said her name one last time.
She didn’t turn.
Three weeks later, Laura sat in a courtroom while Nora arranged documents on the table.
Across the aisle, Marcos arrived in the wheelchair.
His attorney leaned close and whispered.
Marcos shook his head.
May you like
Then Nora opened the file containing his own messages.
And the judge asked whether he was ready to answer questions.
