The Spanish Love Deception: A Novel

There was this show I’d loved when I was a teenager. It was an American TV series we got on one of the Spanish national channels—naturally, dubbed. I absolutely loved it. High schoolers with big dreams and bigger egos—or hearts, depending on who you asked—angsty plot twists, and a level of drama someone at sixteen shouldn’t have been experiencing, at least not in a small town somewhere in North Carolina. Or in the north of Spain for that matter. Which was perhaps why it all resonated so much with me.

There was this one episode in particular that had somehow stuck in a way others never did. It started with a voice-over narrator who asked something along the lines of, “what’s the minimum length of time with the power to change your life? A year? A day? A few minutes?”

The answer to that question had come to be that when you were young, one single hour could make a difference. It could change everything.

And I … wholeheartedly disagreed.

One didn’t need to be young for their life to change in the span of an hour, a handful of minutes, or nothing more than a few seconds. Life changed constantly, wickedly fast and terribly slow, when one least expected it to or after a long time of chasing that change. Life could be turned around, inside out, backward and forward, or it could even transform into something else entirely. And it happened regardless of age, but most importantly, it didn’t care for time.

Life-altering moments spanned from a few seconds to decades.

It was part of the magic of life. Of living.

In my twenty-eight years of life, I had experienced few but very different life-altering moments. Some had lasted seconds, no more than glimpses or moments in which a realization dawned. And others had lasted minutes, hours, even weeks. Either way, I could count those moments with both hands. Recite them from memory too. The first time I’d dipped my feet into the sea. The first math equation I’d solved. My first kiss. Falling in and out of love with Daniel. All the terrible months after. Boarding that plane to New York to start a new life. Watching my sister walk down the aisle with the biggest, happiest smile I had ever seen on her.

And then there was Aaron.

I thought I wouldn’t be able to pick one single moment when it came to him. Because it was him, the one thing that made that span of time important. Life-altering.

Falling asleep in his arms. Watching his lips bend into that smile that I knew now had only been for me. Waking up to his voice, to the warmth of his skin against mine. Watching his face crumbling down. Him walking away. His absence.

All of them had left a dent in my heart. In me. All of them had changed me. Shaped me into someone who allowed herself to open up, to love, to needing and wanting to give herself not to anybody, but to him.

But as much as all those moments that had made me fall helplessly in love with him left a mark I’d never be able to erase, one that I didn’t think would ever fade, it was the split second when I had known I needed to get myself on a plane to Seattle and find him, the one moment that felt … transcendental. The realization that I had let him go too soon, too carelessly. So foolishly. The moment it had dawned on me—like a blow straight to the middle of my chest—that nothing else besides going to him mattered. That nothing should have stopped me from running into his arms. From being there for him when he needed someone the most.

But was it too late? Was the clock still ticking on my life-altering moment, so I could turn it around, or had I lost my chance?

My head spun with that question for six hours on the flight from New York to Seattle, continuously bouncing from blinding hope to the dread that could only come from anticipating loss. And when the plane touched ground, I still wasn’t sure whether to feel hopeful I was closer to him or whether I should have employed that time to ready myself if Aaron told me that it was too late and asked me to walk away.

I thought about it some more as I waited for a taxi, drove to the first hospital on my list of medical centers with oncology specialists in Seattle, and asked in reception for Richard Blackford—a name I had dug out from the internet from what Aaron had told me about him and his past.

That question kept whirling in my mind as I turned around, got myself into a new taxi, and repeated the whole process with hospital number two. Then with hospital number three.

And right as my knees almost doubled with a mix of relief and trepidation at finally hearing the nurse at the counter of hospital number three ask if I was family or friend, that question that was stuck in my head was still screaming at me to be answered.

It still was now as I made my way to the waiting room on what would soon become the longest elevator ride of my life.

Did I throw it all away out of fear and stupidity? Am I too late?

So, when the polished and metallic doors finally opened, I stumbled out of the elevator like someone walking out of an interminable road trip. Limbs numb, skin sticky with dry sweat, and the sense of not knowing where you were. My gaze anxiously scanned the space along the hallway before me, all the way to the waiting room, where I had been told he’d probably be—my Aaron, the man who I had to get to, to get back. And there, right there, sitting on a chair that barely accommodated his size, was my answer.

With his arms on his knees and his head hanging low between his shoulders, there was my life-altering moment.

And I realized as I stared into the distance—my heart feeling as weightless and hollow as ever when I saw him there, alone, without me—that as long as I had him, my life-altering moment would never be a measurement of time. It would never be as simple as marking a few points in the timeline of my life that I could identify as transcendent. It was him. Aaron. He was my moment. And for as long as I had him, my life would constantly be changing, be altered. I’d be challenged, cherished, loved. With him, I’d live.

And I’d fight for that. I’d fight for him like I hadn’t when he asked me to. I wouldn’t take no for an answer. He was stuck with me. Just like he had promised me in Spain, in front of the people I loved the most in this world. I’d prove that to him.

“Aaron,” I heard myself say. Let me be your rock. The hand that holds yours. Your home.

My voice was barely a whisper, too low and quiet to make it all the way to where he was. But somehow, it did. It reached him. Because Aaron’s head snapped up. As he sat in that rigid plastic chair, his back straightened, and his neck turned around. I could see the disbelief in his profile, as if he thought he must have imagined me calling his name.

But I hadn’t. I was right here. And if he let me, I could take care of him. I would caress his back while he sat in the dull and impersonal waiting room, brush his hair with soothing fingers, and make sure he ate and slept. I’d comfort him with hugs and be the shoulder he leaned his forehead on as he grieved the dad he might lose soon. The one who had missed so much, the one I knew Aaron felt like was already gone.

His gaze scanned the space that separated us with the sheer determination I knew only he was capable of. And I’d never know why, but I waited. I held very still as he swiped around. And then, after what felt like an eternity and at the same time not enough time to prepare myself, blue eyes locked with mine. My heart toppled over itself, and I felt the commotion inside my chest.

I watched his legs straighten, bringing him up.

Then, his lips parted with my name. “Lina.”

It wasn’t the Lina instead of Catalina. It was the anguish in his voice—the need, the way his hair was ruffled, the bags resting under his eyes, the wrinkles in his clothes that screamed they hadn’t been changed in a couple of days—that propelled me forward. My legs sprinted across that hallway that separated us like they had never run before. Toward him, right into his arms. Just how he had asked me to. And when I reached him, I launched myself at him. I locked my body around his.

It wasn’t appropriate. It wasn’t the time or the place, and he was carrying so much on his shoulders already. There was so much we needed to talk about, but it was right. I knew it in my bones as his arms closed around me.

He lifted me off the floor, squeezed me into his chest, held me in his arms.

I buried my face in his neck as I kept murmuring into him, “I’m here. I’m here. I’m running toward you. I trust you. I love you,” hoping it wasn’t too late.

And he kept repeating my name. “Lina, baby. Lina, are you really here?” Hushed and broken, sounding like he still didn’t believe it was me in his arms. That it was me who had finally come to him like I should have done days ago.

No. Like I should have done an eternity ago.

Aaron walked backward, sitting back down as he held me in his arms. As I held him into mine. My body curled into his lap, and his palm cupped the nape of my neck.

“I’m so sorry, Aaron,” I breathed into the skin between his shoulder and the underside of his jaw. “For everything. For your dad and for not being here, by your side, earlier. How is he? Have you seen him?”

I felt his throat swallow against my temple.

“He’s …” Aaron shook his head. “I have seen him, but he’s been out of it all this time. I just …” He trailed off, sounding exhausted. Defeated. “Are you really here, baby?” he repeated, holding me tighter. “Or is this my imagination playing tricks on me? I haven’t slept in … I don’t know how many days. Two? Three?”

“I’m here. I’m right here.” I lifted my head and moved, so I could cup his face, take a good look at that face I had been so set on despising and now loved so much. “And I’m going to take care of you.”

His eyes fluttered closed, and I heard a strangled sound coming from his throat.

“I love you, Aaron. You shouldn’t be alone—ever. And I am the one meant to be with you. Here. Holding your hand.”

His eyes remained closed, his jaw pressed tightly.

“Let me do it. Let me prove to you that I trust you and that I can earn your trust back. That I am the one who’s supposed to be by your side right now and as long as you’ll let me.”

“You want to do that?”

“Yes,” I rushed out quickly. “Yes, yes. Of course I want to,” I repeated. “I need to,” I whispered, not trusting my voice. “Let me be here for you. Take care of you.”

His eyes opened, our gazes connecting. After a long moment, a pained chuckle rose to his lips. “You drive me so fucking crazy, Lina. I don’t think you understand.”

One of his hands latched on to my wrist as I still cupped his face desperately. I was ready to fight. I was ready to beg if it was necessary.

“You came all the way here. You …” He trailed off, disbelief crumpling his face. “How did you even find me?”

“I had to come to you.” My fingers trailed down the side of his neck, my palm settling against the warm skin. “I remembered everything you’d told me. About Seattle, your dad being somewhat known here. So, I Googled your last name, the university football team, the coaching staff. Then, I looked for a list of hospitals where he could have checked in. I knew you’d be here because you wouldn’t leave his side if he was in critical condition, like Sharon had told me. And you haven’t. You are here. It only took me a few tries. I would have turned the city upside down if I hadn’t found you. I wouldn’t have rested until getting to you.”

I finally allowed my lungs to take in a breath. And I found Aaron’s eyes shining with something that made my chest ache in a warm and wonderful way.

“I did call you, but it went straight to voice mail, and then I just … didn’t want to busy your head with anything else. And …” My voice lowered to a whisper. “And I did not want to give you a chance to tell me not to come. I was terrified you wouldn’t want me to. So, I didn’t call again. I just came to you instead.”

A shudder rocked Aaron’s body.

“You blow my goddamn mind, my rules, my world,” he breathed, those ocean-blue eyes capturing my gaze like they never had before. “When I least expect it, I find you ready to dynamite your way right into my heart. As if you hadn’t done that already.” The grip of his fingers on my wrist tightened, pulling me to him, and I could feel the soft air leaving his mouth, falling on my lips. “As if you hadn’t already dismantled me for anybody else. As if I wasn’t at your mercy.”

Hope, warm and soft hope, fell over my shoulders. “I have done all that?”

“You have, Lina.”

Aaron’s forehead fell on mine, and I had no choice but to close my eyes. To take it all and control this whirlwind of emotion threatening to turn me inside out.

“With every smile, you have done exactly that.” I felt his lips brushing over mine briefly, sending a shiver down my spine. “With every single time you have been infuriatingly stubborn and impossibly beautiful, all at once.” He placed a kiss on the corner of my eye. “With every time you have shown the world how incredibly strong you are, even when you don’t believe so yourself.” A kiss on the tip of my nose. “With all the ways your mind amazes and disturbs me in ways I’ll never understand and not ever tire of.” His lips landed on my cheekbone, flicking across the skin. “With how every single time you laugh, I want to throw you over my shoulder and run somewhere I can covet that sound just for myself.” A kiss was brushed on my jaw, his lips then sweeping along until reaching my ear. “And with every other unfathomable way you have made me completely yours.”

“Yours,” I repeated, my heart expanding in my chest. Lurching itself against my rib cage. Wanting out and into Aaron’s. “I’m yours too, Aaron. So completely yours. I have … fallen in love with you. I don’t know how it happened, but it did. I love you.” I didn’t recognize my own voice, not with the loud thumping in my ears. “I was so stupid to let you walk away. So, so dumb. But I got lost in my head. I was so scared, Aaron. I didn’t want to lose everything I had worked so hard for. To have people look at me like they had all those years ago. To lose you, too, when you realized that I was a complication.”

“You’d never be one.”

“I know that now, but I somehow convinced myself that letting you go was the best thing I could do to protect myself from that happening again.” I shook my head, pushing that dreadful emotion out of my chest. I’d tell Aaron about Sharon and the investigation on Gerald. But now wasn’t the time.

“I’m sorry for not being here for you like I should have.”

He looked at me like he didn’t want my apologies, but I didn’t let him talk.

“I am.” My voice wavered. “Knowing that your dad was sick and you were all the way here, alone. Taking it all without anyone to hold you. That he has been critical for weeks, and yet you came to Spain with me. That you …” I trailed off, my voice now shaking. “That you would give me so fucking much without ever asking for anything in return. It destroyed me. But I’m here now,” I whispered, looking into his eyes.

“I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere, not because I believe that we can somehow be together now, but because I can’t conceive of being anywhere else but beside you.” I swallowed hard, trying to rein in every emotion threatening to burst out. “You know that, right?” I leaned in, my lips brushing over his. Very softly, almost tentatively. Waiting for his answer.

“I do now.” A low grunt came from his throat. His fingers tightened once more around my wrist. The arm around my waist brought me even deeper into his chest. “I do, Lina. And I don’t plan on letting you forget that.”

The hand that had been on my wrist trailed up my arm, his palm cupping my face. I leaned into his touch, feeling like I could live only on Aaron’s caresses and kisses.

“I would have come back for you, you know? I told you I wouldn’t let you quit on us. You still owed me that four-letter word.”

He had said that. And the realization made my stomach drop to my feet. How dumb I had been. Aaron hadn’t given up on us; that had been only me. Only temporarily. While Aaron had been holding on to this. To us. All this time. Even when he needed someone by his side the most. And that … that made the heart in my chest burst into a hundred million pieces, only to reassemble into something different. Something that didn’t belong to me anymore. It belonged to us.

“It’s yours. Love and all the other four-letter words I could ever give you.” I placed a kiss on his mouth, not able to hold myself back any longer. I took my time with his lips, claiming them as mine. Claiming him.

A hum sounded deep in his throat. “You are stuck with me, Catalina.”

Both arms cradled me closer in his lap, further into his chest. The side of my head rested against his drumming heart, his chin on the top of my hair, and peace—an overpowering kind of peace I had never heard of or experienced before—settled between my shoulders. And I knew then that we’d take anything on as long as we were together. We were a team. We’d light up each other’s way, hold each other’s hand, and push the other forward when we stumbled. Together. We’d do anything together.

Just like we would get through this. I’d get Aaron through this.

“Aaron?” I lifted my gaze and met his. “I’m here for you now. I’m going to take care of you,” I told him simply.

He sighed; it was deep and slow, and it sounded like he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders.

“But just know that if I had known your dad was sick, I would have never let you come to Spain with me. Why didn’t you tell me when you talked about him, Aaron? I know you don’t owe me an explanation, but I want to know. I want to understand better.”

“Because everything … changed.” His throat worked, and his gaze took on a lost edge. “He has been battling cancer for the last year. Ironic huh? First, Mom and now…” Aaron trailed off, needing a second to compose himself. “Until a few days ago, I had planned on remaining away. Leave things the way they were between us. Even when I flew home a few weeks ago.”

“You did?”

“Yes, it was after my promotion was announced. That was what kept me from talking to you about our deal.”

I had not noticed Aaron taking days off back then, although work had been completely crazy, so I guessed I had been distracted. But it all made sense now.

“I would have talked to you eventually. I would have managed either way.”

“That doesn’t matter now, baby,” I told him, meaning every word.

He sighed deeply. “So, I came all the way to Seattle, but I couldn’t bring myself to talk to him. To admit to myself, to show him that I still cared when he had pushed me away all those years ago. When he was the father I had already lost.”

My fingers drew circles on his chest, right above his heart. “What changed then?”

“Everything did.” He exhaled, and it came out shaky and pained. “I … 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 of the features I knew so well. The hard jaw, the way both brows met, that intent and confidence about them. It was all there, although faded and worn.

“You are still here,” Aaron’s dad said. And I could hear the surprise in his tone.

“Dad,” I heard Aaron answer, and the grip of his hand on mine tightened. “Of course I’m still here. And there’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

Blue eyes that looked in our direction from the bed trailed behind Aaron with curiosity.

“Hi, Mr. Blackford.” I smiled at him, feeling Aaron’s hand leave mine and fall on my shoulders. “I’m Catalina, and I’m happy to finally meet you.”

Aaron’s dad didn’t return the smile, not completely. But his eyes told a different story. Just like I had seen his son do so many times. All under lock and key. “Call me Richard, please.” His gaze searched my face, something akin to wonder slowly seeping in. “Is this her, son?”

The question caught me by surprise, and so I glanced back at Aaron. I found him staring at his dad with a mirroring expression. Then, his profile softened.

“I wasn’t sure you were listening,” he said almost absently. Then, his arm brought me closer to him, as if tucking me into him were nothing more than a reflex. “Yes, this is her,” he answered louder, and my breath hitched in my chest. “The woman I told you all about.”

Aaron looked down at me, his eyes shining under the fluorescent light of the room.

“Your Thea,” I heard Richard say, emotion coating his voice.

Thea. That had been his wife’s name. Aaron’s mom.

I peered in his direction, finding that smile he had hidden earlier. It was small and weak, but it was enough to make mine break free in return.

“Hold on to her, son. For as long as time lets you.”

“I will.” Aaron’s words brushed the skin on my temple.

I looked up at him, finding those blue eyes smiling down at me with a devotion I had never experienced or imagined being on the receiving end of. With a warmth that I could feel right in the middle of my chest, pounding and expanding with every passing second I spent under his gaze, by his side. Aaron looked at me with a world of possibilities shining bright and dazzling in his eyes. A promise.

“This is the woman I plan on spending the rest of my life with. I’m not letting go of her anytime soon.”