Page 103 of Release Me

My only response is the open front door with my keys still hanging from the lock. Nadia shakes her head and steps back again. Her brows are knit together in a tight line, and her eyes are narrowed into slits.

“Are you serious right now?” she asks through clenched teeth. “You live here? All this time, you’ve been my neighbor, and you didn’t say anything? Why?”

“Because I knew you wouldn’t understand.”

“Wouldn’t understand what, Sebastian?” Her arms are folded over her chest now, and her nostrils are flared. All things that indicate just how badly this conversation is going to go. I place my hands in my pockets and lean against the wall beside the open door Nadia can’t stop glaring at. With a sigh, I launch into an explanation, hoping my intentions will buy me a little bit of goodwill from the woman I love.

“That I’ve owned this building for years, but I didn’t start using it as my primary residence until you chose to live in it.”

“Why would you do that? We weren’t even together when I chose this building.”

“Because I wanted to be close to you in case your past caught up to you.”

Her feature soften, but only marginally, not enough to make me breathe easy. “You could have just been honest about that, Sebastian. There was no need for all the cloak and dagger nonsense.”

I could leave it here. I could just accept my lashings and tell her she’s right, so we can turn our focus back to the topic I actually want to discuss, but that wouldn’t be smart because there’s one more thing I need to tell her.

“You’re right, precious. I should have been honest with you about this.” I lick my lips, preparing them to speak a truth that will likely upend the precarious peace sitting between Nadia and I. “There’s something else I need to tell you.”

A wariness I can only attribute to the stress of the day and this conversation settles along her features, carving out a home in the frown lines in her forehead. “What is it?”

“This unit isn’t the only one I own.”

“You own the whole damn building, Sebastian, you’re going to have to be more specific than that.”

She spits the words out, which is how I know she already knows. She can see the truth I’ve yet to speak on my face, and she doesn’t like it.

“When I bought this building, I fell in love with it for the same reasons you did. The history in the original features mixed with the modern design elements, the proximity to Cerros, but most of all, I fell in love with the views from the top floor, from this floor. My plan was always to turn the two units into one. I had Nic draw up plans and everything, but things kept coming up that needed my attention more than the renovation, so I put it off. At first, I was annoyed about having to keep putting it on the back burner, but then you came along, and you needed somewhere safe to be, and I needed to be able to be close to you, and I was grateful that it worked out the way it did because otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to?—”

“Lie to me for weeks,” she says, injecting venom into the words she’s just used to cut my sentence short. “You wouldn’t have been able to strong arm me into unknowingly moving into a place that you own or pretend to be just as confused as I was about why my rent payments kept getting reversed. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have been able to spend every night in my bed knowing you had your own on the other side of the fucking wall. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have been able to turn me into an unwitting charity case!”

This isn’t the first time she’s used those words to refer to herself, to suggest that that’s the way I see her, but today they cut deeper than they ever have before because today she’s not just the woman I love, but also the woman carrying my child.

“Nadia, you are not a charity case.”

I push off the wall and reach for her, but she backs away.

“That’s how it feels, Sebastian. I don’t want to be some kept woman who has everything handed to her by a man and hasn’t earned anything on her own. I can take care of myself.”

“I know you can take care of yourself, Nadia. You’ve been doing that since you were 16 years old, but you don’t have to do it by yourself anymore. All I wanted to do was give you a break from doing it all on your own, and I’m sorry for not being honest about how I planned to achieve that, but I’m not sorry for any of the rest of it because it’s not charity, it’s love. And I’ll always love you like that, Nadia, because I don’t know any other way, and my heart won’t allow me to learn one.”

To emphasize my point, I cover the heart in question with my hand, turning my next words into a pledge I know by the look on her face she won’t accept today.

“The way I love you demands everything from me, Nadia. My time, my energy, every free moment and the claimed ones too. It dictates that I deplete every resource at my disposal and not only do I honor that edict, I do so without ever thinking about how I’m going to replenish them because as long as I’m in possession of your smile then the things I don’t have don’t matter. You mean more to me than any job I could give you, any roof I could put over your head or any amount of money I could put in your bank account. None of it matters to me. You are what matters.”

Nadia shakes her head. “And the truth matters to me, Sebastian. That’s all I’m asking you for. I don’t need any of the rest of it.” Her shoulders, which, just seconds ago were up around her ears, begin to slump at the same time wariness takes over her features. She turns on her heels and heads back to her door, leaving me to follow on uncertain feet.

“Nadia, wait.” I pause on the other side of her threshold. Not because I don’t want to go inside, but because she won’t let me. She’s standing on the inside of her place, her hands gripping the door. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going to bed. Today has been—” Tears turn the brown of her eyes into glittering pools of caramel. “—today has been a lot, and I just want to go to take a shower, go to sleep and forget the last few hours even happened.”

I wonder if she knows. If she’s aware that those words, followed by the prompt closing of her door in my face, have relegated me to my own private hell. Have sent me tumbling into a hole so dark, so desolate, that nearly twenty four hours later, when I’m standing on the rooftop at Nic and Sloane’s engagement party, I still haven’t found my way out of it.

What I have found is Nic who is using his rare moment of solitude to check on his friend, Chris who seems to be in as somber a mood as I am. He’s doing a worse job of hiding it though, lingering at the bar with a drink in his hand and his eyes focused on someone on the other side of the roof before he settles them on Nic and me. As soon as we’re close enough, Nic claps him on the shoulder and asks if he plans to pout in his drink all night.

“Maybe,” Chris says, taking a long pull from the glass in his hand and emptying it. Something about his outward expression of the turmoil I’m feeling inside but have had to tuck away in order to carry out my duties as Nic’s friend, the owner of the venue and hopeful best man, pulls the corners of my mouth up into a reluctant smile.

“Woman troubles will do that to you, Nic. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten so quickly.”

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