just give me a reason | f. torres

Epilogue

"But the thing was that I gave her a chance to make me stay, I told her to give me a reason to why I should have stayed, stayed with her in London, but she didn't, so I thought she didn't love me enough, so I left. Now she has been writing these letters to me, reasons to why I should have stayed. I received the very last letter today, and she says that she wants to move on now that she's told me everything that was needed to be said. What should I do padre? I love her, and I regret my decision. I'm not sure that I can be happy without her," I said and cursed my tears for starting to produce a whole waterfall during our phone call.

"Look son, I can't tell you what to do, that is a decision only you can make, but I can give you an advice. So listen carefully to your old man alright?" he asked and even though I knew that he couldn't see me, I nodded.

"When I was seventeen I was in love with my best friend, cliché I know. But we were best friends and one day we kissed, at her eighteenth birthday party. It was a beautiful and passionate first kiss which was worth remembering. But, she was drunk of her ass, so on the next day when she woke up, with the worst hangover ever, she didn't remember a thing. All she said was that we should forget everything about that past night and of course I thought she meant the kiss and it broke my heart, because at that time I thought that she didn't love me back."

"So I never mentioned a word about our kiss, and today I regret it. I loved this girl, more than I had ever loved someone else. She was my best friend and the love of my life, she still is. Sadly we out grew each other and we went separate ways, and years later I was invited to her wedding. And in my speech I mentioned our kiss at her eighteenth birthday party and afterwards she told me that she didn't remember it at all. And that's when I realized that not only had she been too drunk to remember our kiss but she had also been in love with me, as deeply and madly in love as I had been. And after she had told me that, she kissed me. And boy let me tell you Nando, it was way better than our first kiss. Because this time, we were both perfectly sober, okay not really, but sober enough to remember and cherish every moment of that kiss. Then she whispered that I was sweet, but that I was too late, she just couldn't divorce her newly wedded husband so soon after the wedding. She said that she didn't have the heart to do so, which only led me to love her more, she was never selfish," by now my mouth was wide open, because of everything that my father told me, I just couldn't believe that he had had a love life before he met my mother.

"Oh what a bittersweet moment in my life that was, the love of my life had just told me that she loved me back, but that I was too late to tell her my true feelings. But I don't regret coming to that wedding, because that's where I met your mother, she was a distant relative to the groom, and somehow during that evening we found each other. I don't regret meeting your mother since that gave me the three things I treasure the most in my life, my children; you, your brother and your sister. I love you guys, and I love your mother, don't think otherwise Nando, but I've never loved her as much as I loved Cara, and I never will and your mother knows that. But she loves me enough to stay with me, but believe me Nando, that if I could change the time and you guys would still be my children, I would do it, I would go back in time and change everything. That when Cara said we should just forget the previous night, I would tell her about our kiss. I lost the love of my Nando, don't you dare do the same mistake as I did," when he finished I stared out in front of me with my mouth wide open, I would never have guessed that my father had loved someone else so deeply than my mother, and that he still did.

I swallowed hard; I wasn't the child he would have wanted from the start... I shook my head and swallowed once more, this wasn't about me, no this was about my love life. My father's past is the past and he can't change anything, but I can, and what my father had said had made me think, and now I knew exactly what to do.