BARE SOULS: A STEAMY TEACHER/STUDENT ROMANCE

CHAPTER 69 | ZANE

    "It's a lovely place you have here..." Maria said as she leaned on the balcony to admire the view over the hills. 

    "Yeah... It's alright..." I answered, trying to ignore the anxiety I suddenly felt submerged with at the idea of now facing that woman I had ran from over a year ago. 

After she showed up at my door step, it took me days to figure out what was the right thing to do. I spoke to Rick who explained that Maria was initially coming to visit her sister but once my name came up in the conversation, Sofia simply decided to tell her where I lived so her and I could finally talk things out. 

Needless to say how much I hated Sofia for giving her sister my address, but at the same time, I could also understand the pressure she felt as her sister asked her questions she didn't want to answer. I just wished she would have given me heads up before at least... Just so I would have been prepared, instead of going from cloud nine to fall all the way down to hell. But somehow, Rick was the one who couldn't go past Sofia's betrayal and once again, I felt that I was partly responsible for another complication in their relationship. 

Honestly, I had no wish to talk to Maria. I was just not ready yet. My head was still as messy as when I left and I still had no answer to whatever question she may have had. But I would lie if I said I didn't feel anything when I saw her on my doorstep. In fact, I felt everything. The heavy beat of my heart who recognized the beautiful face of the girl I fell for at first sight. The memories of our happier days and the life we built together. The brightness of that smile I thought gone forever. The sweet echo of her soft voice in my ears. I felt it all... Until it got all ripped up by this other feeling that unfortunately was more powerful than anything I listed above. 

Pain... 

But how long will it last? I could run away for ever and ever, but I would still owe her a conversation... Even if I still didn't know where I stood. 

Rick asked me the obvious question regarding my feelings for Maria. The answer was always clear to me. Yes, I still loved her. I'm the kind of person who don't love easily nor lightly and the fact that some people could simply fall out of love when they have loved so hard sounded incredible to me. I fell for Maria incredibly fast and deep... To the point I always believed her and I were fated. I never called her my soulmate lightly. I really believed she was. 

But people's happiness does not just depend on just the fact that they love each other. Our relationship was the perfect illustration of what I mean by that. We did love each other on every aspect of the term. But we also hurt each other with the same intensity. And because I loved her so much, I couldn't resolve myself to bring up what we knew we couldn't solve nor repair. 

One thing she taught me is that loving someone does not protect you from resenting them, and Maria and I loved each other with the same intensity as we resented each other, and it was destroying us a little more every day. I believed me distancing myself and giving her some space would help us both. But here I was, more than a year later, still unable to figure if I was more scared of letting her go or going back to her. 

She had taken the step to come to me, so it was only fair of me to give her a full explanation.

But it was no longer just me and her in that complex equation. There was someone else that I hurt in that process. And that person was the last one to deserve being hurt that way. And before I could speak with Maria, I needed to speak with Harper. 

I tried to think of the proper way to tell her about Maria and what happened, but none of them sounded right. I had so many chances to tell her yet, I chose the coward way of hiding the truth, hoping she would leave without ever finding out about the life I left where she was heading to. And meanwhile, I never even conceived the possibility of the truth finding her. But it did... In the worst possible way.