If it weren't for the out of sync fork scrapping on cheap China plates, Lucia probably would have gone crazy from the silence.
After she had arrived home to a pitiful looking Javier, Lucia understood there were two options to move forward; the first being to tell Javier the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. It would be the hardest but if the stars aligned—the most rewarding truth. The second option was to continue the neglectful, cold-shoulder attitude which would make work and life, so much more difficult.
So the decision remained to tell Javier the truth, which is how they ended up at Lucia's barely-standing kitchen table eating in silence with a looming umbrella of questions hanging over their clouded minds. Under the cheap lights of the apartment in Bogotá, Javier remained looking like a million dollars wrapped up in a fatigued man. Even in the silence he radiated a demand for attention—a need for it.
Maybe that's why he was standing at the ready when he heard Lucia arrive from the states.
Two glasses deep into the now half-empty bottle of whiskey on the table, Lucia plucked up the small courage she had remaining to begin the conversation that would carry everything forward or worse, behind.
"I didn't devote my life to some silly cause; defeating the so called "war on drugs" just to be accused of being a traitor to my country."
Javier could barely sit still from the nerves that had built up inside him from the moment she told him they needed to "talk." From all his years of womanizing and preventing anyone from trapping a sliver or gold band on his finger, one thing always remained a constant in "female code": "talking" wasn't just any conversation.
"Talking" meant that something was either very wrong or very right and there was no in between. Javier was not an idiot. He knew from his relationship with Lucia that this was not the kind of "talk" that occurred when things were going right but very much wrong.
Therefore, he watched her twirl the fork in her hand slowly, not threatening, but not oblivious to the fact it could be used as a weapon if she angered herself (or if he angered her) enough that it could be used that way. But Javier didn't try to interrupt. This wasn't his call to make—even if he wanted to shake any sense of insecurity out of her. He had been the one, after all, to place the doubt there in the first place during a moment of thoughtless relapse into his paranoid state.
"My mother didn't raise a traitor and I highly doubt the United States Government would do such a poor job in vetting me that being a sleuth is something they missed."
Lucia pursed her lips and dropped the fork onto the table with a ringing clang as it nicked the side of the plate and the metal met the wood in an unwelcomed ding. Its sound reflected louder between two people who should be sitting so close, but whose hearts were too far away to become one.
"There is nothing I want more than Pablo Escobar behind bars—in the ground, six feet below my shoes. I don't think you understand, Javier, what my life was like before I met you or before you joined the DEA here."
Lucia's eyes met his sunken brown ones that looked as though life was running by without a stop. Tonight the whiskey made him anxious, not subdued and lax in a nightly rouse. This wasn't one of those nights and her piercing stare was accusing—rightfully so.
"Pablo has never made life easy. He's always been a trick of the hat, trying to rise above his status with a menial task that would eventually get him some recognition on a market desired by those without a soul. That's what Pablo is, a soulless monster and he always has been." Lucia stated with a definite fury in her gaze. It was hatred without a second thought.
"My father was never part of that life, in fact he would be ashamed to see Pablo get so far with what he's done. But Pablo, Gustavo, all of them are the same people I still grew up with during those summers in the countryside. And I hate it. The fact that I've been watching him and his "family" for so long and watching their movements for the sake of a country that let my mother thrive."
Javier continued to remain quiet and let her talk. His attention wavered between her beating gaze, the plate and glass in front of him, or the window just off to his right. The curtains were drawn so he couldn't keep his eyes trained for too long because she would get the impression he didn't care or he wasn't fully listening. But he was and he was fully listening this time. One mistake was enough to show him what a jackass he had been, so he wasn't going to mess up again.
"I've always been in the middle of two worlds. One that is filled with justice, hope, and my mother and the one with death, drugs, and my father. I chose to be on the good side. I CHOSE to be a good agent who used what she knew to get closer to their operations. Do you really believe I wanted to go and play house with these people? I knew that I could because they saw a little girl who followed them around decades ago! It was an IN and this agency used it to their advantage."
There was a heavy lull following that. Lucia was seething. She had time to think, re-think, and over-think everything that had been said, how Javier didn't contact her, how Connie said he had been detached but acted no different. Did he even care? He barely spoke two words to her since they sat down with their food and Lucia didn't know what to think. One apology wasn't going to change anything, change was going to fix things but if he wasn't willing to trust her, let his philandering go and be a bit more devoted to making them work, then it wasn't going to go anywhere except out the door of her apartment and be forgotten about.
"I get being jealous." Lucia breathed in deeply and that alarmed him. Calming tactic, trying to push things away, find an explanation for behavior. It wasn't her fault he was jealous or angry with what the DEA made her do? It was his fault. It was his mind letting him believe that she thought less of him and wanted to be with a man she had been seeing for so many years.
"I get being jealous about sharing someone but he's dead. He is long gone and the only time I'll ever be seeing him again is in my nightmares." She downed the rest of her whiskey and looked at him expectantly. It was almost his turn, his time for admission. Get ready Javier, it's a fine line you walk.
"I don't do things I don't want to do. I'm not some-some woman who can be pushed around into wearing skimpy clothing to go undercover or fall prey to a bosses advances. That's not me and I would hope you know that."
"I know that's not y-" Javier began but as soon as he started, it was a battle for words.
"Then why were you the first to believe I would turn on you all?"
"I don't kn-"
"YOU don't know!? You don't know? What have I ever done to you that would make you believe I would rather be on the other side?"
"No! I-" Javier became frustrated and slammed his hand on the table, shaking the dishes before running that same hand over his face in despair.
"I don't think that. I really don't."
"Then why did you say it? Do you even remember what you said?" Lucia looked hopeless in that moment. Her eyes were sad but unwavering. If she was going to cry, it wasn't going to be in front of him. If she was going to throw the bottle of whiskey at the wall, it wasn't going to be in front of him. Across from her, Javier pursed his lips and nodded in response before clearing his throat and speaking again.
"Yeah, yeah I do. And if I didn't regret every word that I said, I wouldn't have followed you all the way home."
"I didn't ask you to follow me home. We don't live in a goddamn fairytale, I don't want a man in shining armor waltzing in to save me. I want one who respects me, trusts me."
"I do trust you."
"You sure have a funny way of showing it."
"I'm sorry. I am sorry."
"Don't turn into a beggar, Javier. It's not a good look on you." Lucia sneered at him, standing from the table abruptly, taking the plate and glass with her to the kitchen without another word. Javier was not done, this wasn't going to be the end of them.
So, he followed her. He gave her a moment before he picked up his own dishes and found her leaning over the sink with her hands planter on either side. If it were any other time, he would have placed himself behind her and other activities were sure to ensue but he couldn't do that now. He placed the dishes down on one side and leaned up against the counter with his hip and arms crossed. He kept his distance but his presence was large to ignore forever.
"Do you know how hard it is to forgive you?" Her voice was quiet now, hoarse from yelling but the underlying anger was still there. But it sounded like she was fighting herself—whether it be her heart or head, he wasn't sure.
"Forgiveness isn't easy to give. You made a fool of me; let me believe something about myself that isn't true."
At this point, his heart was in his stomach. Those words, those fucking words would always haunt him no matter where he would be in 30 years.
"I love you. I really do."
There was more. Javier felt it. It was that dreaded 'but' that made everything feel worthless was coming and he knew it. He could feel it radiating off of her. Hell, maybe he finally knew how she felt when he accused her of being a traitor.
"But I have a job to do before I can even think about it. I came back to do my job and that's what I'm going to do."
"Don't do this, Lucia." Javier's voice was laced with a warning that was nowhere near threatening. He was finally feeling what so many people described: heartbreak.
"I need too." Lucia broke her own rule as her voice broke and she felt the lump her throat grown, the tears begin to fall. She didn't look at him, keeping her eyes on the sink but he looked no different than her.
"Luce-"
"Please, do-don't do that!" He had went and reached out to her but she pushed him away, moving further into her kitchen and ran a distressed hand through her hair as she tried to calm herself down. It wasn't working but she had fallen into her body, closing him off.
"Why? Why is it such a bad thing?" Javier's desperation was unlike him. He had never begged for a woman's forgiveness, he had never felt this way before. But here he was, in her kitchen, wanting nothing more but to beg for her forgiveness.
"Because! Because if I let you back in, I won't be able to say no and that scares me!"
"Why!?"
"Because I want to forgive you! A part of me knows that it was just a stupid spat but you accused me of being a traitor to my own country! Who does that!? I couldn't believe that out of everyone in my life, you were the one to distrust me the most." Lucia all but screamed at him through tears.
"I want to forgive you! so much... but what does that say about me?"
"It doesn't say anything, Luce. I was wrong, everything is my fault."
"But it does, Javier. It does. It says I'm weak and easy and-"
"No it doesn't. No one would think that." Javier was hesitant to move forward, inching toward her every so often and to his surprise, Lucia made no movement to leave.
"You're not weak or easy or whatever else you were going to say. You were right. I was jealous. I don't know what it's like to be in your shoes and I won't ever know, but the least I can do is listen, learn. I made a big fucking mistake. I did."
Javier had approached her to the point where his feet was a near inch from her own. He lifted his hands to her shoulder and felt them sag when she didn't run away or slap him in the face.
"I let myself think things that weren't true because I was jealous of your attention being everywhere but on me. I know it's for the job, it's always been and I've always known that but it doesn't excuse for what I did."
"Javi-"
"I'm sorry, Luce. I do trust you. I know it's just a job and I know that I fucked up. If you don't trust me that's fine, you need time? That's fine too but I need you to know that."
It was the tip of her head that gave him the clue the air had changed. She was still angry and that wasn't going away any time soon, but her glassy eyes were full of what she had called love. It was a saddened, terrified loved, but it was there and as much as she didn't want to forgive him and move on, she couldn't do this without him.
"Javi." Her voice was barely above a whisper as she looked into his eyes and his hands cupped her face gently for the first time in weeks. Her hands grabbed his wrists but not for him to pull his own hands away. It was for something to grab onto as he brought her lips to his own and her knees nearly gave away.
The kiss was searing. A passionate embrace of two people bound by their positions to not be with one another but who defy it anyway. Two people who are broken and need each other to survive. Two people who have so many problems yet to solve but must find one another in that moment to continue on. It was like two pieces of a puzzle meeting for the first time in a long time with a fine ridge between being 'fine' and 'normal.'
Javier moved one of his hands to the back of her neck, tilting up her head to deepen the kiss when he felt the wetness on his chin. He broke away to see her crying again and he could feel her tremble in his hands. He did nothing except bring her into an embrace and held her tightly. Through the embrace, he tried to let all his emotions radiate off of him. 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so fucking sorry.'
And he held Lucia like that for a long time. When she collected herself again, he wiped the tears off her face with his thumbs, kissed her forehead and let her shower alone. He sat on the neatly made bed in an apartment that had yet to include her own flare and waited. Javier also didn't know whether or not she would even want him to stay when she went to bed, but his answer came sooner than later because she opened the bathroom door, crawled into bed and pulled his arm down so he could lie beside her.
Neither of them spoke anymore words because that could be dealt with another time. Maybe in the morning, maybe after work on Tuesday, or six months from then, but the quietness of the moment with two people who just needed to hold each other was enough for now.
The only thing that still hung over them both without words needing to be spoken was this:
Even after her multiple admissions of love, Javier still could not say it back.