“I said whatever let me avoid facing what I’d done,” he replied. “That doesn’t make any of this love.”
For a second, no one spoke. Even the wind seemed to stop.
Then Valentina turned back to me, and I saw it plainly at last: the panic of someone who had mistaken control for destiny. She had not come to reclaim Diego. She had come to destroy my joy because she could not tolerate the idea that I had survived hers.
“You think this makes you better than me?” she said.
“No,” I answered. “I think it makes me done.”
It was Diego who spoke next.
He stepped to my side, not in front of me, and addressed Valentina with a steadiness that felt like the closing of a door.
“I never loved you romantically,” he said. “I was polite because we were neighbors. I was careful because I knew how complicated your family was. The person I wanted was always her. I stayed quiet years ago because I was young and uncertain. I won’t stay quiet now.”
He took my hand.
“I am here because I choose her. Not out of pity. Not out of revenge. Because I love her.”
Valentina looked at him as if she could still will him into a different answer. But some truths are immune to performance.
She turned toward our mother instead.