“I saw what Nico told her.”
“I saw what I told him.”
“I saw myself doing exactly what I accused you of imagining.”
I remained silent.
Then Lara said:
“I am not asking you to take me back.”
That surprised me too.
“I know you won’t.”
“I don’t even think you should.”
“I just did not want the last honest thing I ever said to you to come from someone else.”
For the first time since the breakup, I did not feel angry hearing her voice.
Sad.
Yes.
Tired.
Definitely.
But not angry.
I asked:
“Are you okay?”
She laughed weakly.
“That sounds like you.”
“What?”
“Still asking if I’m okay.”
“I’m not offering anything.”
“I know.”
“Are you?”
“No.”
“But I will be.”
That was the first mature answer I had heard from her in months.
We stayed on the phone another ten minutes.
No romance.
No negotiation.
She told me she had started therapy.
She had moved back with her parents temporarily because rent became difficult.
She was embarrassed.
Mostly by herself.
I told her embarrassment eventually passed if you stopped feeding it lies.
She said:
“That sounds like something you put in a spreadsheet.”
“Probably.”
She laughed.
It sounded almost like the Lara I met at Bea’s birthday.
That was difficult.
Before hanging up, she asked one thing.
“Did you ever regret canceling it?”
I thought.
There had been nights I regretted losing her.
Mornings I regretted everything becoming complicated.
Moments I wished I could return to before Nico’s name appeared.
But the wedding?
“No.”
Lara inhaled slowly.
“Okay.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
This time, I meant it.
We hung up.
I stood in the kitchen for several minutes.
Then drank cold coffee.
That phone call gave me something I had not expected.
Not closure exactly.
People talk about closure as if a relationship becomes a door you can click shut.
Mine did not.
Memories remained.
Good ones did not become fake because the ending was bad.
Lara had loved me.
I believed that.
I had loved her.
I knew that.
We had also reached a point where she wanted something outside the relationship and chose deception instead of honesty.
Both could be true.
I did not need to turn her into a monster to justify leaving.
I only needed to remember that love does not make trust optional.
Over the next few months, life settled.
I kept normal work hours unless there was a real emergency.
My manager noticed.
“You finally learn overtime is not a personality?”
“Temporary breakthrough.”
I traveled alone for the first time.
Three days in Porto.
No itinerary beyond hotel and train.
Sofia nearly fainted.
“You went somewhere without a spreadsheet?”
“I had a small spreadsheet.”
“Of course.”
I started dating eventually.
Not quickly.
A woman named Inés from another department asked me to coffee eight months after the breakup.
I almost said no because we worked in the same company.
Then remembered fear was also capable of making decisions for you.
We went.
Nothing dramatic.
Coffee became dinner.
Dinner became another.
I told her about Lara before things became serious.
Not every detail.
Enough.
Inés listened.
Then asked:
“What scares you now?”
I liked that question.