Page 91 of A Follow-Through in Faking
His everything.
“We’ve arrived,” the boat driver says, pulling me back into reality and out of the fantasy land that Santi drags me into whenever we’re together.
“Arrived where?” I ask Santi, and he untangles his arms from me.
“To swim with sea turtles,” he says, pulling me off the seat with him to move to the edge of the boat where I see several sea turtles swimming in the water.
More tears flood my eyes, and my hand lifts to my tattoo instantly.
“You said you wanted to find a way to feel closer to your mamá before the next Grand Slam,” he explains, and I cover my mouth with my hand as I study the majestic creatures swimming around in the ocean.
“You brought me here so I could feel closer to Mamá,” I repeat, unable to process the information, but Santi is patient.
He simply says, “Yes,” and rubs my arms to comfort me.
The man in the boat turns out to be one of the instructors who bring people here to swim with them, so he spends the next little while explaining everything we have to know before we’re allowed near them. Stay at least three meters away fromthem unless they approach you. Only approach them from the side. Don’t make any abrupt movements. Don’t touch them. He explains several more things, but then Santi and I make our way into the water together.
I do as the man instructed, keeping my distance from them. I’m slow in my movements, waiting for them to approach, if they choose to do so. Considering sea turtles are docile unless they feel threatened, and these ones are used to people in their habitat, they waste no time investigating Santi and me. A rather large one approaches me, swimming against my legs and then toward the man I love. He smiles brightly, and I let out a small laugh when an expression of awe covers his features.
The same big one that approached me first keeps returning, swimming with me and even moving against my stomach and back as if it can’t quite sever itself from me. The same awe that crossed Santi’s face fills me from top to bottom.
“That one’s name is Veronica. She’s the one that likes people the most.” I look at the man on the boat right as he tells me something that has my heart stopping entirely. “I was there the day she was born eleven years ago.” Santi looks at me at the same time I look at him, at the same time the sea turtle nudges my leg again.
“What day?” Santi asks, voicing the question I don’t have the power to force from my lips.
“March 20th.”
It’s a coincidence.
I know it’s a coincidence.
It can’t be anything else because I don’t believe in any of that stuff, rebirth and such. At least I didn’t, not until that sea turtle that loves people and was born on the same day my mother passed eleven years ago, swims with me through the water, never leaving my side.
It’s a coincidence, I try to tell myself over and over.
“Don’t overthink it, Cata. Let what you feel be,” Santi says, and damn him, I allow that feeling of connectedness I was looking for to spread through me.
I allow the tears to fall.
It’s not her, but maybe it’s her, and I’m too heartbroken and lost without her to fight it. So I let it be.
I welcome the proximity of the sea turtle as she follows me around as if it is enough to assure me my mother is here and telling me I’m going to be just fine.
And once it’s time for us to leave again, I do so with a heart that may feel heavier but also more healed than it has in years.
It’s when Santiago hugs me to his chest and lets me cry it out that I know no matter where in the world she is, a part of her will always live inside me and be with me.
“We can come back whenever you want to,” Santi says once my sobs slow and the peaceful sound of the waves fills my ears.
“I love you, Santiago,” I say against his chest, all of my emotions too much for me to hold back the words. “I’m in love with you,” I add, feeling him tense and then untense as he processes my words.
“You don’t have to say that because of what I said in the car earlier or because I brought you here,” he says, but it’s not in a condescending way. I know him well enough to sense that it’s fear making him say these things, and that won’t do at all.
I lean back and grab his face in my hands, tilting it down to make sure he pays close attention to my next words.
“That’s not why, Santi. If it was, that would make things so much easier, but they’re not easy. I don’t want them to be. It wouldn’t feel real to me if they were because you and I have always been complicated, but that isn’t a bad thing. On the contrary. To me, working for something to have it makes it that much sweeter. It means more than if things simply flew into my hands.”
He leans into my left hand, kissing the palm of it as his eyes close.
