MUFFLED GROANS

chapter 21 | Pretty lies

"I heard from Matteo that Lea has been practicing skating lately, did you know about it?"

"Skating?" she expresses some astonishment as if those were news for her. "I didn't. I didn't know about that."

"Oh, you never saw her skating?" I frown, getting an opposite version, and she shakes her head. "No, and I'd certainly not let her bring a skateboard in the house. She'd ruin the parquet floor," she tells me, not knowing that her daughter said otherwise to my son. "But I'm surprised to hear that. I never saw her skate at all."

"Oh alright, well, now you know," I smile but take a spoon to eat some ice cream, and I decide to go for the main matter that made me come here. "Will you be busy this weekend?"

"I don't have any plans yet, why?" she takes a spoon of ice cream while staring into my eyes, and I maintain the contact. "I'm curious," my lips curve up. "I have the right to see you whenever I want to since you are not taken, right?"

"You do," she instantly responds like I expected her to, showing no reticence. "Won't your ex-wife be against it though?" she smoothes the way for me, and I lean back to slide one hand in my pocket, never taking my eyes off of her for the connection to linger and deepen. "Why would she? And even if she was, she doesn't have anything to say about what I do with other women, so no need to worry about that."

"It's good to hear," she touches her hair to comb some strands behind her ear, feeling flattered and attempting to flirt with me. "Do you ask me that because your ex-husband will not like to know I'm close to you?"

"My ex-husband won't know anything," she glides her hand down her neck to brush her collarbone with her fingers, getting my eyes to peek down at it for only a short second. "Really?" I slide my hand over my thigh and move forth, hoping for this talk to go the way I want it to. She nods to me, and I gaze down at her lips. "He isn't here anymore, and he wouldn't have cared anyway. He never cared about me."

"Did you have to deal with this type of guy?" I ask for more information about him, seeing how easy it is to get the words out of her mouth but wondering if she is telling the truth and not making up a story. "Yes, he was never there for Lea and me, he never really cared about us, and one day, he left us in the middle of the night without ever saying anything. He wasn't a caring husband at all."

"He disappeared overnight?" I express some indignation, and she affirms. "He always neglected her. I...I'm going to tell you something I never talked about with anyone before, but promise you won't ever tell Lea about it," she grasps all my attention, my heart beating hard out of apprehension. "I promise, Aylin. You know I'll keep it to myself."

"Well," she sharply breathes out, and her gaze lowers. "Until now, I always hid from everyone the fact that Lea is not my biological daughter," this first sentence already strikes me with stupor. "And I met him when I was in Japan. We both got along pretty quickly and realized that we were both traveling in the same country but coming from the same one as well. So some months later, we both went back here together, that's when I met Lea. It was difficult at first because I was like a new mom, and I guess this is always very complicated for a daughter to accept seeing their dad with another woman. Nonetheless, everything went well after some time. I married him, we lived together for some time, and that's how I got to know about Lea's past. He wasn't very sober, so I think he let out more than he should have, and he told me everything. He told me how much hatred he felt for his ex-wife for giving birth to Lea because he never wanted a child, and that once Lea was born, he was horrified, he didn't know what to do anymore, he couldn't love her, and it was having a toll on him. After all the things he said..." she shakes her head, sounding and looking less emotional than I am. "I understood that he didn't love her, he never did, but never let her know about it, and I decided to keep that to myself because I know this would hurt Lea to hear that. She wouldn't be able to handle it."