Bound To You

Chapter 8

Valeria

I trudged up the stairs towards my room in a haze, the secrets of the Lopez family swirling around and around in my brain.

Talk about proving people wrong. Not only was Carlos against the mafia, he was actively shutting his niche of it down.

And as if that wasn't impressive enough, he actually had a naval trade business on the side. An almighty successful one at that.

He was a good man. In the mafia business, my father-in-law was perhaps the only good man I had ever met.

The low rhythmic thumping of pop music slowly pulled me out of my head and back into my own body, and I became aware of the pounding music emanating from Juan's room. Became aware of standing in the hall, staring at the floor avidly, lost in my own thoughts.

I looked towards his door.

Acidic guilt washed through me. He was clearly livid, and not intent upon forgiving me anytime soon.

For a moment, I considered just leaving it as it was. I was only going to be here for six months, max to max a year, despite what my mother said about marriage being a lifelong commitment to each other. It was not that I disagreed with her. For once, I actually shared her opinion on this.

But that statement was only applicable to the marriages which people chose to enter into. Neither I nor Juan had been given that choice. We had simply been thrown toward each other, forced together without our consent. So we technically did not have any commitment to each other, because we hadn't chosen each other in the first place.

I wasn't going to be here for long, and was likely never going to see him again. I wasn't even obligated to be nice to him. I could be just as pissy about this as he was. I had every right to. I could just leave the situation as it was, because in the long run, I was going to be gone soon enough anyway. It made no difference what we thought of each other, what we felt for each other.

But this was not how I wanted things to go. We may not have chosen this, but I wanted to make the best of it. I did not want this to end on a bad note. I wanted to maintain an amenable relationship with Juan. Become his friend, even.

And the fact of the matter was that I had definitely fucked up. Big time. I had no right to be the controlling asshole I had been, no matter how justified. Not the way I had been. I could have talked to him like he was an actual human being rather than a misbehaving animal that needed to be disciplined.

I had fucked up. And I would fix it. I would apologise to Juan for being an asshole. And I would not do it again.

I nodded once to myself and walked into my room. It was a classically luxurious guest bedroom, with white and gold design, and an almost regal air to it.

I walked to the desk at the far side of the room and sat down in the wood and leather chair. Paper was neatly stacked in a corner of the large oak surface, pens arranged in the stand at the opposite end.

I knew myself well enough to know apologising to him face to face was well out of my ability. But . . . I could write one, couldn't I?

I slid a sheet of paper onto the desk, grabbed one of the pens, and began writing.

Juan,

I really don't have a flowery way of saying this, so I'm just going to say this:

I'm sorry.

I had no right to boss you around the way I did. I could have found a better way to communicate my point of view to you, without forcing it onto you. I realise that I was horrible.

I'm sorry. I won't do it again.

Please forgive me?

Yours sincerely,

Valeria.

I read it five times over trying to find anything that might piss him off further.

After the seventh reading, I gave up.

Without letting myself think about what I was doing, I walked out of my room, walked to his door, slipped the note under the door, and in an extremely mature move, ran back to mine on my tiptoes so I won't make any noise.

I also chose not to give a thought to how fast my heart was beating.

I fast-walked to the bed, sat cross-legged in the centre with a hand on my chest and my pulse pounding furiously in my ears, and sucked in one deep breath after another.

About twelve breaths in, I paused. Why was I stressing out so thoroughly about this in the first place? I had done my part and apologised. It was now up to him to decide if he wanted to get off his spoiled I-am-king-of-the-world pedestal and forgive me or not. It was no longer my concern.

I blew out a short huff. It was not my problem anymore.

I fell back against the pillows, staring up at the creamy ceiling, admiring the ornate lamps that housed golden light bulbs.

This is the funny thing about freedom. Once you have it, you have no idea what to do with it.

I lay there, listening to seconds ticking by in the grandfather clock stationed at the right corner of the room.

After nearly twenty minutes of radio silence in my head, I decided to get out my laptop, if only to watch Netflix.

I opened up Google, idly wondering if I should make a trip down to the kitchen and grab myself some popcorn, and tapped on the search bar.

The internal war of whether I should extract myself from my bed to make the damn popcorn waged on in my mind, when the drop-down list of my previous searches unfurled, effectively shutting up any and all thoughts in my head.

I had entirely forgotten the ideas I had planned to enact on when I first found out I was getting married.

I stared at the list of my research, the universities I had thoroughly analysed, the comparisons I had drawn of the courses.

History.

I had loved it ever since I picked up my first history textbook. Nothing fascinated me, inspired me, and tore me open like history did. Seeing the evolution of humanity spread out over a few books, being able to have a comprehensive guide on how it has grown and changed and improved, or worsened, has always been a thing of excitement to me.

This had been one of the main reasons I had been so jubilant about this marriage in the first place. It allowed me enough breathing room to actually plan out how to enact the plans I had made for myself with great difficulty.

And being married into a 'mafia' family that had no interest in continuing their ancestral profession aligned nicely with my own agenda. I had absolutely no interest in being so much as associated with the profession, let alone actually practising it.

But, in the manic rush of wedding preparations, the actual wedding itself, adjusting slowly, and the fight with Juan, I had completely forgotten about my other plans. Plans which I had made for myself, had wished to enact much before I turned twenty one but wasn't allowed to.

Now when I considered them, actually considered the plans in detail, and tried to work out the tentative logistics in my head, it felt scary. So real, so close, so absolutely within reach, that I was afraid to touch it.

I sat with it, that fear, figuring out if I actually wanted to enact those plans or had I just made them in spur of the moment rebellion.

I didn't think they were spur of the moment. They had never taken leave of me, no matter what mood I was in.

And there was no denying the way Yale University had caught my attention.

Then this fear had to be that born of the unknown. And that was not something I would give power over me to.

I had my chance.

And I would take it.

So I sat up against the headboard, stretched my legs out in front of me and crossed one ankle over the other as I dragged a pillow over my lap and placed my laptop on it.

And began my research.