Flores :: Carlos Sainz

Veintisiete

"May I ask you why?" Eleanor softly asked. She swallowed hard and looked at him. They were sitting on the couch downstairs. She was glad that he felt the same way, but there were a few things she didn't understand. "Why you called it off?"

Carlos chewed on his lip and looked down. He knew they had to talk about it, but he didn't want to talk about it. "I... Erm... I think I was scared."

Her eyebrows raised. "Scared of what?"

"I think to hurt my feelings. Because we first said that no emotions were involved, but I caught them. And I think I was scared of that." He looked her in the eyes. "Also because I thought I could prevent more pain by calling it off. I thought: if I call it off, I won't hurt myself because it will only get worse if I didn't say anything about it. But in the end, I think it hurt more than I thought it would."

Eleanor slowly nodded and played with her watch. "Okay."

"And we didn't have much contact during the weeks before that," he said. "And... I don't know. From my side... I..." Carlos sighed, he was lost in words. "I thought I did the best thing to call it off to prevent hurting myself because I fell for you. Maybe it was selfish."

She was shaking her head. "No, I can understand that." She weakly smiled. "I mean, protecting yourself is important. I probably would do-" Eleanor licked her lips, if that wasn't me in that situation, yes. "The same," she breathed. But I was in this situation, and I was planning on doing it differently.

"I told you why I called it off, I said that I loved you, but I... You walked away. And I thought it was clear from your side that you didn't love me back."

Her face straightened and she looked at him. Tears filled her eyes. "I blackout, I... I only could think and talk in Dutch. I'm so sorry that I did this to you," she whispered. "It must have been awful."

"I had no idea that that was happening."

"Yeah, I freaked out. I'm sorry." She sniffed. "It's kinda ironic that we both came to tell that we loved each other."

Carlos raised his eyebrows. "What? You were planning to?"

"Yup," she nodded.

"I feel so sorry. It must have hurt so much," he mumbled. "I'm so sorry."

"Yeah... It's fine, you couldn't know about it, like I didn't know about you." She shrugged. "I was planning on seeing you a couple of days after, but I had to go to the Netherlands."

"I visited the house the next day, I wanted to speak to you. But there was no one here."

"My grandmother passed away, so we had to go back."

Carlos closed his eyes. What started as something to protect his own feelings and doing something he believed was the best thing, turned out it to be the most painful decision. "I'm so sorry for your loss."

"Thanks."

"What happened, if I may ask?"

"She..." Eleanor squeezed her hand. "She had a heart attack. It was the night before she would come over to see the house." She cleared her throat. "But yeah, went back to the Netherlands and I got stuck in the lowlands. Went back to work, picked up my old life and did my thing."

He nodded. "How was that?" Carlos knew her struggles about choosing between the two countries.

"Normal, but not in a positive way. I saw why I took that break again. It felt trusted, but I don't know. It had good moments, shit moments. But it's home," she shrugged. "Completely different topic, but there was an article about you and your ex..." Now that they were talking and asking deep questions, she had to ask everything that was on her mind. "It's none of my business, but I have to ask it for myself."