The Turning Point

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE - SOMETIMES, LOVE ISN'T ENOUGH

Heloyse

The coffee shop was crowded, the smell of fresh coffee mixed with the light cinnamon aroma that always lingered in the air. The customers' voices formed a distant, irrelevant buzz.
The coffee had a familiar smell, but the taste was strange. Maybe because I no longer felt the same pleasure in mundane things. Pain changes the palate, changes the way we see the world, how we breathe.
I was there, sitting in front of Michael, a face that was once so intimate to me, but now seemed like just a blur from the past. He was still handsome, the way I remembered. But it was like looking at an old photograph—something that once had meaning, but now carried no emotion within me.
But I was there, sitting at the corner table, my fingers wrapped around a warm cup.
He cleared his throat, stirring his own coffee without drinking it.
"You're different," he said.
"Maybe I am. But you're still the same," I replied, without emotion.
He smiled slightly, a somewhat lost smile.
"Actually, I think I've changed a bit."
I crossed my arms and waited.
Michael sighed, distractedly stirring the coffee in front of him.
"Ashley told me that during the time you were away... you were in a relationship."
My body stiffened for a moment. I knew Ashley would say something like that to provoke Michael.
"Yes," I murmured, not wanting to elaborate.
He nodded, glancing out the window for a moment.
"You're here now... Did it not work out, by any chance?"
Such a simple question, but one that carried all the weight of my heart.
"No," was all I could say.
Michael ran his hand over the back of his neck and let out a short laugh, as if trying to find humor in the situation, but failing miserably.
"You know, I expected to find you different... but not like this."
"Like what?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.
He looked me in the eyes, as if trying to decipher something inside me.
"As if... everything in you belonged to someone else."
The air seemed to weigh down in my lungs.
"You've always been intense, Lisy. You've always given yourself too much. But there's something different..."
I looked away.
"You love him, don't you?"
He went straight to the point.
My throat went dry, and my answer came without hesitation:
"I do."
Michael looked away and nodded, as if he already knew before asking.
"What's the difference?" He leaned forward a little, his eyes fixed on me. "Between what you felt for me and what you feel for him?"
I let out a low, joyless laugh, stirring the coffee in front of me.
"With you, I suffered, cried, and moved on."
He frowned, but said nothing.
"Because it was a love that could be replaced."
Michael took a deep breath.
My hands tightened around the cup. My voice came out almost as a whisper:
"With him I... I never knew what love was before I met him. To love with body and soul. And now that I know, I can't go back."
Michael blinked a few times, processing my words.
"Then why aren't you together anymore?" he asked, frowning.
I closed my eyes for a moment, feeling a familiar pain envelop me.
"Because sometimes, love isn't enough."
"Do you really believe that?"
I opened my eyes and looked at Michael.
"You and Alice are a good example. The love you felt for her wasn't enough when she asked you to run away and you refused."
He looked away as if I had made him uncomfortable.
"When circumstances crush you, when past mistakes become shadows that don't disappear, when everything conspires to push two people apart, love may not be enough to hold them together."
He was silent, watching my expression, as if trying to understand what I was feeling.
"You miss him so much that it hurts, doesn't it?" Michael's voice was low, almost as if he feared the answer.
I pressed my lips together.
"I would give anything to have him for one last moment. Even if it were just one last kiss," I completed, feeling my throat burn.
Michael laughed, but it was a weak laugh.
"So he made you overcome what we had."
I looked at him, firmly.
"I overcame you the moment I met him."
Michael took a deep breath and looked at the table, as if trying to process everything I said.
"I was an idiot, wasn't I?"
"You were," I replied without hesitation.
He smiled slightly, but without humor.
"I just wanted you to find someone who deserved you."
I lowered my gaze.
Michael let out a heavy sigh and ran his hand over his face.
"I was stupid, Lisy, to have broken up that way," Michael began, his voice laden with a weight that hadn't existed before. "What I felt for Alice was dormant, and little by little I was resurrecting that feeling. When she left, I suffered in a way I can't explain. It hurt too much not knowing anything about her. So, I decided to move on, I let the years pass. And then I met you."
He ran his hand through his hair, seeming to find courage to continue.
"I thought that what I felt for you was greater than anything, that it could fill me. But when Alice came back, I realized that nothing could overcome what she and I had already lived. After you left, I wondered if it was possible to love two people at the same time, because everything inside me seemed like a confused tangle. But Alice, with her patience, made me remember what I felt for her. Only for her."
I raised my eyes to him, keeping my expression neutral, without resentment, without anger. Just an understanding of what I always knew.
"Do you want to know the difference between you and him?"
Michael watched me attentively, as if waiting for a blow he knew would come.
"He never needed to lose me to know he loved me," I murmured, feeling my own chest tighten with that truth. "And he would never say 'I love you' without being sure of what he feels."
Michael frowned, as if those words made him feel ashamed of his actions.
I leaned forward a little, keeping my eyes fixed on his.
"He would never show his soul to someone he wasn't sure of what he feels. Because for him, love was never something that could be discarded..."
Michael said nothing. He just nodded, like someone who understood that he shared nine years of his life with someone who could never have been really his.
And he was never mine either.