Sometimes Love Is Not Enough || Solo
They hadn’t set out to get divorced. Truth be told, they hadn’t set out to get married. It had sort of just… happened. It wasn’t a drunken mistake, like so many people had assumed. And it hadn’t been all of that spur of the moment either. Well, not totally spur of the moment. They had made the decision to get married and were married within three weeks of that. So maybe a little spur of the moment, but not really. They had talked about it, weighed the pros and cons. It wasn’t some hasty mistake. Fernando had loved her from the instant he saw her, although at the age of 16 he had no idea what those feelings were. But it was true love and she was his soulmate. But sometimes people weren’t supposed to be together. After 4 years of marriage everything started to go south. They just kept fighting and it stopped being worth it. They couldn’t make the compromises and sacrifices worth it. She was constantly reminded of his fame and they would argue over petty things. He would sulk and it would make her passive-aggressive. Neither of them were ready to be married. And finally, a little before their sixth anniversary, they gave up. She blamed his career, but Olalla contributed to it a lot more than she’d care to mention.
For his hospitality, Olalla wanted to do something for her ex. It was an odd situation, but he was looking after the kids and she needed to get out of Madrid, so it just sort of made sense. Olalla had put the kids to bed and had cooked Fernando’s favourite meal by the time he returned home from the gym. The food was as good as Fernando could remember, probably even better, but the lack of conversation filled the air with an awkward tension. They had made their way through a bottle of wine so Olalla retrieved another from the kitchen when she took the plates back, hoping that the wine would loosen their lips into some form of absent-minded chatter. Staring over at her ex-husband, she sighed. He picked up on the sound of annoyance and looked over at her in confusion. “You loved her,” she stated bluntly, before continuing. “I thought she was ‘the one’ for you. I was scared. What happened?” The question made him frown because of how open ended it was. What happened to who? To him, to her, to Ashley, to them? “I loved you at one point too, I thought you were ‘the one’ for me. What happened?” He asked, feeling rather attacked by her question even though he knew her intentions weren’t bad. “You know this is as weird for me as it is you..” She said, looking around the apartment she no longer had the ability to call home. Fernando shook his head, a soft but faked smile on his lips. “You didn’t answer my question.” He stated. “Neither did you,” she argued in a calm tone. Nodding, he chuckled. “You’re right. What do you want me to say? That I’m a little bit fucked up and can’t commit to anyone without them getting hurt?” He asked, a sarcastic smirk planted on his lips as he looked up at her. She frowned, looking down at her lap, shaking her head. “I don’t want you to say that because it’s wrong. You’re good. What happened to us was I was a control freak. I’d like to think I’ve changed but I’m sure that’s too hard for you to believe.” She avoided eye contact with him but felt his burning gaze hard on her face. “What did you mean by ‘I was scared’?” Fernando questioned, staring her down. Olalla looked at him briefly but then looked at her intertwined hands she had been fiddling with. “I didn’t realise that it would hurt when you moved on. I was so confident it wouldn’t, but then she got involved in your life, our children’s lives,” she paused for a second, “they really liked her. I thought I was losing everything to some-” She tried to refrain herself from cursing and it worked in this instance. Fernando was awfully confused at her revelation he had to continue the questioning. “Why? Why did it hurt?”
The question caused Olalla to laugh. Shifting in her seat and lifting her head, she looked at her ex-husband, recalling many memories of them together as a family and as a couple- both good and bad.
“Because I do love you,” she said in a whisper, before continuing, “and I know, somewhere in your heart, you love me too.”
