Guillermo

Olívia
"I imposed myself on your life. I sought you out by choice."

"You sought me out?" I’m more confused than ever.

"Yes, I was right from the start. Me going to the café that day wasn’t random."

"And everything that happened since then?"

His jaw is tight, and I can feel that, like me, it’s torture for him not to touch me.

"What happened from the moment I stepped into that café was about you. It had nothing to do with the reason I came looking for you. It was always you."

We’re in his apartment office. Unlike the first time, now I’m fully dressed—as a ballerina—and he’s sitting across the desk.

He opens a drawer and takes out a leather folder.

"Do you know who my late wife was?"

What? Why is he bringing Nina’s mother into this conversation?

"Olivia?"

"I know, yes. She was a famous socialite. I recognized her from the photos in Nina’s room."

"Yes, she was. When she passed, Layla had no living relatives, so I was tasked with handling all her affairs. Deactivating social media accounts, emails, everything." He pauses and runs his hand through his hair. "There were some pending matters, including the last payment to a detective she hired to find you."

"I don’t think I heard that right. Why would she want to find me? We didn’t know each other."

"I could answer all your questions, and I will if you ask, but I prefer that you see with your own eyes. Everything in me says to protect you, but you’re already an adult. I don’t think it’s healthy to keep you in a glass dome. So here are the explanations you’ll need to understand why I sought you out. When you’re done, I’ll be waiting outside so we can talk about us."

He leaves, and my body is trembling.
I’m not sure I want to open the folder because something tells me it will hurt me.

I remember all the times he tried to talk about the past and I stopped him.

I pick up the folder with uncertain fingers, and immediately see photographs of me.
I skip them because they don’t interest me. I know where each one was taken.

Next, there are printed emails. I check the dates. They start three years ago, with the return address of a detective agency.

I read the first one twice to make sure I understand it correctly.

"We found your twin sister."

My twin sister?

I recall the features of the stunning woman, unable to see any resemblance between us, but in the next minute, another truth hits me.
If I’m her sister, that makes me Guillermo’s sister-in-law—or at least, ex-sister-in-law.

I take a deep breath, forcing myself not to panic, focused on the documents in front of me, pushing our relationship to a distant corner of my mind for now.

Looking through the messages, it’s not the fact that I have a twin or that we don’t even look alike that hits me, but the timeline. She knew who I was three years ago.

Incredibly, I don’t feel sad, just angry. I go through the emails and see that Layla knew everything—where I worked and lived included. Yet she never made a single move to find me.

It’s not because she was rich. Nothing to do with money.
I went through hell, sometimes having to skip meals to pay for my mother’s medicine, but I survived because I was raised to be strong. What hurts is her lack of solidarity. She had my blood and never tried to reach out.

It makes no sense for her to have sought me and continued gathering information about me when there was no intention of having contact.

I do a quick calculation. Guillermo said she passed away when Nina was only a few months old, which means Layla had more than two years to come see me.
She didn’t want to.

I’m about to close the folder when I find an envelope underneath everything. On the outside it says: only open after my death.
The seal is already broken, so I take out the contents even though I’m not sure I’m ready for more revelations.

The letter is dated ten years ago, and despite the ominous warning about opening it, I promise myself that today I will leave with all the answers.
I hope it’s all a misunderstanding.

"Layla, my beloved little daughter, I will need your love now more than ever. And afterward, your forgiveness."

I stop reading. Why do I have this in my hands? It clearly comes from Layla’s adoptive mother. I mean, if both of us were rejected, I shouldn’t even be reading the letter since I have nothing to do with this woman.

I put it back in the envelope.

"No."

I’m startled to realize Guillermo has returned.

"No what?"

"You need to read it, Olivia. It’s going to hurt you, but I don’t want to hide anything anymore."

"You’re my brother-in-law."

Finally, I have the courage to face that truth, and everything crashes over me like an avalanche.
I’m dating my sister’s husband. Valentina is my niece.

A crazy mix of emotions floods me, and I start shaking.

"I’m not. I was. What I have inside me today, my love, is all yours. Even before I met you, it was always yours, Olivia. I waited my whole life for you."

He kneels in front of me, and for a moment of insanity, my mind wanders, imagining what someone would think if they walked in at that instant.
A rabbit declaring himself to a ballerina.

"You’re my brother-in-law," I repeat, half-catatonically.

"No, I’m a man madly in love. The one who would give anything not to hurt you. I made mistakes, and I promise that if you forgive me, there will never be omissions between us again. For that, I need you to read the letter to the end."

"I don’t know if I can. Tell me. I don’t want to touch anything that belonged to that woman."

"Don’t you want to take a shower first?"

"No. I want to know everything now."

He stands and offers his hand.

"Come with me."

We sit in the living room, and I choose an armchair instead of sharing the sofa.

"Before you start, I’ll ask one question. What Joaquín said—is it true? Did you publicly claim me to protect me?"

"I won’t deny that my brother and I discussed a strategy to protect you. Showing our relationship to the world made everyone believe in your innocence, but none of that would matter if I didn’t want you for myself."

"But you never spoke about feelings before, and now you say you love me?"

"Because I needed to tell you about Layla."

"Okay. I’m rushing everything. Start from the beginning. From the moment you discovered her correspondence with the detective."

"I looked for him as soon as I came across the emails. He told me that Layla hired him to find her sister and then discreetly follow her twin’s life."

"But why? From the dates on the messages, she knew who I was a long time ago. If she had no intention of approaching, why continue paying someone to watch me?"

"I’m sorry I have to tell you this, Olivia, but from what you’ve seen so far, your sister wasn’t a good person. Remember when I told you I had to pay her to take care of Valentina’s pregnancy properly?"

"Jesus Christ, Guillermo! I wish I could forget."

"When I went to her, it was a last attempt to make my daughter have contact with her only living maternal relative, but to be honest, I intended to study her from afar. If you weren’t a good person, I would never have allowed her to get close to Nina."

"You thought I wouldn’t be a good person because of my relation to Layla?"

"Partly. And because of your mother."

"Our mother? You found out who she was? Layla investigated her too?"

"She didn’t need to. Your biological mother raised your sister."

"What?"

"You have no idea how sorry I am to be the one revealing this, love."

"Guillermo, I don’t understand anything."

I think about the letter I started reading and stopped.

"Layla, my beloved little daughter…"

I feel my body shaken by violent tremors, and when he lifts me in his arms, I don’t push him away.
Instead, I snuggle because something tells me a storm is coming.

"Your mother was very young and beautiful when she got pregnant with you. There’s no record of who your biological father was, but she married a wealthy man late in her pregnancy."

"Then why was I put up for adoption? That doesn’t make any sense."

He holds me tighter in his arms.

"I love you, little rocket. I love so many things about you that a lifetime wouldn’t be enough to prove it. I was already smitten since that bizarre choreography."

I know what he’s doing. Guillermo is preparing me for a harder blow.

"She didn’t want me, right? Why did she only reject me?"

He buries his head in the curve of my neck.

"Because the man your mother married asked her to choose only one of the girls."

I’m breathless. I try to speak and can’t.
How could a mother agree to marry a man like that?

"And she chose Layla," I conclude.

"Yes. She died in a plane crash with her husband two years before Layla passed. I don’t know if your mother tried to find her, but she left instructions with your sister, which are in that letter, to find her in the event of your mother’s death and divide half of all the inherited assets. Unfortunately, I must inform you it wasn’t much. They were practically bankrupt, and what remained, Layla…" He sighs. "Anyway, I think it was her way of asking for forgiveness."

"Buying my forgiveness, you mean."

"Olivia…"

"No, Guillermo. That’s exactly what she did. She tried to ease her conscience and was so cowardly she didn’t even act while alive."

I’m disgusted and strangely relieved I never had to live with that woman.
I think of my mother, Heloísa. Of all the times she said she loved me.

"My adoptive mother chose me, you know? She said there were a lot of baby orphans when I was left there, but she fell in love with me instantly. She was the best mother in the world, Guillermo. She gave everything she had for me."

"Who wouldn’t choose you, love?"

I ignore what he says because I’m still not ready to talk about us.
Still, I allow myself to be held in his embrace. My body feels like shivers are running through it nonstop.

"How can someone choose between two children, Guillermo? What kind of human being accepts such a demand from a man?"

"I don’t know, beautiful. What I can say is I can’t imagine giving up a child."

"Neither can I. Don’t you see that in a way, Layla followed the same pattern? You said she didn’t want Valentina. She, like the woman who gave birth to her, rejected her baby."