I Came Back to Paris for the Woman Who Had Lied to Me

When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was her face. She was bent over the hospital bed, her hair only half tied back and dark circles under her eyes I had never seen before. For a second I thought I was still dreaming, because even asleep I had been looking for her.

—Don’t ever do this to me again —Renata said, and her voice cracked on the last word—. You lost so much blood the doctors couldn’t promise me anything. I thought you were going to leave me.

I tried to answer her and discovered my throat was dry. She brought a glass of water to my lips and held the back of my neck with one hand. That gesture, so careful, did not fit with what I thought I knew about her.

—I have to tell you the truth —she said then, looking away—. My name really is Renata. The rest isn’t. I’m not a tour guide. I’m a cop.

I looked at her without understanding, or understanding too fast for it to hurt all at once.

—We’d been after Carla and Bianca for years. You were the thread that tied them together without your knowing it. Carla never forgave you for what happened at school, she investigated you for months, and when she found out about your history with Bianca, they both decided to use you. They wanted to pin their crimes on you. What they didn’t count on was that you were recording them. That recording is what sends them to prison.

—And you? —I asked—. Where were you in all of that?

Renata took a long time to answer. When she did, she didn’t look at me.

—I got close to you to reach them. That was the plan. Meet you, earn your trust, wait. Everything that happened after that wasn’t in any report.

I closed my eyes. I felt something break inside me, slowly, like a crack spreading through a wall.

—So every night, every conversation, every time you told me you loved me… was that work?

—No —she said, and finally she looked at me—. That was the only thing I didn’t know how to fake. And it’s what scares me the most.

***

I asked her to leave. Not because I didn’t love her, but because I loved her too much to bear seeing her while rage was boiling in my chest. She walked out of the room and stayed in the hallway, standing there like a guard with nothing left to protect.

Valeria, my lifelong friend, was the one who came in after that. She sat on the edge of the bed, took my hand, and said nothing for a long while.

—She talked to me before she came up —she murmured at last—. She was crying, Lucía. Really crying. She told me she got everything wrong except loving you, and that if you didn’t want her near you, she’d leave the country so she wouldn’t hurt you anymore.

—She lied to me —I said, my voice in tatters—. She made me fall in love with a lie.

—She made you fall in love —Valeria corrected me—. The lie was her job. The trembling in her hands when she talks about you can’t be faked, believe me. I saw it.

I didn’t want to give her credit. But that night, alone in the darkness of the hospital, the only things my mind drew were her eyes, her mouth, the way she laughed against my neck on the few mornings we slept together. And betraying me, a smile escaped me.

***

I was discharged a few days later. I went back to my apartment, changed clothes, and tried to convince myself I could keep going alone. Weeks passed. Renata called Valeria to ask about me, never my number. Every time my friend told me, I pretended not to care and locked myself in the bathroom to breathe deeply.

—She’s exactly the same as you —Valeria told me one afternoon, tired of my pride—. The two of you suffering miles apart out of sheer fear. How many more people are you going to let slip through your fingers?

I fell silent, thinking. I had lost too much in too short a time. Did I really want to lose her too, just because I couldn’t swallow my pride?

—Go —Valeria said before I could open my mouth, and held out an envelope to me—. There’s a flight in your name leaving tonight and a car waiting for you in Paris. Don’t ask how. Just go.

***

Paris greeted me with a low sky and the promise of rain. The car dropped me near the gardens where I had seen her for the first time, though of course even that hadn’t been a coincidence. I walked without really knowing where, letting my legs carry me to the only place that made sense: the museum room where one afternoon, in front of a sculpture of two marble lovers, she had confessed she could no longer keep lying to me.

She wasn’t there. My heart dropped to the floor.

Then I remembered the bench by the fountain, where we used to sit and watch the evening fall. I quickened my pace. And I saw her.

She was sitting with her back to me, in a light coat, her shoulders hunched against the cold. I recognized the nape of her neck before I recognized her face, that nape I had kissed a thousand times. I walked up slowly. When she turned around, her eyes were red.

—You came —she said, as if she still couldn’t believe it.

—Do you think two people who lied to each other can start over? —I asked, not sitting down yet.

Renata stood up. We were so close I could feel her breathing.

—I think you’re the only real thing that’s happened to me in years —she answered—. And if you give me a chance, I won’t waste it.

There were no more words. I cupped her face with both hands and kissed her, and it was as if all the noise in the world shut off at once. Her mouth trembled against mine, salty with tears, and still she kissed me back with a hunger I didn’t know she had. I felt her fingers close around my waist, pulling me to her, and I knew I wasn’t going to let her go anymore.

***

The apartment she took me to was small and warm, with fogged-up windows and the city lit up below. The moment she closed the door, she gently pushed me against it and kissed me again, this time without hurry, tracing my mouth as if she wanted to memorize it.

—I thought I’d never have you like this again —she murmured against my lips.

—Shut up —I told her, biting her lower lip—. Prove it to me.

She took off my coat and let it fall to the floor. Her hands found the buttons of my shirt with a calm that drove me crazy, undoing them one by one while she kissed my neck, my collarbone, the hollow between my breasts. Every brush of her mouth made my skin prickle. When she slid my shirt down over my shoulders and my back pressed against the cold wall, a shiver ran all the way through me.

—You’ve got goosebumps —she whispered, smiling.

—It’s because of you —I admitted—. It was always because of you.

She took my hand and led me to the bed. We undressed slowly, never breaking eye contact, as if every garment falling away erased a little of the distance of those weeks. When I finally felt her naked body against mine, her warm skin, her breasts brushing mine, I let out a sigh I had been holding for weeks.

Renata kissed my neck while her hand slid down over my belly. Her fingers lingered over every inch, drawing slow circles, waiting for me to arch my back before going further. When she touched me between my legs and found me wet, she moaned against my ear as if that discovery had undone her.

—I missed you so much —she said, and began to stroke me at a rhythm that made me clench my fists in the sheets.

I couldn’t speak. I could only spread my legs wider, open myself to her, let her fingers slide in slowly while her thumb kept tracing that circle that sent heat racing up my chest. I dug my nails into her back. She answered by kissing me deeper, devouring me, moving inside me with a precision only knowing someone by heart can give you.

—Look at me —I begged, my voice broken—. Don’t close your eyes.

And she looked at me. She held my gaze while I came apart under her hand, while pleasure climbed from the center of my body until it became a shudder I couldn’t hold back. I came around her fingers, clinging to her, repeating her name as if it were the only word I had left.

***

When I caught my breath, I turned her over on the bed and climbed on top of her. I wasn’t going to let her have the last word, not even there. I kissed her breasts, barely bit her nipple until I wrung a moan from her, then made my way down her belly leaving a wet trail of kisses.

—Lucía —she gasped, burying her fingers in my hair.

I didn’t answer her. I parted her legs with my hands and tasted her slowly, my tongue flat, feeling her tremble beneath my mouth. She was soaked, hot, and every time I moved up toward that place that made her arch, she yanked harder on my hair. I held her by the hips so she couldn’t get away and gave myself to that taste I had missed so many nights.

—Don’t stop —she begged—. Please, don’t stop.

I didn’t stop. I brought her to the edge with my tongue and let her fall, again and again, until her whole body tightened like a bowstring. When she came, it was with a choked cry against the pillow, her legs closing around my head, her hands groping for me blindly. Then I rose to hold her and felt her still trembling in my arms.

***

We stayed tangled together for a long time, not speaking, listening to the rain that had finally begun to fall over Paris’s rooftops. I was stroking her back with the tips of my fingers and she had her head on my chest.

—And now what? —I asked.

—Now I quit the police —she said without hesitation—. I’m tired of pretending to be someone else. I want a life where I don’t have to lie to the woman sleeping beside me.

I smiled in the dark. I thought about everything I had lost to get to that room, the anger, the weeks of silence. And I thought that, in some twisted way, all that pain had brought me exactly to the only place I wanted to be.

—You lied to me about everything —I said, playing with a strand of her hair.

—Except one thing —she replied, lifting her head to look at me.

—I know —I murmured, and kissed her again—. That’s the only one that matters to me.

Outside, it was still raining. Inside, for the first time in a long while, there was nothing to hide.