The victory

The battlefield extended across a table for two; a pair of coffee cups separated the camps. On her side, a crystal cup with an intact cappuccino; on his side, a second espresso, but this time macchiato. She took out of her bag a mirror in a sort of round case, where she sharpened for the last time the red of her lips.
After the preamble, their gazes arranged themselves in battle order to meet.
There was no turning back.
She tried to be serene, confident that her brown eyes, with their endless escort of thick eyelashes, would make anyone waver. However, this was her first battle outside her impregnable walls. Thus, in the open field and with her shoulders bare, she adjusted her shawl, because the cold was beginning to show on the terrace.
With the small cup of her macchiato brushing against his lips, he saw that she was vulnerable and stared at her. He drank down the last sip of his coffee like a shot of tequila so as not to let out his untimely, confident smirk. It was almost time to show his weapons, but not yet.
The formal and friendly small talk that usually takes place after a little over a year without seeing each other had already passed.
Their gazes, the precise words, the arrows were ready to be lit and fired in both directions.
The moment arrived, and he fired his faint but confident smile, pretending to be patient. To her, that smile was a fiery arrow that flew across the table from end to end until it struck very close to her feet, where her fragile fingers instinctively curled; fortunately, she was wearing her suede boots.
-You must think I’m foolish… -she said, hiding behind her bangs.
-Not at all -he said, and he was honest.
-You must be wondering why I asked you here, what this is all about.
-No -he replied, and with that he defeated her first line of infantry-. We are having this chat because, after a little over a year, you realized you love me -he continued, his eyebrows slightly annoyed.
She was losing her infantry lines one after another, and she knew it. The equality of conditions had vanished. What was happening to her infantry? What do you do when you are outside the walls and in the open field? At that moment her shawl was no longer enough coverage. She simply didn't know what to say, and stopped looking him in the eyes.
It couldn't be true; that wasn't the battle she had in mind; rather, it looked like an ambush.
Where was the huge peace flag she expected, the longed-for truce after forgiveness, the alliance, the hand that would wrap around hers to love her again? Of course, she wasn't going to surrender so easily.
-Well, that's what I came for -she said, trying to sound confident-. What did you come for? -she counterattacked.
His battle lines, on the other hand, were strong and immovable; their shields were held very high.
-I always knew I loved you -he replied, master of reality and with a sigh of a final period.
She turned to look him in the eyes almost as a reflex, just to try to decipher the sigh and the preterite in that phrase.
-That you loved me? -she asked, honest and with her hand ready to give the order to retreat.
He smiled and shook his head, sighed again, and continued:
-Almost a year ago you didn't have to ask me that; loving you was my reality all that time. Loving you meant crying, bawling under the pillow and the shower, hiding from people, from your friends and mine. And that's how I became a hunter of my own emotions. Pretty ridiculous, right?
She swallowed hard, pressed her lips together, and tried not to cry, but she couldn't. With a soft voice she replied, aiming her gaze back into his eyes, and this time without a defined strategy:
-Almost a year ago I had to clear up a thousand things. And it's not an excuse. Look, I don't ask you, nor do I expect you to understand; there's no easy way to explain it, and there's no point in saying I was a fool. That's why I wanted to see you, to prove to you at least that I'm not a coward.
The knees of his infantry shuddered. That burst of honesty disconcerted him and made his defenses wobble. The few crystal tears that emerged from those pretty eyes were like a shower of arrows that forced his soldiers to take desperate shelter beneath their parasol-shields. No, no, that couldn't be true, his army was indestructible; that idiot had trained it for a long time. He had no choice, now he couldn't show weakness, so he unleashed the cavalry of resentment that had gnawed at all his illusions and, with despair screaming with all his might, he shouted: «Charge!».
-Everything heals -he continued with a slight tone of disdain-. With every battle you get stronger, right? You learn more from defeats than from victories, it's a cliché, I know, but it's true; I'm telling you from experience, learning that lesson isn't easy at all.
He shook his head once more and continued:
-Before you called me, this poor bastard had already started finding peace -he said that while putting his hand on his chest.
She took a tissue and dried her eyes. She couldn't keep letting them riddle her army like that. So she finally gave the order to retreat.
-I'm sorry to have bothered you -she said while closing her bag-. I don't know what I was thinking.
Before she could stand up, he gently took her hand, frustrating any attempt to escape.
-You have no idea how long I tried to learn to hate you. You have no idea how long your scent lingered in my favorite coats or how many times I folded and unfolded the «whys» and the «damns». I swore a thousand times I would forget you and look at me today, today when I'm about to pull it off...
Then, in his rage, in his helplessness, he halted the attack.
That white, fragile hand didn't try to escape, not this time. That wasn't the victory he had planned. He closed his eyes for a second so as not to betray his glassy gaze.
Her eyes, on the other hand, those brown ones with thick eyelashes, were open, wide open and wet.
-Don't go -he said... surrendering once again to his brutal enemy.