Incarcerated Hearts

It had been almost 2 years since Pablo had seen Gloria and he still thought about her occasionally. He reminisced about the amazing times they had together, like when they got locked out of their apartment and ended up dancing their night away in the rain or when they snuck into a random Quinceanera and ended up one of the best nights of their lives. Gloria was too special of a person for Pablo to ever forget, and he knew he never would especially since he blamed himself for their relationship ending and losing her, the best thing that had ever happened to him. Pablo’s roommate and best friend Fabio introduced him to Gloria, and when they met, something instantly changed in Pablo. His whole life he had so many walls up that it was hard to ever have a stable intimate relationship, his longest one only lasted 6 months, then he met Gloria, and that all changed. They immediately had a connection, and both fell in love very quickly, Gloria knocked down Pablo’s walls and got to know him in a way only his mom and Fabio knew him. Fabio even took Gloria to meet his mom which was a big deal because no other girlfriend of Fabio’s had met his mom, Melissa. He never felt any of them worthy enough to meet her, but Gloria was. She formed a friendship with his mom and even took care of her when she needed it because Melissa had cancer. She was undergoing extreme chemotherapy to treat her disease, but it was unfortunately already in stage 4. Her treatments were extremely expensive, and she was no longer in the condition to work and didn’t have health insurance, so Pablo had to pay them since his dad was not in the picture. How he got the money to pay for the treatments, his job, the one thing Gloria didn’t know about him, was the demise of their relationship. It was hard for Pablo to hide his real job from Gloria since they had moved in together and it would eventually become hard for her to believe he was paying for his mom’s treatment with his job as a mechanic. Gloria wouldn’t have told anyone about Pablo’s side job, she loved him too much, but he didn’t want her involved, but eventually, she would find out. 

On the day of their 2-year anniversary, Pablo had a very romantic day planned out, every meticulous detail. When they woke up, Pablo took Gloria to their favorite coffee shop for breakfast, “Lou’s Luxury Café.” They shared an amazing breakfast spread of delicious flaky buttery croissants, crispy French toast, perfectly baked cinnamon rolls, and freshly brewed coffee. The next destination in their day of adventures was the pier at the beach, where they had their first date. They left the coffee shop, holding hands and feeling more in love than ever, only to be met with a surprise that would change the course of their entire lives. 

Outside of their favorite coffee shop stood five policemen with a warrant of arrest for Pablo. Gloria thought this was a mistake, there was no way her beloved Pablo was involved in any illegal activity. To her surprise, it was true, Pablo had been selling drugs to his clients at the mechanic shop, to pay for Melissa’s treatment. Pablo was taken to the police station and the date was set for trial. Gloria was heartbroken; she couldn’t believe Pablo didn’t tell her, she understood why he did what he did but she wished he would’ve told her. 2 weeks passed, and it was time for Pablo’s trial. 

Due to all the evidence and witnesses, Pablo was found guilty. He was sentenced to year 3 years in prison. Through it all, Gloria stood by him. She visited him every day for a year. Some days her visit helped him get through the day, like when Gloria told him she was pregnant and when she told him they were having a baby girl, but on other days her visits didn’t help at all or made his day worse, like when she told him Melissa died. After that, everything went into shambles. Knowing he couldn’t be with his mom before she passed, killed Pablo inside, he felt guilty because the consequences of his actions took him from his mom’s side. That guilt turned into anger and frustration and he took that out on Gloria, he told her not to come back to visit him, that she was wasting her time because he had no real future. Gloria kept going for 3 more months and Pablo would most times not go to the window and when he did it was only to tell her not to come back. Eventually, Gloria stopped visiting, she decided to move on, she loved him, but couldn’t deal with the situation anymore. 

Pablo’s sentence was shortened due to good behavior and he was released a few months early. The first place he went to after being released was “Lou’s Luxury Café.” He wanted to go there and remember his time with Gloria. When he walked in, that’s when he saw them. Gloria sitting on the pink couch where they used to sit every time they went there and his beautiful daughter. He was nervous to approach them, thinking Gloria wouldn’t want to see him or that she had a new life and his daughter a new dad, but he was wrong about both. He slowly approached them and when Gloria saw him, she didn’t know what to feel, she had missed him so much but was mad at him for pushing her away, these pent-up emotions were so much for her to handle and she fainted. 

Gloria woke up startled in the hospital when the doctors explained to her that a rapid increase in her blood pressure caused the fainting. When she got ready to leave and was wondering where and who her daughter was with, she saw her with Pablo in the waiting room looking at a magazine. Gloria was shocked, because just like her dad, her daughter, who she named Melissa, had many walls up as well even though she was just a little over a year old, she wasn’t very fond of other people besides Gloria. At that moment, she knew that even if they didn’t rekindle their love, Pablo had to be part of their daughter’s life, and from that point on he was. 

Pablo became the dad he never had. He helped plan every birthday party, attended every ballet recital and soccer game, went to every doctor’s appointment, and was there to put a Band-Aid on every scratch or cut. His new role as a dad also came with his new role as a co-parent with Gloria, and every second they spent together it was like he was falling in love with her all over again. He never told her though because he didn’t want to mess up their new friendship and co-parenting relationship and he didn’t know if she felt the same way. She did. Seeing the way Pablo was with their daughter reminded Gloria of why she loved Pablo in the first place he was caring, kind, understanding, and loving. They never fell out of love and now were more in love than ever but just didn’t have the courage to say it and felt scared to restart their relationship and have it fail because now there was a child in the middle. 

After all new time spent together and new memories with their daughter and a feeling of being a family, Pablo finally realized he had to seize the day take a chance on the woman of his dreams. So, he left Fabio babysitting Melissa, and took Gloria to “Lou’s Luxury Café,” got down on one knee, and asked Gloria, his true love, the woman of his dreams, the mother of his child to marry him. Gloria felt like her heart was glowing. At that very moment, everything was perfect, she felt like all that they went through had led up to this moment, she knew she would never love another man the way she loved Pablo, so happier than ever and feeling more hopeful for the future than ever, she said yes.