#2

LENA

It wasn’t the first time that I was alone, if there was something that I was proud of, it
was the independence that life have forced me to establish.
The guy that spawned me little helped to support my first years, after marrying and
having wanted children, he forgot his little mistake of youth.
My mom had to work a lot, and she dedicated her free time to look for the love of
her life, one that hasn’t appeared yet, but if something was needed to be
acknowledged, was her perseverance. She took quite seriously the job of hanging
with toads while looking for her prince.
So, once I got into college and when I got a decent job, tired of seeing my mother
with a different toad every fifteen years, I decided to leave home and be a grown-
up woman I had even left so many months before I turned eighteen and became
independent.
That room wasn’t so different from this, but it didn’t feel as cold and sad, at least
the paint wasn’t falling in pieces. I had a T.V. and a closet, in this my clothes
continued to be inside the suitcase, I didn’t miss the T.V., I left home at six in the
morning and came back by eleven, I was not in the mood of anything.
I only listened to the pieces of my soul trying to assemble itself and failing in the
shameful attempt.
I took a deep cigarette puff while closing the eyes and enjoyed the lethal pleasure it
gave me, laying over the only furniture that occupied my cold room, the bed.
Federico hated me to smoke. Again, there he was inside my head, I smiled
without a hint of grace, the problem wasn’t taking him out of my head, the problem
was taking him out of my blood, my cells, my core.
I was exhausted.
I felt defeated.
I didn’t want to feel, sometimes I didn’t do it and I was empty and I was nothing.

I enjoyed watching the sunrises, those colors that received a new day, new
chances, new ideas and dreams. I tried to look at it through public transport,
ignoring the uncomfortable feeling of being squeezed by so many people. Those
brilliant yellows with pink corners now looked opaque, lifeless, just like me.
I bought again a two for one pizza sale, ones that would last me for four days, I
kept them in my kitchen’s fridge. With the salary I earned and the rent I had to pay,
I had to take care of every penny.
I listened to the same song over and over again, drowning in my misery with Alex
Syntek on the background, the song Untouchable looked to be written for me or for
another idiot that was dumped without explanation.
Yo no sé qué sucedió

Nunca supe la verdad

La razón de tus motivos

Si en el juego del amor

Ahora soy el perdedor

Debo salir adelante

Pero me voy

Me marcho porque fue tu decisión

Te amaré, lo haré si

Es necesario por los dos

Que aquí en mi corazón

No te voy a olvidar

Pues de ahora en adelante

Intocable es tu lugar

Debes confundida estar

Terminar por terminar

Pero yo te respeto, oh

Y lo que me pidas tú

Si eso te hace más feliz

Para mi es algo sagrado…1

I did what I was supposed to do: I worked with a fake smile as a sales manager
assistant wearing beautiful high heels.
Federico loved to see me on hills. He said that my legs and butt looked as if he
could devore it on the top of them.
1
I did not know what happened/ I never knew the truth/ your reasons your motives/ if in this game of love/
Now I am the looser/ I have to keep holding on/ But I leave/ I leave because it was you who decided/ I will
love you, yes I will/ It is better for us both/ Here in my heart/ I will never forget you/ Because, from now on/
your place is untouchable/ You should be confused/ To break up because of breaking up/ But I do respect
you/ And, whatever you want from me/ If this makes you happier than before/ Is sacred to me.
I wasn’t eating good, went to college, sometimes I got to pay attention in classes,
sometimes I could make noise and jokes with my classmates while discouraged
the ones that continued asking me out.
In conclusion; I was surviving his silence.

I wasn’t thinking if he was with her, I was thinking if he missed me the way I did, he
should be, he should be feeling my absence at least a quarter of the way I was
feeling his, he loved me or at least that’s what I thought…
My last three years haven’t been a lie! They couldn’t be.

I resist to write him, if he rejects me I would slap my stupid self, my weakened self-
esteem, I wouldn’t resist, it has been trampled enough.
I slept with the cellphone in my hand, expecting for a call I knew wouldn’t come,
Federico didn’t use to stay awake late, but I couldn’t help myself.

They say that hope is the last thing to die, in this case, when the love of your life
throws you out of a plane without a parachute directly into a volcano so you will
burn into the worst of hells, the damn hope only helped to extend prolong the
agony.

NÉSTOR
I got rid of my young brother in law with a smile, promising him that on my next visit
I would play soccer, a sport that, surprising many, I couldn’t enjoy least.
One of my girlfriend’s cousins offered me a third beer and I accepted resigned,
when I saw Mayra I didn’t have intentions to leave her grandmother’s house. It was
the fourth Sunday in a row that we ate there even when I was asking her to do
something different.
Her family was really close and really liked her, they took me in better than my own
family, had a warm touch and made me feel immediately as a part of them. I was
thankful about the love they gave me, at the beginning of our relationship, six years
ago, I didn’t think that families like this existed, mine was totally the very opposite.
Mayra: Do you want to eat?
She asked me with a smile. We knew each other, she knew I didn’t want to be
there, but she acted disengaged and I couldn’t complain. What her grandmother,
mom, and aunts cooked was delicious tasted like home, something that I was lack
of since long ago. Since I left my mother’s house in order to study I have visited her
just a few times.
What bother me was that she ignored my petitions like if my opinion didn’t matter
or like I had the obligation to please her always.
I nodded with a grin on my lips, faster I ate, faster I could leave, I didn’t pretend to
watch the soccer game with her uncles while she gossiped with her cousins.

I started saying goodbye to everyone before her surprised look, excusing me

saying that I needed to prepare some job stuff.
Mayra: Why do you leave so early? (She inquired once we were alone).
Néstor: Because I wanted to be with you, not with your whole family.
Mayra: Don’t be like that, this is the day I spend time with them.
Néstor: I understand, or at least I try, the problem here is that you don’t even try.
I gave her a quick kiss and I jumped into my old Jetta to go home.
While I was driving away, the rage spread through my veins, my breathing became
heavy and I strangle the steering wheel with rage.
I was tired and couldn’t sleep.
I worked practically twenty-four hours a day.
I only saw her on Saturday’s night, and part of Sundays, and she preferred to
gossip with her cousins than dedicating me a fucking day.
A fucking day! I hit with rage the steering wheel.
This was happening to me because I was an asshole!
An asshole!