Chapter 9

A stormy day. Black clouds, flashing like electrons, lightning and thunders, and a thick rain hammering everything. The whole sky seemed a stainless steel plate.

Carmen looked up and winced. She was right outside the hotel, waiting for Shane, ready to go, to go back home, and the thought of Melissa had completely disappeared from her mind and heart.

Despite Mel’s sharp words, Carmen had slept very well. Mel’s words had been nothing more than a confirmation of something Carmen already knew. She was a burden to her. Since her father had passed away, she had been a burden to someone who used to love her. This belief made her feel stronger, surer about her decision. It was time to move on. Melissa had the right to find someone else, someone able to fulfill her needs and expectations, and obviously that person wasn’t Carmen.

They had been trying to ignore the perpetual arguing and quarreling about everything and nothing, they had been trying not to see their make up sex sessions for what they really were: a way, like another, to pretend that everything was alright, that they still had their connection, that they still desired each other.

It was a lie. Carmen felt affection for Melissa, but nothing more than that. No regret, no longing, no nostalgia, no attraction. Just the sad confirmation that their path as a couple was over.

Carmen felt free, and she smiled. She wondered if she had left Mel for Shane, and sighed. Of course, Shane was one of the reasons, but not the only one. Shane had simply awakened something that was asleep inside of Carmen. During the last two years with Melissa, Carmen had felt a sincere fondness for her partner, but also a deep sense of resignation.

She had pretended not to see Mel’s brusque outbursts of jealousy, and she had closed her eyes in front of her clinginess and exasperate attachment and irritability. She had almost forgotten how it felt like to smile, to laugh, to be free. She had been living in a perpetual anxiety. What will Melissa think? What would Mel do? What will Mel say?

And now it was over.

And then, there was Shane. Shane and the greenness of her eyes. The way her eyes seemed to be smiling to her, all the time. Shane’s pouty lips, her white teeth. The throaty caresses of her husky voice. The citrus scent of her cologne, mixed with whiskey and cigarettes. That way Shane had to cock her head to a side, narrowing her eyes, her gaze penetrating and intense. The way Shane had to look at her like she was the only one in the world. The safe grip of her hand, the way Shane had to stroke her hair, gently, sexily, as if she was about to make a move, and instead she didn’t.