– those green eyes that look right into me –

and those pale hands, those perfect, tragic, melancholic features. Carmen felt damned, haunted. And the biggest problem was that she had never felt so happy about something so unbalancing, so deranging.

She gathered all of her strength, got out of the car and reached for the fence.

Dante eyed her from his smoky barbeque and waved, grinning broadly. He placed the fork on the grill and strolled happily toward her.

Carmen watched him and chuckled. Dante was sporting a completely unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt that revealed the big scar along his muscular chest, white Bermudas shorts and a pair of Nike. He was already tanned, his green eyes shone and his unshaven beard framed his handsome features beautifully. He looked healthy and definitely happy.

“If only I was into guys”, Carmen thought, “a man like Dante would have been perfect for me and now I wouldn’t be in this mess with such a strange being like Shane”.

“Hey, Doc!”, Dante exclaimed in his husky voice, opening the front gate.

Carmen stepped in the garden awkwardly, and stretched out her hand.

Dante laughed heartily and grabbed her by the shoulders.

“Nah, give me the whole package!”, he muttered, pulling her toward him, “Come here!”.

Carmen widened her eyes as she crashed against Dante’s massive body and patted his back, giggling.

“Hi”, she said flashing him a luminous smile.

“Thanks for coming”, he replied, keeping her at arm length.

“You look great”, Carmen observed, looking at him squarely.

“Yeah, I feel great”, he nodded.

Carmen sighed, stepping back, and waved her hand around.

“Is this heaven?”, she murmured, feeling the impressive amount of serenity pouring from the house.

Dante scoffed and took Carmen’s hand.

“Sort of. Come on, let’s meet some people”.

”Spend all your time waiting for that second chance
For the break that will make it okay
There’s always some reason to feel not good enough
And it’s hard at the end of the day
I need some distraction or a beautiful release
Memories seep from my veins
Let me be empty and weightless and maybe
I’ll find some peace tonight…”

They reached for a long table settled in the middle of the garden and, right then, Carmen saw Shane coming out from the front door, a tray of sandwiches in her hands, smiling politely at Alice who was chatting loudly.