“Look, Al. I am not forcing you to do that. I mean, I can drop you at our place, or somewhere, and –“.

“No, it’s fine. I’m going with you”, I say firmly, waving my hand in the air.

Tasha doesn’t reply but her face softens a little. I brush her forearm gently and she gives me that superwhite smile of hers. And I melt.

“We just have to check on him, right? We just have to see if he’s still hospitalized there, right?”, I say. Maybe more to convince myself that we’re not doing anything really dangerous. And Tasha nods her head slightly.

“That’s right”.

She pulls the handbrake and cuts off the engine in the Cedars Sinai parking lot and sighs heavily, bowing her head a little.

“Are you okay?”, I ask her, concerned.

“Yeah…”, she just replies under her breath, opening the door, “…Let’s go”.

”Build my fear of what’s out there
Cannot breathe the open air
Whisper things into my brain
Assuring me that I’m insane
They think our heads are in their hands
But violent use brings violent plans
Keep him tied, it makes him well
He’s getting better, can’t you tell?”

**

“Carmen, now I want you to sit down and look at me, okay?”, Shane says, trying to keep her voice as steady as possible. And still it sounds muffled to me, because the furious heartbeat hammering into my chest is the only thing I hear. That, and this obnoxious, annoying itching feeling on my head.

I nod, slowly, taking a seat at the kitchen table. Involuntarily, my eyes go down on the picture where Shane is kissing this other woman. I stare at it just for a second and then I close my eyes. And I know it’s completely useless because every single detail in that photograph has already soaked my mind.

A black and white take. I can only see Shane’s shoulders. She’s wearing a dark jacket and dark jeans. Her hair is pretty long, and she’s been wearing it like that for almost a year, now. An important detail to understand that the picture is not that old. Her arms are lifted, and looks like she’s grabbing the other woman’s forearms.

The woman that Shane is kissing has very long hair. Blond and curly. She’s dressed in white, but I can’t say what she is wearing exactly because her whole body is almost totally covered by Shane’s. I can only see her naked forearms and how her long-nailed fingers are clutching to Shane’s jacket. Her head is a bit angled and her eyes are closed.