”Here with me
And this price you pay
Just a wishful dream could be blown away
Ask yourself for better or worse
Because what’s the use if it’s just good luck
A black cat has crossed my path
Tell me what’s good luck about that”

Oh my God, Shane thinks.
And a new realization hits her unexpectedly.
She’s never paid attention to trivial, little things about love.
She is a straight-to-the-point person. Find them, feel them, fuck them, forget them.
The memory has Lacey’s angry voice. Lacey’s angry voice speaking for hundreds of angry women.
Maybe she wasn’t so wrong after all.
Five years later she is still completely unable to do relationships, and she breaks everything around her, like a bull in a china shop. Player.
Playerplayerplayer.
Heartbreaker.
Shane closes her eyes, cherishing the contact between her own skin and Carmen’s.
Trivial things.
Little things.
Things, details she never paid attention to.
This is my punishment, she thinks.
Having this wonderful woman beside me and cherishing the tiniest of things being careful of not showing it. Because if she sees how I am blushing now. Because if she feels my heartbeat growing faster and faster now. Because if she discovers that my mouth is dry and that I don’t give a damn about my fear of flights anymore. She’ll pull her hand away.
And I will be alone again.
I’ve been alone since I let her go.

”Hate and greed
Swollen and sweet
Let’s start this misery
If that’s where you wanna be
Fear and love
From down or form up above
Come to me
Come to me
I bet you please
Come set me free
Excuse me please
For my definition
But deeper still are my convictions
Urgently I wait to hear an answer
While I misconduct
a sad lost anthem
An anthem like you have never heard
Have you heard something so absurd”*

New York City – Hotel – Later

The picture could look somehow ridicolous. Or maybe tragic, it all depends on the point of view.
Shane and Carmen walking on a long corridor, together, side by side.
Shane sweating and puffing, a bag in each hand, trying hard to do something decent just to banish the thought of her “sins” from her mind.
Carmen, by her part, had insisted. She didn’t need Shane to take her bag. It isn’t even a trolley, this time. She told Shane she could carry it by herself.
But Shane no, Shane is as stubborn as a billy goat. Even if the elevator is broken and their rooms are on third floor.
And there she is.
Shane puffing and panting and sweating and Carmen rolling her eyes.
Finally, they stop in front of their room doors. Number 123 for Carmen and number 124 for Shane. Adjacent rooms.
Shane lets go of the bags and they fall heavily on the red floor covering.
“Phew!”, Shane exclaims as Carmen unlocks the door.
Again, the ghost of a smile on her face and only her back showed to Shane. So she can’t see her.
So she can’t see how hurt you are, right Carmen? So she can’t see that you’re not that McCutcheonproof, right? So she can’t see that sometimes – just sometimes – something in her voice, something in her gestures, something in her wretched attitude – makes a small – a very, very small, of course – crack into your beloved armor, right Carmen? So she can’t go deep inside of you through the small entrance of your million dollar smile and see what lies beneath. Right, Carmen?
“Alright, Shane. Thankyou. Put it there”.
Carmen indicates a corner in the hall.
Shane grabs the bag and steps in the room.
“So…”, she mutters uncomfortably resting it on the floor.
Carmen licks her lips.
“I have a gig later. So I’ll see you tomorrow… for breakfast, maybe”.
Shane’s eyes widen.
“Oh… I thought… I mean I though I could come with you, tonight”.
Carmen tilts her head.
“Uhm, no. I would like to go without you”, she says, looking at her.
Shane’s face says it all. It shows discomfort, disappointment and sadness. And a bit of something else.
Melancholy, maybe.
Nostalgia.
“You can come tomorrow night, if you want”, Carmen proposes.
Shane inhales and makes a forced smile.
“Alright… Uhm…. I am gonna go, then. Good luck for your show”.
“Thanks… uhm, Shane?”, Carmen murmurs as she’s extracting her door key from the hip pocket of her pants.
Shane turns around immediately.
“Yeah”. There’s a gaze of sudden hope into her eyes, and a half-smile on her face.
Carmen is leaning against the doorframe, and she’s beautiful.
Beautiful and unreadable.
“I was thinking… You don’t have to wait for me at the hotel. I mean, you can go out, there’s plenty of nightclubs around here. You know… wham bam thank you ma’m".
And she winks.
And Shane shivers.
Her smile disappears.
“I can’t believe it…”, she murmurs, shaking her head and feeling sick.
Carmen flips a strand of hair behind her ear.
“What?”.
“I don’t like this, Carmen. I really don’t”.
Shane storms into her rooms and slams the door.
Carmen remains silent and clenches her jaw.