They played around, friendly, laughed a lot, and Shane realized that she couldn’t remember the last time she had felt so light and serene. Carmen’s voice and laugh and her soulful eyes soothed her perpetually, like a medicine injected drop after drop into the emptiness of her being.

They ate a sandwich sitting on a blanket on the floor, in the middle of the living room, all the windows opened and the cold breeze of spring invading everything. And they worked a lot, very hard but smoothly and perfectly in sync, like a well-proven team.

That night, Carmen offered Shane to sleep on her couch, and Shane agreed happily.

It was the first time she entered Carmen’s apartment. She had imagined it to be the reign of a bookworm, crammed in books of poetry and literature and very, very dusty and gloomy.

On the contrary, Carmen’s apartment reflected a part of her personality that Shane had had the chance to see out of the corner of her eye every so often. It was colored, and perfectly neat, with several Mexican-style pieces of furniture. Shane noticed how everything in the apartment smelled like Carmen: a mixture of flowers, fruits and something that was just hers.

”…I don’t think you care to know
But you’ve taken out my heart and soul
And I don’t think you care to doubt
But I don’t mind cause I’ve got time…”

In a corner of the living room, beside a white leather puffy couch, there were at least five or six shelves full of old LPs and CDs that spaced from classical music, to blues, rock, jazz, funky and even heavy metal.

Shane was astonished, and stared at the hundreds of titles mouth agape.

“Wow…”, she blurted out.

Carmen appeared from the kitchen.

“What? Look, Shane, I’m cooking something for you, okay? You’re way too skinny for my taste. It isn’t healthy”.

“Okay. I wowed because I didn’t imagine you were so into music”, Shane replied, still staring at the albums.

Carmen chuckled, slightly embarrassed.

“Yeah, well, uhm… I like music, a lot. I’d like to be a DJ but I guess I’m too shy to show my ugly face to the crowd”.

Shane jolted and turned to her.