Cruel thin lines

Chapter 12

We didn’t say much, there would be time; he took a fluffy towel and wrapped me in it.

“Don’t get cold... I want you warm...” he winked at me.

He wrapped his waist in another towel, took me by the hand and almost dragged me into the bedroom. He closed the curtains, letting a soft light invade the room. He ran back the bedclothes, removed my towel, took off his towel, and hugged me.

It was time to know. I needed it; I had already waited too long. I didn’t know anything about his life, it was crazy, reckless. What if he was married?

“We need to talk...”

“And we will, but now I’m going to order breakfast... or lunch... and while we eat, we can talk.”

Naked as he was, he went to the desk where the phone was. The truth is that I was hungry, I hadn’t noticed until that moment.

I looked at his body, masculine, absolutely desirable and I felt uncomfortable.

My body was a mess. Stretch marks furrowed my abdomen; I remember the almost seventy pounds lost. I hated it! I picked up the towel and covered myself again while he asked for room service.

I went to the window, I drew the curtain lightly, the view was beautiful, and it faced the beach. The sea was high and the waves were breaking foamy on the rocks.

He ran my hair and kissed my neck, then hugged me on my back.

All sorts of emotions were piling up in my chest, old and new emotions that wanted to come out as words, but couldn’t.

I began to tremble and he squeezed me tight. I needed that, too. To feel that what we had experienced in the shower wasn’t only the result of the horny affair of two adults, that it wouldn’t be enough, that life couldn’t play a bad joke on me again.

A knock on the door and the spell broke; before undoing the embrace, he placed a soft kiss on my shoulder, where still was the faint mark of his bite. He put on his jeans and went to the door, while I went to the bathroom.

I looked in the mirror. My lips were swollen, my cheeks were pink and the brightness of my eyes left no doubt that it had happened in that glazed room. I combed my hair and came out of the bathroom.

Nicholas put the tray on the bed; I leaned on the door frame and looked at him.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Yes, I’m hungry.”

He tapped a couple of times on the bed to make me sit down, and so I did. The tray contained everything, but the fruit salad caught my attention.

“So sports reporter...?”

“Frustrated soccer player. I always knew you’d become an excellent photographer. I really like your blog, the pictures of old people and children are fantastic.”

“I never promoted it, it’s a hobby, I like to go out with the camera and take urban photos. How did you know about it?”

“I’ve been following you for a long time, Eve...”

Those few words shocked me like no other I’ve said so far. I’VE. BEEN. FOLLOWING. YOU. FOR LONG TIME. EVE.

“After you didn’t give me a chance to talk to you in the report, I talked to Martha...”

“Really?” I answered by leaving the empty juice cup on the tray.

Nicholas got up and placed it on the trolley, then sat back on the bed with his legs crossed and his back resting on the support.

“I suppose that surprises you...”

“Actually, yes... She didn’t tell me anything.”

“I asked her not to, you didn’t want to see me, you didn’t want to talk to me, and I never knew what happened... I knew something was going on, but I didn’t know for sure until I talked to her.”

My throat closed and I didn’t know what to say. I’d kill Martha!

“A bet? Seriously?”

He wasn’t smiling anymore, he was tense, even annoyed. I scrutinized him, I wasn’t smiling either. An uncontrolled rage was born in me, I jumped out of bed and went to the bathroom, and Nicholas jumped out of bed and trapped me in the air.

“Really, Eve? I was very angry with you because of that, it’s nasty that you think that way about me and you?”

“I know what I heard!”

“Did you hear me?”

“Don’t be like Martha, it was me who had a terrible time, not you!”

“I swear I can’t believe you!”

“Well... believe it... What could make me believe otherwise?”

“I invited you to the prom!”

“To f**k the fat girl?”

“You’re going to make me get so angry!”

“Don’t you have any idea the humiliation I felt when I listened to Leonor? My life was a disaster after that; I went to Paris because I couldn’t stand to see your face in the meetings my father held...”

“Silly ass! I liked you! Really, otherwise I wouldn’t have invited you to the prom. If only you had told me, you would have let me talk to you... you would have saved me so much pain.”

“Pain? What pain are you talking about? I was the one who suffered the humiliation!”

“I would have put those bitches where they belonged to and things would have been different!” he exclaimed furiously.

“Different? I have the same innocent face, but I’m no longer innocent, Nicholas!”

“Why are you so insecure?”

“Because they managed to make me feel inadequate, ugly and fat.”

“You are beautiful and intelligent and underneath that innocent and sweet form that you had and have to be, hides a woman who keeps what she wants...” he interrupted my words.

“No! That is the antithesis of what I am...”

“No, you’re not the antithesis, you get into a very deep level, from where it’s hard to get out,” he said, approaching me.

“Why me?”

“Why not?”

“Because you had the whole high school behind you and I was the chubby one that everybody bullied.”

“I’m not so basic, Eve, I liked you back then and I like you now, you’re an extremely attractive woman and...” he paused, “I love you... I always loved you, Eve.”

He left me speechless, I couldn’t say anything, all these years thinking that he was a motherfucker and that the plan was another one and I couldn’t be more wrong!

Damn me and my insecurities! Damn Leonor and Adriana! Damn you who appear now to turn my life upside down!

Nicholas was watching me, my head was a mess and I didn’t feel able to retake my speech. The only thing I could do was to hang myself by his neck and kiss him, kiss him and kiss him.

“I assume you’re alone...”

“I assume the same...”

“You assume well...”

“You too, I’ve been divorced for years.”

“So have I,” we said as we hugged and couldn’t get out of each other’s mouth. We wasted a lot of time, Eve, you for being insecure, and I for not insisting. How complicated we humans are!

“We are... but...”

“But? ‘But’ is everything? ‘But’ is already late? ‘But’ can we try?”

“I was going to say that maybe that wasn’t our moment... but we can try now. We don’t know anything about each other...”

“I know that you are sensitive and intelligent, that you are a great and well-known photographer, I know your family, I know that you are divorced, that you lived fifteen years in Paris and that we are extraordinarily compatible in bed... we have time to get to know each other.”

That direct and unfiltered way of saying things mobilized a lot of things in me.

Maybe I didn’t live a normal adolescence, where boys woo girls and girls feel those butterflies in their stomachs. Those butterflies that he made me feel when he invited me to the prom and that had fallen asleep.

Today, a few years later, I feel them fluttering all over my body again and I feel happy, fitting, and comfortable and in the place I want to be, with the person I want to be.

I ever wondered how thin I should have to be near you. Today I know the answer: No cruel thin line could ever separate us again.