BANANA PEEL

BANANA PEEL
Dante

When Rosalia and Alonso walked out of the room, leaving Viviana and I alone, I looked back to Viviana to see her fiddling with her fingers, her head hanging low.
“I have an issue and sometimes I think it’s a kind of problem-“
I laid on the hospital bed looking at her patiently, waiting for her to speak, for whatever it was she had to say.
Because I knew whatever it was, was not something that was easy for her.
“I do not like people doing things for me. I do not want anyone getting into some kind of problem because of me. Not at all. 
If a serial killer is going to aim at my head from a building in another street, no one is allowed to come before me in the moment he or she releases his hand from the trigger and sets the bullet flying. No one is allowed to want to tell me something crucial or casual at that moment.
If I am meant to hurt myself by slipping on a banana peel,  no one is allowed to come running from the opposite hallway and glide on the peel before I do. The person gets hurt, now I am alerted that there is danger lurking around-“
She lifts her head to look at me, moisture dancing in her eyes. “And so if there is an explosion and I am supposed to have died, I do not find it pleasing that someone else loses regard for everything and jumps in before me and takes the hit and the impact of such force. 
Such things leave me burdened. I am one of those that believes what will be should be and I have carried such mindset since I was a little girl and since I realized that I had to be there for myself.
Thank you for taking that hit for me but do not get in my way like that again. I know perhaps it’s purely instinct considering your job but I am not someone who can easily live with that. People died in that room Massimo. Some persons were not as lucky as we were and they got blown up and were rendered asunder, forever impossible to do the things they used to do, the things they were known for. Forever. 
I don’t want that to be your case at all-“

I cut in a low voice before she could continue, “Survivor’s guilt. I think that’s what it is called and although this isn’t me fishing for a backstory from you but I believe you feel this way because you have had to leave with such guilt over the years.
Perhaps someone close to you had to go through a traumatic event, one that should have been you.  But in saving you, the person got hurt, the person’s life, forever changed.”
A tear slid down one of her eyes and she looked away from me, quickly wiping it off with the back of her hand.
“Yes. There was someone. Someone I had the nerve to forget. 
Perhaps it’s because I’m an over thinker, because I think through things again and again and again, until there is no other thought that could be thought of outside all I have. And so I said no one will come in contact with any danger that related to me. 
You know I though for a moment that your face had blown off, that the impact of the fire and explosion had torn the skin off your face. 
I’m beyond glad to find out that was merely an hyper imagination that had been created for the chaos of that moment. Thank you once again Massimo.” She said as she stretched her hands to mine on the bed. Her fingers squeezed mine tightly in gratitude as she kept her eyes on me. 
‘Dante. The name is Dante. Your Dante.’ I wanted to say, I wanted to hear her say my name. But once again, we can never have all we want.
I thought she had passed out immediately from the brunt of the explosion. I had no idea she had seen the mask peel off from my face. It was a good thing she had passed out or my cover would have been blown and now I would have to explain to her the reason I have to pretend not to know her as Dante, even though that reality eats at me every second of the day since I met her. 
She pulled her hand back gradually and looked at my feet. “I see the hospital could not get appropriate patient clothing that would fit you. Demerits of being tall.” She joked. 
“There are no demerits of being my height. Shame on the hospital for having this as the longest length they could get.” 
She laughed and I couldn’t help but lightly laugh as well.
“So where did you get that mark from?” She asked, referring to a mark on my feet. It was a scar from a moment many years ago. A time when she had been present in my life, the time when I had simply been Dante to her and she had also simply been Viviana to me.
She knew that mark was on Dante and it might have come as a surprise to her for seeing it on someone else’s foot, in the same foot and the same spot. And she certainly knows that scar well because she spent months grazing her finger at the spot whenever we went to our favourite spot together- a beach. A particular one. The east beach of Nineville. 
She felt sorry and apologetic because she had been clumsy as usual and had almost fallen into a ditch as we walked home. I had immediately been reflexive enough to grab her hand and haul her back to stand, but my foot wear had slipped from my foot in the heat of the moment to get her back to normal land, and a shard of something sharp and broken had cut me there.
She had apologized again and again, after ensuring the cut had been cleaned. And I enjoyed the attention she gave me because of it and remember wearing a band aid over the wound, even months after it had healed.
Because whenever we sat by the beach, her fingers would find that spot and graze it lovingly while promising never to be clumsy again. She has been so adorable.
But while this is the truth, this remains something I cannot voice to her now.
And so an excuse - a lie - would have to suffice.
I mildly cleared my throat. “I slipped off a banana peel while having a glass of water. The glass shattered and a shard stuck and tore through my flesh. But that was ages ago.”
She nodded, although her eyes still glanced at the scar. “You are not trying to mess with me right? Because I mentioned something about banana peel?”
 I chuckled. “No I’m not . That is the truth.” I responded.
“Alright I believe you. It’s just that I used to know someone who used to have such scar, in that precise location yours is, that same exact spot.”
“Is that so?” I asked, hoping I sounded as indifferent as I wanted to.
“Yes I’m certain. He was a good friend to me.”
A good friend huh?