37- Love recidivist

37- Love recidivist


Mia Berhnhardt: You’re lying, you’re bad and selfish. You’re just playing with me. Do you know what bothers me the most about you? You act like those women who pretend to be normal. You pretend not to break a dish, but you break the entire set. What are they called?

Mia Berhnhardt: Dead flies! There are moments when you act like one of them, you do things, go out with others, and then pretend to be so innocent, the perfect girlfriend.

Rocío Smith: Well, yes, you’re right.

Mia Berhnhardt: Really? What’s all this about?

Rocío Smith: Yes, I’m a liar. I just wanted you to fall in love with me. I just wanted to make you fall in love, and I succeeded.

Mia Berhnhardt: You make me feel like I’m not worth it, Ro, you make me act horrible, distant, and cold.

I waited for her to write something more, but she had stopped. Barely able to breathe thinking about what was coming, I continued.

Mia Berhnhardt: But it’s because you hurt me, and I have to be this way so you don’t mash my feelings. The truth is, I know I’m worth it. I can give so much more. I didn’t deserve that, and all you do is fill me with insecurities.

Rocío Smith: You’re right, you are worth it.

Mia Berhnhardt: Are you being sarcastic?

Rocío Smith: But I don’t want you.

Rocío Smith: No, it’s not sarcasm, Mia, it’s the truth. I just wanted you to fall in love with me; I needed you. I didn’t want you to be with anyone else; I wanted you by my side because I felt alone, and I realized I needed someone like you next to me, that I needed you.

Rocío Smith: I just wanted to make you fall in love, and I did, that was all.

Mia Berhnhardt: I don’t believe you.

Rocío Smith: Do you even know me?

Mia Berhnhardt: Yes.

Rocío Smith: Is that a good enough reason for you to cut me out of your life?

Mia Berhnhardt: Sorry, I don’t understand.

Rocío Smith: Answer me.

Mia Berhnhardt: I don’t understand you.

Rocío Smith: Is what I’ve done a good enough reason for you to cut me out of your life? Playing with your feelings?

Mia Berhnhardt: Yes, it is.

Mia Berhnhardt: It’s a good enough reason to tell you to go to hell.

Mia Berhnhardt: But I know that in the end, you’ve fallen in love too; you just wanted to keep me safe by your side, I know, you needed a lifeline, Ro. But guess what? You liked being saved so much that you didn’t want to leave. Don’t leave now, Ro.

The message could not be sent to the recipient because it was not in her contacts list.

That was it; Rocío had removed her from the contacts list, and that last message hadn’t reached her. Mia knew that everyone has a bit of kindness and evil inside, and she didn’t care about all the evil Rocío might contain, but rather how all her demons would sleep when her romantic lyrics called her by name and asked, “Mia, how do you do it? How do you do it? How do you manage to be so beautiful?” Then she felt capable of facing all the cruelty of the world if she was in Rocío’s arms. Mia was unable to move from where she was. She stared out of her bedroom window for hours. She seemed so small lying there in a fetal position; she felt like she was running out of oxygen. Outside, she could hear the birds singing and the breeze moving the branches of the trees. Inside, there was no reaction; there was just a body trembling that seemed to be dead while alive. The curtains fluttered, and the breeze caressed her cheeks until she fell asleep.

Rocío was watching me with a vacant expression; her guitar-colored eyes looked at me as if she never wanted to create music again. It started to drizzle, and the rain sounded like small pieces of glass falling against the hard, rustic asphalt of the streets; several loose drops hit my skin. I couldn’t take my eyes off her face, not even now that it was raining harder; I had to leave that place.

The rain and wind intensified. It stopped raining vertically, and the rain began to fall at an angle to the west. I could smell roses and the sea; we were close to the ocean.

I started looking for shelter, hopping and avoiding the puddles I could see. I turned around, and Rocío was standing in the same spot.

Let’s go! - I shouted at her - We have to leave! – The argument from hours ago no longer mattered; I had to get her out of there. My hair whipped against my face and stuck to the damp spots, tangling in my eyelashes.
I waited.

Finally, the door opened, and feeling relieved, I took a few steps into the room; I was in her room; I recognized it immediately.

Rocío stood in the doorframe. Behind her, the sound of the rain was still falling. The white sheets on the bed were torn, as if they had been cut with scissors. There were two pillows; a hole inside me began to open as I contemplated that scene. A stuffed giraffe was torn at the edge of the bed, with stuffing coming out of its belly; I could recognize it was a giraffe by the pattern of its fabric; its ears and body were completely disfigured, cut mercilessly by scissors. A fear began to spread through my body. I turned around, and she was kissing a girl in the doorway. My heart flipped, and it stopped pumping blood to my brain. I had stopped breathing. I lowered my gaze as if wanting to hide my empty eyes among my lashes. If I lifted my gaze and looked at them with the dead sea in my eyes, I was sure I would drown too; maybe I could drown all this emptiness and never remember this moment again.

I didn’t make a single comment; I wouldn’t have been able to if I had tried; I had lost my voice. I limited myself to looking elsewhere; I visualized myself in a mirror hanging on the left wall, my eyes were filled with pity, and in a way, that made me stand firm. I was soaked; my boots had created a huge puddle of water. I was wearing beautiful knee-high beige boots that were peeling in strips from the upper edges to the ground. A white blouse and blue jeans; I was dreaming, I understood. Could I at least keep the boots when I came back? Would I come back, or was I already dead? Would they kiss in real life? Were they still kissing? If I could just lift my gaze and see them… I felt my body sticky from the rain; my eyes burned with the desire to cry. My eyelids were really heavy; I wanted them to disappear so I could cry; I couldn’t let my tears fall there in front of them; I wanted to wake up; I didn’t want to cry.

I woke up the moment my mind could no longer bear that scene. I tried to comfort myself for a few minutes; the world wasn’t ending; it had been a nightmare. I looked at myself in the dresser mirror, saw my empty, cold face; my features showed horror at a face with no expression. I had woken up, but the feeling of having died remained with me.

I took my phone; there were no messages from her; I understood what had happened hours before; sadly, that had been real. I wrote to her on WhatsApp; luckily, she hadn’t blocked me there, at least not for now… my stomach twisted.

It was incredible how dependent I could become on the thoughts and breathing of a living being completely isolated and apart from my body. I still remember that if I went more than two hours without talking to Rocío, I felt like I couldn't breathe. Once she lost her cellphone and promised to call me. I can still see myself full of snot and crying in desperation before I had an asthma attack because I hadn't heard anything from Rocío after three days. Missing someone so much that it literally makes life difficult without that person, feeling them so much a part of you that if they’re gone, you don’t function well. In the end, she showed up on the fourth day that time. I remembered Rainer Maria Rilke when he talked about young love and said that each person loses themselves for the love of the other until they lose their own sense of belonging, giving themselves like wild ones to a nonexistent future with a bunch of dreams that won’t fit in their pockets. That improbable, mysterious, and unrestrained love that we only feel once in a lifetime and never forget because only when we lose it do we understand that we will never love that way again.
I sighed, filling the void between my ribs and stomach with oxygen, checked my phone, and caressed the screen with my greasy fingers from the Doritos dye. I had a couple of messages from Ro, the last five repetitive, reminding me that her mother would call me from Belgium.
Rocío Smith: My mom is going to call you, please answer her.
Rocío Smith: Are you there?
Rocío Smith: My mom will call you.
I had been wanting to talk to her mother for days. I called Rocío every weekend, and lately, she had started asking my girlfriend about me. Of course, she had no idea that I was her daughter's girlfriend; she saw me as her special friend, and that made me feel quite special. Being part of a secret that only the two of us knew and that throbbed deep in our bones. As the movie progressed, I constantly checked my phone, waiting for a call from an international number. The familiar song "I Gotta Feeling" started playing while my cellphone vibrated hidden in my underwear. I left the tray with the Doritos on the cinema seat and told my aunt I would step out for a moment.
Her mother was a very pleasant woman. I was thrilled to finally get to know her over the phone; she was very kind and attentive. She had invited me to visit her whenever I wanted. I mentioned that I was studying journalism and wanted to learn French, and she offered to save me a couple of magazines with interviews in French, which she would send with Rocío when she traveled to Brussels that summer. Despite being upset with her daughter, I felt immense tenderness for that woman.
Mia Berhnhardt: I spoke with your mom.
Rocío Smith: Why don’t you make this easier and try to talk to me as little as possible and ignore me more than you already do, although I think that’s impossible.
Rocío Smith: Can I delete you from the Pin?
Rocío Smith: Can I?
Rocío Smith: PING
Rocío Smith: PING
I made a gesture of indifference that got lost in a sigh. Rocío was writing to me on the brink of a crisis. She couldn't take it anymore. “Damn distance.” I had awakened Rocío's anger with my sublime indifference, which was nothing more than a dignity trampled by how little she took me into account to share her things.
Distrust was born at that precise moment when you discovered that something was being hidden from you. When you convinced yourself that all those political demagogies were nothing more than a vulgar propaganda tailored to your weaknesses, a marketing strategy to sell you a silence that didn’t pass as a secret by being silence, they argued that they hadn’t told you anything “yet” when the “yet” arrived precisely at that moment you discovered they hadn’t told you anything. A vulgar trap of silence, it only feeds the strengths of the one who remains silent while you feel smaller and smaller, unknowingly.
Mia Berhnhardt: Rocío, delete me if that’s what you want, okay?
Mia Berhnhardt: But tell me something.
Mia Berhnhardt: Who are you going to that reggae concert with? Why do you always exclude me from your life? Do I have to wait for you to post a photo on social media to know what you’re doing? That’s not right; it doesn’t seem like we’re in a relationship.
Rocío Smith: I shouldn’t have let my mom call you; I should never have opened that door in my life.
Mia Berhnhardt: Excuse me?
Mia Berhnhardt: Does it bother you that your mother called me?
Rocío Smith: You’ve spent the whole morning ignoring me, treating me however you want, excluding me. You know I feel bad because I haven't seen you; I miss you. I’ve been worried about you all day, and you treat me badly. And you expect me to be there for you whenever you want. Because it’s whenever you want!
Mia Berhnhardt: Well, I was very calm; in fact, I had forgotten the anger. Your mother made me forget all that garbage you bring by hiding things from me.
Rocío Smith: My garbage, of course, my garbage.
Mia Berhnhardt: You’re so selfish; you only care about your feelings, you know? I don’t want to argue about this; I’m going to see you this weekend, and we’ll have sex like I’m your whore with the title of girlfriend. Every time I go to San Juan, I feel like I’m on vacation; I don’t feel like I’m part of your life. I don’t feel part of your life, damn it!
Tears welled up in my eyes, my lip began to tremble, and at any moment, the crying would flood my face.