Me before her

CHAPTER 16: Life is now.

          After having toured the potential galleries where Sophie plans to develop her next exhibition, the friends met at an old restaurant, one of the last bohemian and idiosyncratic restaurants that still survived in the midst of so much gourmet food and cafés with small tables and heavy chairs.

          The old Le chat Noir located in the heart of Montmartre still kept its original sign, the one that in its golden years became the symbol of the most bohemian neighborhood in France, capital of the greatest and most renowned artists and painters of all times.

- Well, I want to know all about who is responsible for having lit that look and painted a smile on those serious lips and has you connected at such late hours of the night," he said as he took a sip from the spout of the bottle of a quart of cold beer.

- There you go again, she said smiling, almost embarrassed.

- OH LA LÁ, mademoiselle! You're really captivated, you're even blushing... mon amie; take a sip of cold barley to lower the heat a little, the Parisian continued joking.

          Since Angela Sophie had not seen Maite interested again, let alone enthusiastic about someone, she had not even managed to see the brunette smile again, however, now things were very different. The way her eyes lit up, with almost no trace of sadness left, that woman must be special.

- Well... What can I tell you? I have committed suicide in the most beautiful way; I fell in love with someone I can't have.

- She's married, she said tentatively and let out a frustrated sigh.

- I wish! She snorted with desire, it would have made things so much simpler, she said, turning the sweaty caramel-colored bottle in her hands.

- I don't understand then, is he straight, doesn't he like dogs, does he like slushy mint ice cream? come on woman! Speak up, she exclaimed jokingly, invaded by the trail of mystery.

          Maite had to restrain herself from spitting out the sip of beer she had been drinking because of the laughter generated by the Parisian's eloquence.

- Just so you stop talking nonsense I'm going to tell you... she is a nurse at the dialysis center of the hospital, but she has an immeasurable talent for painting and for one thing and another I have received her as a private pupil.

- Are you serious? she ask a little astonished to hear her say that she had received her as a student because since she moved to Barcelona she didn't want to have any more private students.

- Well, congratulations," she celebrated by raising the bottle as a toast... but I guess there must be more than just a talent for painting, right?

          The painter smiled almost sheepishly as she recalled every feature, every faction of Camino.

- She's a girl, very sweet... I love her ability to remind me of the good things I have, her ability to ignore the mess I can be, her way of bringing me back to life when the desire is scarce. And when she smiles at me she brightens my life or messes it up, I don't know...

- AH!!! So she's a kind of sorceress (complicit laughter).

- As much as I hate to admit it, I let my guard down and fell in love. Suddenly she came into my life and ended the silence of my days, to change my melancholy for warmth and happiness. There are parts of me that only exist when I am with her," she confessed, keeping her gaze down and tilted to the side.

          The sculptor perceived airs of enthusiasm and even possible love in her friend's words and realized that jokes should be left out; what this girl generated in the brunette she had not seen since the day she witnessed Maite's marriage to Angela.