the Devil and the Sea

2| Me, my friends and gossip

We stumbled into Phil's apartment. The company he works for has given him a spacious two-bedroom apartment in a waterfront building that with Phil's gray Lexus parked out front all the time. I don't even want to think how much this place costs.

I pass the ivory-painted living room, through a simple archway, and into the kitchen. I open the door of the overpriced refrigerator and find an ice pack and apply it to my face. While the rest occupy the sofa with velvety upholstery in a light color to match the walls, I go up to the huge mirror in the hallway and my heart stops as I start shaking from what I see.

Crap.

On the left upper eyelid, parallel to the eyebrow, the skin was torn apart. It looks ugly although the wound is not deep.

"Now I'm officially a freak." I say, and I put on a ridiculous smile to try and cheer myself up.

"You will always be beautiful." Ricky says, coming up to me and hugging my shoulders, "the wound will heal quickly, and if there is a scar, then we'll just remove it." He catches my frown. "Promise."

I understand that this promise of his is empty. Ricky has a small - big - problem - he forgets his promises quickly. Obviously, the bigger the promise, the more it annoys me. Another reason to break up with him.

Ricky smiles encouragingly at me, and I feel an acute lack of loneliness.

"I need some fresh air." I head to the loggia, invariably pressing the ice to the injury. "You can go home. Joan must be waiting for you, I'll come back later." Ricky certainly doesn't notice the malice in my voice. But I can't keep him at my feet forever.

As I cross the living room, out of the corner of my eye, Marina is laughing at Phil in the kitchen, who is grinning and rummaging through the medicine cabinet.

Closing the loggia door behind me, I lean against the railing and watch the sea waves rushing ashore. I feel more and more clearly how my heart longs for adventure.

I don't know how much time goes by while I'm staring at the sea and someone knocks on the glass behind me. I turn around: Phil's irritatingly cheerful face is infuriating, but the cans of beer in his raised hands soften this annoyance.

"Ricky went home." Reports Marina, when I step on the bright floor of the living room made of porcelain stoneware.

Ricky went home. To my home. He is from Barcelona, but this summer he lives at my house in Sitges.

Ricky is my boyfriend and - what a surprise! - part-time best friend of my younger brother Joan. Ricky has a lot of charm, so he easily earned my parents' love. Maybe they like him even more than I do. So, to live with me at my parents' house during the summer holidays, he had no problem.

However, I have a problem - Ricky spends more time with my brother than with me.

Does it infuriate me - yes. Does it surprise me - no.

"Let's relax after a hard day," Phil shoves - literally - an ice-cold can of beer into my hand.

Then Phil takes me to a large mirror in the living room, and I put the disposable plaster he gives me on my injured eyelid. As I look at myself in the reflection, there is a click and hiss of foam coming from the kitchen, indicating that Phil is filling large mugs with beer.

We sit down on a large leather sofa in front of a huge plasma TV set on a nice beige modular wall. Phil flicks the remote through the channels, I ask him to stop at one channel playing music.

With music playing in the background, we bang mugs and immediately drink as much beer as it takes to hold our breath. Marina sips a little from a mug of her favorite drink, Tinto de Verano. Mix equal parts cheap wine with sparkling water and you get Tinto de Verano, a popular cold wine cocktail in Spain, similar to sangria but with fewer ingredients. It's pleasantly refreshing and you'll be drunk in a second.