Not just me & you anymore (G!P)

C. 7

As promised, here I am! With this chapter we resume the narrative of the present days... see you soon!Enjoy it!

I am in my office completely listless and without energy to do anything. I don't feel like walking around the department walking ten feet above the ground like I used to, because for the first time I feel like there is nothing so extraordinary about my life. I can't say what it is exactly that is broken between Maya and me, I just know that I don't know where to start from to put the pieces of our relationship back together.

We haven't heard from each other for a day and a half now, and last night Maya didn't even come home. I have spent the whole night sleepless, both because the bed is too empty without her and because I don't know how to explain this. There is not a minute when I do not think of her, yet I do not dare to even write to her.

Suddenly the door to my office opens wide and Amelia enters, settling down with a packet of chips on the couch, then observing me with wide legs and a smile I can't decipher on her face.

A < okay, I'm ready!> she exclaims and I look at her confused and increasingly speechless. < tell me everything, what happened?>

C < what are you talking about?> I then ask and she snorts, rolling her eyes. All this without, by the way, ever stopping gorging on chips. For a moment I smile, thinking how much I could have killed her for just one crumb in my office, before I had a daughter and surrendered to the thought that crumbs scattered around are the order of the day.

A < you sit locked up in here like you're a lab rat, the difference being that at least they run on their wheels inside their wonderful little cages. You just stand there and don't do shit.> I raise an eyebrow. < that's right, you stand there, staring into space, barely answering calls from the department.> I sigh, running a hand over my face.

C < Maya and I had a fight..> I minimize.

A < I understood that. What happened? Don't be shy with the details, thank you..!> I look at her and her attitude gives me a heartfelt laugh for days. When I finish laughing, I notice tears slipping from my eyes.

A < is it that bad?> Amelia asks me, suddenly setting the packet of chips down on the coffee table and standing up to come over by the desk, from where I had never stood up. I spread my arms wide.

C < I don't know..> I say pulling up with my nose.

A < who started it?>

C < is it important? Anyway I, of course. I gave her a jealous tantrum..> Amelia rolls her eyes.

A < again? For what?>

C < she has to go on a business trip with Caterina, who took care of the booking and thought it was appropriate for them to sleep in the same bed..> Amelia sighs.

A < what does that woman have to do to show you that you exist only for her? Even if she slept in the same bed with me she couldn't cheat on you!> again, it makes me laugh.

C < then everything degenerated..as it always does lately. Even the healthiest fight we could ever have, then it degenerates, we can't talk to each other anymore..I feel overwhelmed..as if nothing is in its place anymore..if I pull myself out of the situation I can rationalize that they are trivialities, but then I get immersed in a sea of shit and I don't understand anything anymore..I go blind..> I vent. Amelia is silent for a while, studying me. <what is it?> I ask almost uncomfortably under her inquiring gaze.

A < may I suggest something?> I roll my eyes, but, fortunately, I am saved by a call to the emergency room.

Sometimes it is the most mundane things, spontaneous, causal signs that open our eyes: for me it was the traumatic experience of a couple I had to assist with the miscarriage of the wife. Seeing their complicity, seeing their pain so shared, gave me the impetus to at least write a message to Maya and tell her we should talk, prompted also by Amelia's later comments on my own dating situation, dispensing advice, hypotheses, and suggestions with a ten-minute voicemail.