Bizirik Berriro (Alive Again)

Chapter 7

The silence could be heard across town. Fernando's eyes, which had dulled from blue to gray to reflect the mood, darted from me to Aritz, who was now standing in front of us.

"Are you her new catch?" asked Aritz, voice drenched with venom. "Hey, you look familiar–" he began before either Fernando or I could say anything. "Did you seriously rebound with me with a footballer? Ay, Oihane. Oihane, Oihane."

"Why are you here, Aritz?" I spat.

"They kicked me out of the office in Madrid so I came up here."

"Now why would they do that?" I asked in the most sarcastic voice I could. "Seems all you do is lie to people."

"Oh, aren't you cute."

"I um...I should...I should...go," Fernando stammered. "I'll call you," he said as he headed down the street, sprinting until he'd reached a safe distance. Couldn't say I blamed him.

"I hope you weren't planning on staying with me, because you'd have to kill me first," I spat.

"Oh come on, Oihane."

"No."

"You'd really leave me out in the street? The person you spent five years of your life with?"

"And you'd seriously consider spending the night in the same house with the girl you cheated on? I'm supposed to be okay with this?"

"It wasn't..."

"Wasn't what, Aritz? Wasn't like Nagore said when she went down to visit you and was shocked to find some girl naked in your bed? A girl who you explained you'd been living with for a year?"

"Um yeah, that. Well it's not like you came down to break up with me, you had to do it over the phone."

"Oh, so this is really all my fault." I wanted to smack that stupid grin off his face. "If I recall, you didn't bother to make a trip up here either."

"Oihane." He put both hands on my shoulders.

"No is no. Go find Nagore if you want. I'm sure she'd be thrilled to see you."

"You don't want to hear my side of the story?"

"Does it involve not sleeping with someone else for a year without telling me?"

"Nope."

"Then no. So you're owning up to it?"

"If you want me to, I will."

"I do."

"Alright, so I had a roommate. She needed someone to share a flat with in the district I was working in so I moved in. It wasn't supposed to be–"

"You weren't supposed to sleep with her."

"Basically."

"Did you tell Nagore that?"

"She wouldn't listen."

"Gee. I wonder why."

"Does it change anything?"

"No. I don't care if you meant to sleep with her or not. You did. And you didn't move out. And you only came up to visit twice the entire year, didn't tell me about your living arrangements and pretended I meant the world to you, and even when I called to tell you I didn't want to continue you didn't even come up."

"I couldn't afford it!"

"Bullshit."

"I really couldn't!"