The Stranger

19

Honestly, I don’t remember how I got to school. I don’t remember the road or the time spent in the car. I don’t remember if there was traffic or not. I don’t remember if there was the sun or if it was raining.
There are just some flashes of me sitting at my desk, listening to the chit-chat of the students, forming some disconnected sentences, and trying to appear like the teacher involved and caring I usually am when I am in class with them. But my mind was foggy and assaulted by a storm of clouds that made thinking an impossible task.
I remember Erik sitting in the back row, arguing with another student, as always. I remember the bell ringing and the cheerfully yells, and a colleague talking with me about the situation of the school. But at that moment I couldn’t listen.
My only thought was Matt. Matt and his wife. Matt and his secrets. Matt and the power he has on me. On my mind. On my feelings. On my life.
After almost half a day spent like a zombie, I finally started to regain control over my body.
I felt like a man woken up after a coma. I started to sense again, slowly, the fingers of my hands, my legs moving, the heart pumping blood through my body, and my stomach growling from hunger.
I drank an awful coffee and ate a chocolate muffin, and I felt suddenly better.
A little smile tagged at my lips when I saw two students walking hand in hand with no worries in the world.
Then I received a phone call from Mary, asking about my date. Higher to listen to all the insignificant details.
“Mary, I am at school. We will talk later.”
“If you are busy, why did you answer?”
“Because I am having a break now,” I explained.
“Talk then,” she ordered, shifting in her bossy tone.
“I am not in the mood,” I said with no straight in my voice.
“Why do you sound so down?” At least she noted that I wasn’tme. “The date went so bad?”
I automatically shook my head, even though we were talking on the phone. “It’s not the date.” I sounded like a crying baby.
“Then I presume it’s Matt.”
“Hmm…” I murmured, defeated.
I heard her sight. “What he did or didn’t?”
“I am the problem,” I admitted. “My feelings are massed up at the moment.”
“Do you wanna come over tonight and cry on my shoulder?”
“No Emily.” I know I am a bad brother, but at that moment and in such state, I couldn’t deal with Emily, too. It’s the wise thing to do not tell her about Matt’s wife or talk about the date with Peter. I want peace. I need space, and I need a new heart for my feelings that are too big for the one I have now.
“No Emily,” she agreed.
*****
Thankfully, the last bell rings. And I am ready to leave and bury myself with blankets and food, and being comforted by my best friend. I need to cry and whine like a baby. I need to bleed out to finally heal.
I want to be treated like a spoiled child for a few hours, and forget that in the world exist men and women, relationships and sex. And, especially, I want to forget that exists the word wife.
I collect my stuff and fly through the corridors, with my head down because I don’t want to be bothered by the students or my colleagues. Not today.
I carefully avoid to bounce at anyone and make my way through the door.
The sun is slowly going down, leaving in the sky trails of red, yellow, and orange, showing a vivid and warm painting for everyone to appreciate it.
I descend the stairs, and I bounce into the last man I desire to see right now. He is standing in front of me, with his leather jacket on and his bike sleeping next to him.
This was unexpected.
“We need to talk.” His voice is firm and demanding.
“Not even a Hi?”
“HI!” He is showing a deep line in between his forehead, like a long bridge cutting in two a city.
Instinctively, I put a finger just upon that line, caressing and trying to eliminate it. “It is ugly.”
“It is your fault,” he states seriously. “Because of you I will have my handsome face covered by wrinkles in no time.”
“It is not my fault if you age fast.”
“Can we talk?” he stretches his arm and grabs my bag. “I’ll give you a ride.”
“I have my car,” I reply, taking back my belongings. “And I am tired.”
He lowers his head and attacks his hair in frustration. “I will make something to eat.” He tries again with the food, knowing my addiction to his cooking. But this time won’t work.
“Mary is waiting for me.” The weak part of me wants to go with him, and listen what he has to say, but there is also a small rational part that needs space and time to think.
“Are you going to make me pay for Fiona?” he asks, shocked and worried at some time, for my hostility. “I know I made a mistake. But my life is so complicated and crazy. I didn’t want to add another failure.”
I feel bad. I feel stressed. I feel worn-out like an old pair of shoes that walked for years through the country, taking in all the dirty, the rain, and the snow pouring down on the streets.
Why am I so good at making simple things insurmountable? And why can’t he trust me?
I teach a language. I teach my students to communicate.I give them the tools to understand others. I explain the meaning of the words, but at the end, I am incapable of using my owns predicaments.
When comes to my life, I am the biggest ignorant.
“Give me a chance to explain myself.” My trail of thoughts is stopped by Matt’s pleading voice.
“I like you,” I bluster out, making him freeze, and finally use my vocabulary properly. “Romantically,” I add, leaving out any mistake.
“I know.” It is his answer.
He knows. I guess I am too obvious. He can read me easily. “And I am afraid.”
The fear is my biggest enemy. The black beast that hunts my dreams. And this problem didn’t come along with Josh and his betrayal. This is an issue I am dealing with from high school. From when I was insecure and fighting every day against the world, but mostly, the fight was against myself. Against the Lucas who couldn’t accept some aspects of his life.
“I know,” he says, grabbing gently my hand. “I was waiting.”
“Waiting for what?”
“For the fear to go away,” he states, squeezing my hand gently, as if it was the most precious object in the universe. “But…” He stops, leaving out a heavy sight . It feels like a giant, massive rock is obstructing his lungs, impeding them to move regularly. “But, I am afraid that yesterday I made an astronomic mistake.”
I listen to him, with the crowd of the school behind us, and my heart, beating painful in my small chest.
He is aware of my feelings, but they didn’t stop him from hurting me.
He had his Ex-wife in his room, in his bed. Sleeping between his sheets. He wrapped his strong, slightly tanned arms around her waist, the same way he embraced me countless times on his couch or in my bed, for the last few months.
Their skin touched and kissed, mixing their scent together in a new fragrance. And this simple thought, that jumps in my mind from this morning like a spring, is unbearable.
Our skin should mix together until we can’t say which is my scent and which is him.
I should be the only one sleeping in his bed, wrapped in as a tortilla around him. Being kissed by him, and loved senseless by his mouth and hands.
“You are a free man,” I say, sounding more harshly than I desired. I wanted to appear unaffected, but I become too obvious and irrational when I have to deal with Matt or love, and when I am dealing with this two subjects together is a titanic challenge just keeping my sanity intact, imagine to act rationally.
He is free to care and love everyone he wants. It’s true. A murderous truth that hurts, like thousands of thorns.
He looks at me with the soft expression ever. Coping with my jealousy, and understanding my feelings at the moment. “I am not free,” he states, smiling. And my hurt jumps like a dog when catches a succulent bone. “I wasn’t thinking when I brought Fiona to my apartment. I was fucking jealous of you and that dam lawyer,” he confesses, moving his eyes away from mine.
I am speechless. I only want to scream like a fan girl when meets her idol. Because it’s what I am feeling right now. I feel like I had finally fulfilled my dream.
He is affected by me as much as I am affected by him.
“And your sister?” he lands his beautiful eyes on me again. “I hate her sometimes.”
I laugh at his statement because I feel the same way most of the time, even though she is my sister. Emily is peculiar and annoying a day and caring the other. “Me, too.”
“She rubbed his amazing qualities at my face, and I only wanted to capture you and take you away.”
“Why didn’t you do that?” I scold at him, punching his chest.
I spent a good night with Peter, but Matt is Matt, and I will always prefer to spend my time with him. Plus, in this way, he wouldn’t have run to Fiona.
He stops smiling and looks at me all serious. And, the deep, long, line appears again on his forehead.
Than, boom!
He grabs my body like a bag of bones and throws me on his bike, not giving me the time to understand what the fuck is happening.
He gets on, and with a roar, we fly away.