Doctor Engel [A Spanish bestseller now in English!]

CHAPTER 16

We spend more than fifteen minutes driving around Madrid in silence. My tears seem to have no end.

'Nata, honey, you have to decide where we're going.'

'I don't know,' I say drying my tears with my hand. 'I think spending a couple of days with my parents and my brothers would be alright.' It has been a couple of months since I last visited them, because of Mario. 'Could you take me to the bus station?' now that Mario has left me without a car I have no other options.

'No.'

'No?' I stare puzzled, waiting for an explanation.

'What if I take you there?' she winks.

'But you know that it's more than 180 kilometers away,' I say surprised.

'If we leave now we'll be there in two hours. I'm going to stop by my apartment, I have to pick up some things. I'll stay with you for a couple of days and enjoy ourselves the same way we did when we were kids. I need to take a break too.' A wide smile on her face.

When we were kids we lived very near each other and we were always together. A year after I came to Madrid, she came too.

'But... what about your work?'

'Not a problem, in the company they owe me several vacation days, I'll just take two of them.'

'Great!' I love the idea. Laura knows how to boost my mood.

'On top of that, we can relax. Since the town is so far from Madrid I don't think Mario will go there,' she says happily.

She turns up the music and begins to move to the beat. She taps on the steering wheel and on my shoulder so I would follow her. She succeeds after several attempts. We dance, sing, laugh and the atmosphere changes little by little. Whenever she is close she always finds a way to get me out of my dark mood for a while. While we travel I feel stronger, and I tell her everything that happened in the hotel with Cesar and Erika.

She says nothing, and only listens to me and acknowledges what I am saying.

Two hours later, we finally reach the town.

Laura stops near the entrance of my parents' house. They don't know that we are coming, we have decided to keep it a secret to surprise them. While I ring the doorbell the two us laugh, accomplices. I hear keys and the steps of someone coming. The door opens.

'Natalia, baby!' my mother covers her mouth with her hands, surprised. 'My baby!' quickly she hugs me and I hear her sob into my neck. 'Oh, baby... I'm so happy to see you.'

While I hug her I can see my father coming faster.

'I can't believe it!' he says coming down the hallway. 'My girl! My little girl!' he doesn't wait for me to let go of my mother and hugs us both while we are together.

Kisses, here and there. When we finally let go, the three of us are crying like fools. I look at Laura, and she is as excited as we are. Only then do my parents realize that she is there too and hug her warmly.

'How have you been, baby?' asks my mother cleaning her nose with a scarf. And Mario?' My parents and Mario didn't have a good relationship. They didn't like him, but always respected my decision to be with him.

'We asked for a few days off work, we needed pure air of the mountain,' says Laura smiling at my mother and trying to diffuse the situation.

My mother looks at me. She knows me so well that I'm afraid she will discover that something is wrong.