Can't Take My Eyes Off You

Part 5

“Nando, can you come over now?” Catalina asked. She had just told the news to her parents, and decided to leave them alone so they had their time to accept. Their reaction was just as she had expected; her mother cried and lamented, and her father was astonished. They could not believe their twenty-year old daughter had leukemia. Next thing she did was calling Ferdinand.

He sighed from the other side of the line. “Does it have to be now?”

“Yes. It’s important.”

“I’m kinda busy right now, Cat…” he replied “I have a few exams soon and I need to study.”

Catalina sighed in frustration. “I know. But when you have time, anytime soon, can you please come over? I need to tell you something important.”

“What? Can’t you tell me now?”

“No. Not like this, through the phone. I have to see you.”

“Fine. I’ll see what I can do.”

He hung up, and Catalina was left with a hollow feeling, as if she was somehow alone. She quickly tried to ignore the feeling. “Nonsense”, she thought. “I’m not alone. Nando is with me. He will come soon to see me. He is just busy with studies and work…”

But Ferdinand did not meet her for another whole week. She called him daily, but he sounded different. They used to spend hours talking on the phone, now five minutes was enough for him to say he had to hang up. Catalina was disappointed and anxious. He had to know right away.

After a few more days of wait, she was now nervous and angry. Catalina had asked license from university and was beginning to take medicines home. The days were long and boring, and she was really upset that Ferdinand still didn’t know about her condition. Annoyed, she got her laptop and decided to distract herself. First thing she did was check her Facebook. She barely did so, not only she was too busy, she also was trying to avoid unnecessary drama. Ever since she stopped going to college, Catalina assumed that people would be curious.

Almost as she opened the page, she wished she hadn’t. Ferdinand had changed his profile picture two days before. He had put a photo of him and a woman Catalina had always been suspicious of, Selma. They were both smiling, hugging each other in a place that it looked like his house. Catalina flinched. “What the hell?”

She clicked on the link to his profile and found out several posts from Selma and activities between her Ferdinand; too intimate, they were speaking things as if only they knew the meaning. She did not go through them all; there was no need of that. She had already understood enough. With a chilling feeling on her heart, she turned off the laptop furiously and went to bed, in tears.

 “I am alone…”