Roads That Cross...

... With Delfi and Jazmín (Part 1)

This chapter ended up being way longer than I anticipated so I took the healthy decision of dividing it in two. That way you get updates faster, and I have time to figure stuff out in the meantime. Enjoy!

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Simón wasn't sure where the urge had come from, but he didn't question it as he made the short walk to the mansion to get his guitar.

Part of him hoped he'd find Ámbar there or in the way there. He wanted to feel her close. He wanted to bury his face in her neck and breathe in the smell of her hair. It was a scent he could recognize now; even carried it with him after that morning, although he couldn't smell it in himself. He still didn't know exactly what it was 'cause the bottle didn't show it, but it was nice, and most importantly, his memory associated it with sweet moments with Ámbar. Maybe if he smelled it, he'd feel better. Maybe if she just smiled at him, he'd feel better.

He didn't find her.

Simón almost stayed in the storage room. Not because he wanted to hide from Benicio but because the calmness of the empty room was inviting. He could just stay for a while, play a couple songs without anyone bothering him...

You wanna lose your job too?

With a sigh, Simón placed the guitar inside its gig bag and made his return to the Roller alone.

Once inside, Simón walked to the stage and sat on its edge, bringing his guitar close and playing with the strings. Soon, a melody came about, a nostalgic one, and his voice came out to join it.

Te vas amor,

si así lo quieres qué le voy a hacer

Tu vanidad no te deja entender

Que en la pobreza se sabe querer...

Right as he began the next verse, another voice started singing, taking him by surprise. Simón snapped his head to the side and saw Luna, smiling widely as she walked closer to sit at his left. Seeing her smile brought a smile to him as well, and he strummed the guitar harder, with more vivacity, singing the chorus with her.

For two minutes, Simón forgot about everything. He felt back in Cancún, under the sun he had grown up with. He could almost hear the waves and their laughs with Luna and the voice of her mom begging him to stop playing that song.

Then the song was over, the strings rigid and static once again, just like his life. He felt stuck, as if, at some point, the solid ground under his feet had been replaced by a treadmill, and no matter how hard he ran, he didn't arrive anywhere.

Simón didn't have many moments like these; he didn't allow himself to. He had learned— internalized from a very young age that a positive attitude was the key to achieve everything in life. And it wasn't a karma thing where you expected the world to return your good deeds back to you one day, it was about how you chose to see things. Whenever something dragged you down or didn't go as you wanted it to, you had two options: let it get you down or keep going. Simón kept going. He kept advancing and advancing, but there would always come a point where the big boulder he was pushing up the hill would roll back down and try to crush him.

This was one of those moments.

It was stupid, really. Benicio thrived on making other people's lives miserable, for all intents and purposes he shouldn't have listened to him. But he couldn't un-listen to him, so now he had a cacophony of voices in his head calling him a failure. Telling him to go back to his country. Telling him that he wasn't good enough.