Cris wants our costume to remain a surprise until the day of the party, which has been moved to Saturday instead of Friday, so its just her and me going shopping. We walk hand in hand through Gran Via and I do my best to keep my head in the moment and place we’re in, but I can’t stop going in circles around the lock in the Instagram screen. I turn to look at Cris and her excited expression and I force myself to think about her and what we’re here to do.
“Honey, this is going to be the best costume ever. Mark my words.”
I smile at her and she kisses me on the cheek.
“You feel like eating something before we leave?”
The truth is that I don’t, not really, but I’d rather stay there with Cris rather than going back home and continue to overthink, so I say yes, and we eat something light before walking back to Cris’ house. On the way we walk by our park and decide to go in and sit there for a bit.
I sit down with my back against a large tree, cross my legs and Cris lays down and rests her head on them, I play some music on my phone and start running my hands through her hair, which I discovered a few weeks ago helps calms me down, then Cris gets her phone and starts going through her Instagram feed.
“Hey, lets try this filter, it looks cool.”
She sits up and rests her back next to mine against the tree, and she shows me the filter in which we’re both holding a popcorn can, she opens her mouth and her face gets rounder and some popcorn fly into her mouth; I try to laugh, I really do, but I can’t.
“Would you still love me like this?”
The image in the screen is really hilarious, the way Cris’ face looks and she’s also doing one of her funny faces, she opens her mouth again and more popcorn are thrown into her mouth, I actually forget about everything else to answer.
“Yep!”
We both laugh and she kisses me, I hear the sound of a photo being taken and I smile against her lips.
“Cris, stop it with the photos.”
I look at her screen and she selects “best friends” before uploading the photo, she kisses my cheek again and lays back down resting her head in my legs. I feel my heart starting to race and the words start to clutter in my head and in my throat, I feel the need to say something before I choke. I close my hands into fists and inhale deeply.
“You know, the other you were at my house, on Sunday, after you left I tried getting an Instagram account.”
I see her screen stop moving but she doesn’t turn around at all.
“But, I couldn’t. At first it said that it was blocked, then that the password wasn’t right, and at the end it just didn’t allow me to do anything at all.”
Cris’ fingers are still not touching the screen and she remains silent, she blocks her screen and raises up a little to look at me.
“Have you talked to your parents about it?”
“Yeah. Well.. no, not really. I asked them if they thought it was a good idea that I got an Instagram and they just told me to talk it with my therapist on our next session, but that is in two weeks and I don’t know if I can wait that long.”
She moves her head up and down slowly and I can tell she’s thinking about what to say, she presses her lips and looks away.
“I see. And… well, why don’t you move up your therapy date?”
“Yeah… maybe.”
She stares at me for a few more moments and the look in her eyes has changed, she looks worried and the feeling that she’s hiding something from me comes back. She stands up and stretches out her hand.
“Shall we?”
I take her hand and we walk to her house in silence, I drop her off, she kisses me and I promise to let her know when I’m home, but as I head back home I can feel my mind sinking deeper and deeper in an ocean of doubts again and I forget to text her until the sun comes down and she asks me if everything is okay.
Tonight, I go to bed without texting her goodnight.
