“Dude, I know I have to, but I just can’t. For real. I did try but I just couldn’t, right when I was going to we got interrupted and then I just didn’t know how to.”
“Damn, Cris, the more you wait to say it the worse it’ll be.”
“To say what?”
I’m coming out from class and I bump into Amira and Cris in the hallway.
“… What?”
Amira looks at me and Cris looks at her.
“What to do you have to say to whom?”
They look at each other and I honestly can’t tell what’s going on.
“No, nothing… that I gotta talk to the history teacher so she’ll let me give her the assignment late or I will fail.”
“Oh, alright. Well, the teacher loves me so If you want I can talk to her with you if you want.”
“Awesome.”
All three of us stay silent. Amira looks at me, then at Cris who is actively avoiding making eye contact with me.
“Weeeell, okay. Uhm Cris, shall we? We still have a couple of things pending for tomorrow.”
She nods and we say goodbye to Amira. When we finish our shopping we go back to Cris’, I had asked her beforehand if I could spend the night there since I still don’t feel like being around my parents, so we have dinner and we are in her bedroom watching Atonement. I’m actually surprised that she’s been silent the whole time, it usually takes us four hours to watch a two-hour movie because we need to pause it all the time for her to comment on it. But not this time, this time she stayed silent for the entirety of the two hours.
She’s silent even when the movie ends and when I look at her I can tell in her expression that there is something bothering her, its all in the way she bites her lip, the way she breathes in deeply and how her eyes are fixed on the screen but she’s not actually looking at anything.
“Joana?”
“Yeah?”
She looks at me and she’s worried about something.
“Would you be able to forgive a lie like that?”
“What do you mean?”
I can tell she’s thinking about how to ask the question again.
“I mean, if someone didn’t tell you something important or, I don’t know, something that might make you stop caring about that person.”
“Uhm… I’m not sure I understand what-”
“Do you think you’ll be able to forgive your parents for hiding the truth?”
Her question takes me by surprise, I wasn’t expecting it neither was I expecting the urgency in her voice, I figure that it’s because she doesn’t want me to have problems with them so we can still go out; but the truth is that I haven’t really thought about that at all, its only been two days and I still haven’t quite processed everything.
“I don’t know.”
She nods slowly and looks away while biting her bottom lip again.
“I guess so, though. Eventually. Everything is still fresh and I’m still angry, but I know they love me and that eventually this will go away… I guess.”
“I see.”
She lays back on her bed and I lay down next to her so that my head is next to hers and our feet are on opposite sides of the bed. I turn my head to look at her and her eyes are shiny, glossy, as if she was going to cry and I really don’t understand why she’s worried about my relationship with them so I try to lighten up the mood.
“Hey, sapito.”
She’s still not looking at me so I turn my body a little and I run my hand through her hair, I do it slowly and I watch her closer eyes and lean in into the touch of my hand.
“Hey, look at me.”
She opens her eyes and looks at me, her gaze is intense, really intense.
“There’s nothing that could ever make me love you any less.”
She gives me a half smile, touches my cheek with one of her hands and leans in to kiss me.
