Chapter 4

It was a complicated period. Because it was not easy to feel pain for simply trying to keep up with the beat of a song, while his bones were still recovering from a run over, or while his mind tried to devour his goodwill in seeing the world with colors and sounds, and not in darkness and tears. It was hard. But I tried, alone.

The music ended, and while another one didn't start, I sat on the bed, catching myself from looking through the closed window. Outside, on the other side of the garden, another house stood up, and from it, I could see open windows and lights on, the sound of the barking of a big dog in the backyard, and the characteristic sound of punches in a punching bag that I knew was in the room where I had a total view of where I was sitting on the bed.

It was Colton's house. And where I was looking was the window of your improvised gym. Something he set up as soon as I moved to the house next to his, and when he realized that I would not always go to my physiotherapy appointments in the same gym where he practiced his muscles, and had to set up his gym to be able to watch me and still work out.

I couldn't help feeling guilty every time I realized that my friends changed their routines to always keep me under their eyes. I should feel grateful. But I felt insufficient. Broken. And I tried hard every second of this crap of existence, to pretend that it was okay to live based on controlled medicines. And that it was okay to see them doing everything possible to keep me sane.

But despite loving me, my friends didn't know that it made everything worse.

Depending on others ended up with me.

"Should I be afraid that you're looking at me like that?" Shouted a familiar voice, and I shuddered.

Colton was leaning on the window, with messy and sweaty hair, shirtless. The hair of a dark blonde fell slightly on his forehead and he didn't mind fixing them, a thin layer of sweat slipped through the trunk of highlighted muscles that bowed suggestively abdomen below, almost reaching the limit where his dark sweatpants allowed me to see, just above his groin. I stopped facing him as soon as I got up to open the window, despite smiling falsely.

"You don't have to be afraid. I couldn't jump out the window even if I wanted to."

Colton sketches the shadow of a smile below his full and slightly blonde beard. It was horrible to know that things between us became strange after something I wasn't even to blame for - a stolen kiss that didn't concern anyone but me. He did not pay attention to the fact that I hated charges and that we would never be more than friends in any dimension of the world. Maybe I hadn't lost my gift of deceiving the hearts that easily fell in love with my appearance. Or, who knows, if I were to delude myself into thinking that way.

"How are you feeling, Penelope?" He wanted to know.

I knew he was worried. And that I wouldn't let myself down if I said I was torn apart again. That everything was coming back to light on the news. That I still felt like a stupid girl for believing in a false image. That I was becoming the same person I swore never to be, simply by moving away from those who wanted my good, and by not feeling welcome anywhere.

“I’m fine. Just... tired," I lied, balancing the weight of my body on one foot, theatrically.

Colton closed his face.

"You used to lie better before."

“Everything was better before,” I grumbled.

"For whom?" He fought back, rude. "You kept playing in the face of people who had problems for them to face you. It was cynical, short, and thick, but it never knocked down with any stone on the way. Now you don't even accept watching TV like a normal person. It doesn't do anything but go to work and eat fast food."

"So I think I've become a less hot version of you, friend," I replied ironically.

“Bullshit, Penelope.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Hey, Colton... Shouldn't you be too busy playing the perfect boyfriend with another woman at dawn to waste time pissing me off?"

Colton changed his expression, seeming to have forgotten a small agreement we made a few months ago.

"You put me in this mess, Lope. So let me solve it myself.”

I shrugged, bored."

“Do whatever you want... Just not..." I hesitated, looking for words. "Don't forget that it's just a little game to help Suzy's sister."

Colton frowned.

"What did you mean by that?"

I hesitated again. Things were starting to get weird again. It was time to go back to the den.

"I'd better go..." I said in a low voice, insinuating to close the window.

Colton hurried to say:

"You'd better stop avoiding people, Jorie. You'll end up dying alone like this."

"Beautiful attempt, friend! But I'm afraid to say that I'm only afraid of the plagues begged by my mother. Good night and two kisses!"

Colton said something, but I knocked on the window and closed the curtains, extremely upset and even more shaken. My television stopped at the last song, and to tell you the truth, I wasn't interested in listening to anything else at all. I decided to sleep, wait for the next day of more pretense and medicine, and then sleep again. That was my routine. Was there a better life than this?

I had to have all the trouble to go to the kitchen to get water because I was too dumb to leave a jar in the room, so I crawled through the rooms barefoot and very cold because of the winter that was coming, and that depressed me a lot. Before I loved snow, now I hated having to freeze my ass to go to work, and then go back to an equally freezing house.

I was reflecting on how suddenly it seemed so boring to be an adult when my doorbell rang. I couldn't avoid the bad omen that afflicted me. I remembered what it was like in the first months I moved... As my house was always visited by police officers and how they liked to ring the doorbell insistently so it irritated me to the point of answering with blood in my eyes, as it happened now.

With the glass still in my hand, I walked away from the sink and hurried to the door. For a second I hesitated to check it out in the magic eye, but I'm glad I did it since the shock of the visit was less disturbing when I saw it first.

"Are you making fun of my face, asshole?" I scream.

Colton took a step inside. At least now he was properly dressed and without any trace of sweat on his body.

"I want to see if you have the courage to close the window now, you crazy" he challenged in a threatening tone.

"What the fuck do you want?" I kept screaming because I wanted to be alone, but I also wanted someone with whom I could discount all my shit. Colton was the chosen one. What the heated. "I want to be alone and in a good mood. Does it cost you to stop thinking it's my nanny's shit? You're ridiculous, Colton. Despite having all this muscular body, it's a little suit shit that thinks the world is perfect. He thinks he's fucked up just because he's already been kidnapped by gangsters while trying to save his platonic passion which was Suzy. Spare me you, you sucker!

Colton was silent, just judging me with a harsh look, as he crossed his arms.

"Is it over?"

"No" I punched her chest, and the mother's son didn't even move. I was even more angry. "I want you to fuck yourself. You, Suzy, my mother, the police, the doctors. I want everyone to get together and take a train ride straight to hell. Go Fuck Yourself!"

Colton stood still, pretending not to hear me say anything. He calmly took another step inside and closed the door. I didn't care if the neighbors would be bothered by the screams. They never really cared about me. At most, they would try to spy through the living fence to make sure I wouldn't be dismembering anyone.

"You can continue cursing everyone who tries to do the best for you, Penelope. But you can't fool anyone if you haven't noticed."

"I swear I'll punch you in the face, Colton!" I threatened with my fist closed.

“Good... At least that way I'll make sure you're not just a bag to talk shit and cry every night."

"Your gossiper from..."

"Curse as much as you want, Penelope." He interrupted, taking another step that left him practically glued to me. If our height difference wasn't so small, I'd say he was trying to intimidate me. "You will not change the fact that you are sick, but not physically."

“Great! Are you going to recommend me another psychiatrist?" I crossed my arms too, imitating him.

"You can't be alone anymore.”

I entered your little game because I was also very good at being persistent. That's why I raised my chin with determination."

"Say what you want, Colton."

“I want to bring you back, Lope,” he said stubbornly. “For better or for worse.”