Daybreak

by Fabio Volo

  “I’ll have to take care of it by myself. What a waste. Bye, see you tomorrow.”

  That evening I realized that, even if I was still playing like I did at the beginning, for me it wasn’t just about the sex anymore. We’ve always been open with each other; that’s why I decided I was going to talk to him about it the next day.

  When I went to his place, the effects of the pictures were still quite strong and the separation resulted in a passion that by now I had learned to expect. However, the strongest memory of that encounter wasn’t of the way we made love, but of what happened afterward.

  There weren’t any towels in the bathroom, so I opened the cabinet to look for one, but my attention was captured by a woman’s beauty case left next to the stack of towels. My heart stopped. I didn’t know what to do. I stood there, still, with the cabinet door open. I didn’t know if I should open the case to check its contents—maybe it was his stuff, maybe there was an explanation other than the one I had in mind, maybe it had been there for a long time, left behind by another woman. I looked at myself in the mirror, picked up a towel, closed the cabinet door, and sat down. At that moment I realized how fragile I was. I sat there a few minutes trying to fight the temptation to open it.

  Suddenly I heard his voice from behind the bathroom door: “No sugar with a little cream, right?”

  “Yes, thanks … I’ll be right out.”

  I got up and looked at myself in the mirror. I didn’t recognize that face. I tried to cover it up, I didn’t want him to see me like that. I decided I wasn’t going to say anything. When I got to the kitchen he handed me a cup of coffee, smiling. He had no idea about the shock I just experienced in the bathroom.

  “Is everything okay? Your face looks funny. You look pale.”

  “Yes, yes, everything’s fine.”

  “Are you sure? What’s up?”

  I was tempted to tell him. I wanted to ask him about the case, and I wanted him to tell me I was misinterpreting it. I was looking for a different explanation. Instead I said: “Nothing—it came early this month. I should go home, I don’t have any pads with me.”

  “Can I be of any help?”

  “No, don’t worry, I need to go now, sorry. Ah, I had to open the cabinet to get a clean towel.”

  I looked him straight in the eye to check for any signs of embarrassment, but nothing.

  “Can I have a glass of water?”

  As he was getting the water, I grabbed my bag. I had to leave that apartment immediately; I wasn’t feeling well. I drank it and left. Something was weighing on my heart. Rather than slowly going down, the elevator felt like it was plummeting into an abyss.

  June 27th, 2:00 a.m.

  It was a mistake not opening that beauty case. At least I’d know what was inside. Are there other women in his life? The question is torturing me. Why does it hurt so badly? I’m the one who’s married, I have no right to expect an exclusive relationship, I wasn’t and still am not in any position to investigate. And yet I grow more and more curious by the minute. It’s as if I’m losing control, the serenity I thought I had reached. If there are other women, I want to know what sort of relationship he has with them. Does he make love with them the way he does with me? Does he play with all of them the same way? Did he meet them before he met me, or after?

  It’s two in the morning and I can’t sleep. I came into the kitchen to write. I’m afraid, I’m afraid everything will end, and that he’s not how I imagined him to be. I’m afraid he’ll get involved with another woman and that he’ll prefer her to me.

  Paolo just went to the bathroom and before going back to bed, he passed by the kitchen. He mumbled something about the fact that I keep a journal like little girls do, then he reminded me to turn off the lights and went back to bed.

  I’d like to stop him, sit him down, and confess everything. I’d like to tell him where I go when I’m late for dinner. I’d like to tell him where I spend my lunch breaks, where I run to when I get off early. I’d like him to meet the woman he has in front of him. I’d like to look him in the eye and ask him why he left me alone all these years: “Look where I am now.”

  June 27th

  This morning, when I closed the journal and went to bed, it was after three. I had trouble falling asleep and when my alarm went off this morning it felt like I’d only slept a few minutes. I’m exhausted.

  I just finished fighting with Paolo. I can’t stand him anymore: I can’t stand the way he talks, the way he walks, the noise he makes with his slippers. Even his smell irritates me. Today he was mad at his mother because she gave some money to his brother to start a business. He was complaining about the fact that she used the money that came from his dad’s severance. “My brother keeps saying my mother doesn’t understand shit, but when he needs money he goes straight to her to cash in.” I didn’t even answer him; I left him alone to complain as long as he wanted.

  I thought about the beauty case for a while and decided I want to know if there are other women in his life. I have the right to know—he knows I’m married, he knows my situation, and I think it’s only right I know his. Plus, I haven’t made love to Paolo since we started seeing each other. It was my choice. He probably wouldn’t even see it as cheating, but I did.

  I don’t know why I never seriously asked him if he had other women. Maybe subconsciously I didn’t want to find out I wasn’t the only one, so that I was free to live my dream the way I wanted. But no matter how beautiful a dream may be, sooner or later one must wake up.

  I wrote him this morning: “If you can, tomorrow after work I’m free. I’d like to talk to you.”

  I went to his place, armed with all my reasons. As I was driving there in the car, I kept repeating again and again the things I had been mulling over for hours. Everything was clear: I knew exactly the right thing to do, what to say, or to answer, since I had already lived that exchange in my head and had also imagined his answers. I felt confident and resolved.

  I walked into his place and, after a few seconds, all my certainties came crumbling down, one after the other. The smell of that house, his smile, his look, his long and slow kiss. His embrace. I completely lost it. I couldn’t salvage any of the words I had prepared; the few I remembered were shreds of arguments that had lost their power. I couldn’t even pronounce them: At that moment I was feeling so good I didn’t want to ruin everything with my insecurities. It was so beautiful. I hadn’t forgotten the risks I was taking; the mere smell of his breath was enough to win over everything. After the first kiss, after I felt his hands on me, I decided I was going to bring it up another time, and that I was instead going to enjoy what I was feeling. I still wanted to know what was in that beauty case, though. I was still very curious. I was dying to know. I went to the bathroom to find out about its contents and maybe I was going to understand who she was. I know, you’re not supposed to do certain things. I always criticized those who checked their partners’ cell phones, but now I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t stop. I locked the bathroom door and looked at myself in the mirror. I wanted to see what my face looked like as I was doing something that went against my principles. I opened the cabinet. My heart stopped: The case wasn’t there anymore. I checked behind the towels, behind his electric razor; I moved the medicine bottles around, the lotions, everything. Nothing. It was gone. “What do I do now?” I thought. “Should I go back and ask him about the beauty case? Should I tell him that it was there the other day and now it’s gone? He would think I was crazy, the kind of woman that locks herself in the bathroom and takes inventory of what’s there.”

  I looked at myself in the mirror once again: I didn’t look too well, worse than the other day. A thousand hypotheses, a thousand thoughts filled my head. Maybe the woman who owned that case had come by to get it back. Or maybe he realized I had seen it and decided to get rid of it. When I went back to the room, he said: “Didn’t you want to ask me something?”

  “Yes, but it wasn’t anything important. Sorry, I have t
o run.”

  July 1st

  I can’t get that image of him with other women out of my head. That night when I went out with my girlfriends and he didn’t answer my messages, I imagined he was with another woman. That thought turned me on. This time, it’s different; I feel excluded, weak, and vulnerable. I can’t accept the fact that he may play with another woman the way he does with me, that he may have the same intimacy with her, and the same relationship we have.

  Once he told me: “When you come through that door and until you leave, you’re my woman and I’m your man. I need to know this in order to be able to play with you. Do you accept it?”

  I accepted. Now I don’t know if I would do it again.

  July 4th

  All this fear is not caused only by the jealousy at finding that beauty case, but also about what I feel: I’ve realized how much I’m invested in this story. It’s as if I had woken up from a long sleep, as if I had lived suspended in an abstract dimension, as if everything had happened outside of my life. I’ve found myself thrown into reality; I’m in it up to my neck, and I didn’t take any precautions. The difference is that the reality of my life now also includes him. Now he’s real. I wrote that I might have fallen in love—now I don’t have any doubts. Seeing that beauty case, imagining him with another woman, knowing that I could lose him, forced me to face the facts. I know that I shouldn’t have, but how can someone not fall in love with a man like that, when you see how beautiful you are in his eyes? I can’t give him up or stop seeing him, but if I want to save myself I need to take a step back. I should have understood these things immediately, I should have thought of them at the beginning, but I was too distracted by the pleasure and the euphoria. I need to find a quick fix; I need to find a solution. I can’t even talk about it with Carla—she would tell me I was wrong and that I chose to believe in strange fantasies. I don’t feel like hearing her tell me I told you so.

  I’ve never felt so alone and I’m too scared to be angry with myself. I’m not scared of other women; I’m scared of what I feel for him. No matter what, he must not play with them the way he does with me.

  July 6th

  I have to stop letting this story push me around; I need to be more careful. I hope it won’t be as it was in the beginning, when the more I kept him at a distance, the more I couldn’t get the thought of him out of my head. I always failed to keep my distance from him, even during the first days when I tried to rationalize our encounters.

  Why did I let myself get carried away like that—why didn’t I have the strength to say no? Because I didn’t have any strength left in me. I was tired of lying to myself. Tired of always doing the right thing. For the first time in my life I decided jump into the darkness, do something dangerous. I had the courage not to live up to my expectations. For a moment I forgot about the idea I had of myself, that idea that was deeply rooted inside me. I opened myself under the warmth of his hands and his attentions. I walked through that door because I wanted to be a different woman, a woman different from what I was. Now I have to take a little step back, even though it won’t be easy, because I’m happy with him. I have to stop looking for him, I have to resist the urge, just to see how long it will take for him to look for me and realize how important I am in his life.

  I think Paolo was right: Sometimes I really do act like a little girl.

  At that time, I had completely lost my perspective on things. I was trying to devise strategies, thinking they could help me conquer my fears. One morning he sent me a message asking if we could meet the following day.

  I didn’t answer immediately. I wanted him to sweat a bit. I waited a few hours and then I wrote him: “No, I can’t tomorrow.”

  “How about tonight? Dinner? After dinner?”

  “It’s too late. I wouldn’t know what excuse to use.”

  “Okay, okay.” I already regretted it.

  An hour later I received another text from him: “How about the day after tomorrow, in the morning, before work?”

  I was tempted to accept the offer but seeing him so insistent told me my tactics were working. I had to find the strength to keep saying no. It wasn’t what I wanted but a little strategy wouldn’t hurt.

  “I’m sorry, I just can’t get away these days, but you don’t know how much I’d like to.”

  I was about to send the message when I decided to erase the last part. I wanted to be tough on him.

  “I’m sorry, I just can’t get away these days.”

  “That’s okay, sorry I insisted, it’s just that I’m leaving and I’ll be gone for a while. Kisses.”

  As I read those words I felt sick to my stomach. “What does he mean he’s leaving? How long will he be gone? I haven’t seen him in four days and I’m already going crazy. What should I do now? So much for strategies …”

  Immediately I responded: “You’re leaving?”

  “Yes, I’m going to visit my brother for a few weeks. Before I left I would have liked to kiss you. Everywhere.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  “What’s the difference? If you can’t, you can’t … Or is it that you don’t want to?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “You seem distant.”

  I hated being an open book to him. I hated the feeling that he understood everything that went through my mind, all my emotions, all my worries. Sometimes he would even anticipate my requests, as if he knew what I needed even better than I did.

  “Why distant?”

  “If something has changed, I’d like to know whether it’s how you feel or rather the result of some thinking you have done. If something’s changed, I think it would be fair if you told me.”

  I couldn’t tell him the truth. I hid behind the same identical excuse I had used with Paolo for years.

  “Nothing has changed. I’m finishing a project and trying to make a few deadlines. You know how it is.”

  “Well, that’s a shame.”

  I couldn’t turn back, but the thought of not seeing him for two weeks was killing me. That evening, after having dinner with Paolo, I went to the bathroom and sent him a text.

  “I cleared some of my schedule. I can see you tomorrow night. You pick the time.”

  He would never answer when it was late, he would always wait until the next morning, at around eight thirty, when he knew I would be alone. That evening I went to bed angry with myself.

  July 10th

  “Since I couldn’t see you I left early. Sorry, if I could, I’d come back.”

  This is the message I received this morning as I was on my way to work. I would have turned the car around and followed him to Tuscany, that’s how much I wanted him.

  Today was a tough day; after that text everything was hard. However, I thought that his absence could be a good opportunity: I could take advantage of the time to put some distance between us. I would like to go back to how I was at the beginning, when I could take all the good things from our encounters without asking anything more. I liked walking out that door and going home. The first few times, when I left his apartment, I had the impression of being younger and more in touch with myself. I would spend time alone, with that part of me that had just reemerged and that not even he could see. At that moment I could breathe, I could drive, I could sing, and the fresh air would come through the car window just for me. Those first few times everything I experienced was pleasure and immediate joy. I didn’t have any perspectives regarding imaginary or planned futures; I only cared about the present; I wasn’t worried about the after. My old future no longer existed, and I still hadn’t imagined a different one with him: Whenever I felt nostalgia, I’d borrow his. Since I didn’t have any more plans, dreams, or desires, I would take a stroll through his.

  Why did I allow myself to become so involved? Has he realized how important he has become to me? If this story were to end, I would suffer … I’d like to know if he would suffer, too.

  July 13th

  No texts today, either
, nor any phone calls. I can’t take it anymore. I feel like a prisoner and it’s all my fault. I’m afraid he understood that I’m trying to put some distance between us. I’d prefer it if he didn’t care about what I want. The fact that he’s not looking for me shows that I’m not that important to him. No fight on his part, no phone call to convince me I’m wrong: It seems as if not seeing me were exactly what he wanted. I can’t tell if he doesn’t feel a thing or if he’s the master of his own feelings.

  It was hard at the office today. It’s as if they were doing it on purpose: As we were talking about future projects his name came up three times. I felt singled out; I was afraid that someone would notice my embarrassment. Every time I heard that name my heart would stop. Every time they said his name, Federica looked at me. She clearly understood what was going on; I wonder how she knew. Maybe I could talk to her about it.

  July 17th

  I’m not so sure I want to take a step back anymore. I’m starting to think that I should stop being afraid and trying to devise strategies. I should simply live this story and quit trying to always understand things. I feel like seeing him—he’s constantly on my mind and in my body—I can feel his kisses on my lips. I can smell him. No distance can ever take him away from me; at night I always fall asleep with him on my mind. I haven’t seen him in over a week.

  I forget everything and think only about him. As I walk, as I eat, work, as I put my shoes on, as I pay at the supermarket and can’t remember my debit card code.

  Maybe I can’t manage to accept so much beauty. Beauty has been absent from my life for so many years that now I can’t live it, I can’t enjoy it anymore … I should be more courageous. Even if it’s dangerous I can’t give it up, I can’t help it. It’s impossible to give up happiness; you can do it only if you’ve never experienced it. Now I’d like to dance before his eyes, for me and for him. If there’s a price to pay, I’m ready to pay it. Nobody ever forced me to do anything—the responsibility is mine alone.