by Pet TorreS
“Okay,” he agreed and stood still, gazing at our backs.
CHAPTER 14
The next day, I was astonished. The main topic at school was about just one person, a phenomenal boy called Eros. We heard comments about how amazingly Eros had played.
Everybody was delighted with him, mainly the girls…
As soon as he arrived at school, everyone was staring at him while he came walking slowly and without a friend, only holding his books. He noticed everyone was admiring him. The girls tried to approach him. However, he stepped back, avoiding them and ensuring they couldn’t really touch him.
Christian was angry again. Eros was detracting another skill from him. First - Eros was now the ‘best player on court’.
Second - The most attractive boy in school.
Eros continued to avoid the girls’ approach. That was an open door for Christian to distil his venom on him and make awful jokes.
“I think he doesn’t like girls!” Christian mocked.
Eros gazed at him, frostily.
Mirta and I were watching everything from afar.
“What did you say?” Eros asked, staring at him.
“I said you don’t like girls!” he repeated, looking straight at him with his ugly face.
I realized Christian wanted to pick a fight with Eros.
“He is completely ridiculous!” I said. I hated Christian’s behavior. I walked away quickly, and I was sickened due to that stupid tumult.
“I won’t take into consideration what you have just said. ” Eros said as he seemed unconcerned about that situation.
“That’s a compliment to you,” Christian insisted and chuckled.
Eros went away politely, avoiding trouble.
The students were disappointed at Eros’s attitude. He had been humiliated by Christian before everybody there and Eros had acted like a coward.
The teacher was explaining chemistry to the class. Everyone was too interested in listening to his explanation. That is until Mirta saw a drop of her blood on her notebook. She raised one of her hands and touched her own nose.
Soon she noticed she was actually bleeding.
“My nose is bleeding!” she said, nervously. “Sometimes this happens.”
When Eros noticed a fresh blood smell coming from Mirta, he stood up and stepped out of the classroom. I didn’t understand his strange reaction in class. I also didn’t know why he had stepped out of the classroom so fast.
In that moment I wasn’t paying attention to my girlfriend Mirta because I was paying attention only to him. After some time I escorted Mirta to the toilet, trying to help her. As soon as her nose stopping bleeding, we came back to our classroom.
I looked back at Eros’s seat and it was empty, that is, he didn’t come back to class after that. I noticed he had left his books on his desk.
The class was over and everyone left their places. I realized the classroom was empty. I walked very fast towards Eros’s books and took them with me. I decided to give them back to him personally.
I walked slowly down a deserted street. Several houses were shut. There were few people visible in those premises.
I examined every house as I was hoping to find him there. Then I met an old man who was walking on the street. He lived in one of those houses. I had seen he was holding a newspaper.
“Sir, please can you tell me where Eros lives?” I asked him when I stopped walking in front of him.
“No person called Eros lives here,” he answered and smiled after that. His eyes remained focused on my puzzled face. I was disillusioned and dissatisfied at the information given by the old man.
Then I asked another woman who was also walking down the street. I asked her the same thing.
“I’ve never heard this name before,” she affirmed and frowned at me.
I wasn’t content yet at all. Then I deduced it could be a mistake. Maybe all those people weren’t well informed about their new neighbor.
Optimistic, I asked some more people the same question and I received the same answers, not those I wanted to have.
“He doesn’t live here.”… “I don’t know him”.
Afterwards, I went back home still carrying his books in my arms, wondering all the time why he had lied to me about where he lived.
“What is wrong with this? About me knowing where he really lives?
Was he ashamed about his origins?
Or was he married? Could he have a wife and children?
I was sorry for the rest of the day. Eros became an enigma to me, a mystery in my life. I knew very little about him, besides his weird way and his icy skin.
At the same time he had been very close to me, it looked as if he was so far away from me as if he were just a hallucination from my imagination. I was angry at myself as I felt silly that I cared about his life. Sometimes I felt he didn’t care about me at all.
***
I was absentminded at dinner. I couldn’t take my eyes away from my meal.
“You didn’t eat anything!” my mother complained to me, noticing that my plate was still full of food.
“I’m not hungry,” I said, gazing at nothing.
“What happened?” She said as she knew I wasn’t totally okay.
“Nothing has happened.” I tried to hide what I was feeling.
“Don’t lie to me! I know you.” She looked at my face and asked. “Have you had problems in your new school?”
“No.”
“Is it a boy?” she insisted.
I pined away. My sad gazing at the dining-table demonstrated I couldn’t answer her question.
My omission made my mother notice what was really happening to me. Behind every problem there was a boy, who was the reason for my sorrow.
After all, my mother had also been a teenager at one time.
“In that case… I can’t help you.”
She stood up to take her plate to the sink.
I had always been reserved about talking to my mother about certain subjects, mostly when they referred to the guys I was interested in. It was a kind of obstacle where I couldn’t express what I really felt and what were my objectives concerning them.
CHAPTER 15
I saw Eros in the reading room. It was an ample room with several tables and chairs for the pupils to set themselves down. He was seated at one of the tables and he seemed to be concentrating on his reading. Then I approached him suddenly.
“Why have you lied to me?” I asked with my eyes over him and my voice booming into his ears.
“Have I told you a lie ?” His attitude was arrogant and automatically he frowned at me.
“You don’t live at that address! I went there and asked every dweller about you and they answered there has never been an Eros living here. ”
“I think it is better you don’t know where I really live...”
His gaze became more distant and intriguing. That made me feel unsafe and more attracted to that involving mystery at the same time. That is, I had an urge to uncover it.
“Why were you looking for me?”
“I just wanted to return this to you,” I said and put his books onto the table. The noise seemed to irritate his ears. “You forgot them in the classroom yesterday.”
“You didn’t need to go after me yesterday.”
“I needed to!” My fury grew within me. “So I knew you lied to me.”
“Do you consider this a lie?” He crossed his arms over his chest.
“What would you suggest it is then?” I stood, asking stubbournely.
“I suggest this is a misunderstanding.”
“It is a misunderstanding...” I swung my head. “Your neighbors don’t know they have a neighbor whose name is Eros.” I looked at his face and exclaimed. “And you call this a misunderstanding?” All my fury became visible in my voice intonation.
“I’ve never seen you so furious before.” His icy eyes searched mine.
“I detest lies!” I said facing him too. “Even more whe
n they come from my friends.”
Then I lowered my head, avoiding gazing at him again.
“If I disappointed you, I beg your pardon!”
“A lie doesn’t become undone with a pardon,” I said. I turned my back to him and went out of the reading room without glancing back. I decided not to come back and tell him the other barbarities that crossed my mind.
Eros with his lie had destroyed a beautiful sentiment that was growing within me.
I decided I wouldn’t stay at school to attend day classes. All I desired ardently at that moment wasn’t to see him any more all day. I was dominated by rage.
‘Distance from him’ would be the best remedy against what I was feeling at that moment.
CHAPTER 16
I awaked during the night. Sleep gave place to an extensive insomnia. Due to that I turned from side to side in my bed, trying to fall asleep again after several tentative attempts without success.
I rose from my bed and went to my room’s open window. I had the habit of sleeping with it open due to the owl’s constant visit. After all, I got accustomed to its visits, watching over my sleep. Every time the owl didn’t appear in my room, I felt its absence.
Then I remained in front of the open window and gazed at the orchard out there as I began absorbing a little fresh air. I saw an image in black between two trees, someone walking slowly.
Eros had emerged from nothing and was in my vision. I turned aside my gaze and stared back at the optical illusion, trying to figure out if this was a hallucination.
Then I saw Eros was standing near a mango tree. He made a gesture with his hand in the direction of my window, calling me to him.
Voluntarily, I went out of my bedroom and walked in a hurry to the garden. I was still in my nightgown and barefoot. I didn’t want him to go away before he had really talked to me.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, surprised.
“I needed to talk to you.”
“How did you discover where I live?”
“I followed you without your permission.”
My cheeks became ruby.
Then we walked to the mango tree and sat down on the ground under it. Silence came over the situation, until he finally spoke.
“You might think I am wacky for walking by the other’s home at an hour like this, but I needed so much to talk to you and try to repair that disagreement that occured between us.”
“I am no longer angry at you.”
“I don’t want to destroy our friendship, and throw out all that I have achieved until now.” He gazed at the darkness while I gazed at his face. “You are the coolest person in that school and I don’t have anybody except you as my friend.”
“I don’t want you to lie to me again.”
“I’ll no longer do that,” he promised.
A fussy wind made my skin ruffle. Then I shrank my posture as I felt cold. Eros noticed my necessity to be snuggled up, and then he took out his dark coat and put it onto my back. Then he said to me, “You aren’t dressed adequately to be out here.”
I was reminded I was in my sleep clothes.
“I think it is better you go inside otherwise you could catch a cold.”
Then he got up and held my arm, helping me do the same. Another shudder came over my body and it wasn’t due to the wind. It was a different shudder that was provoked by the touch of his frozen hands.
I wished within me that this night could be eternal and he wouldn’t go away. He faced me, gazing into my eyes and due to this I could see inside his eyes that another world was waiting for me and through him I would be another creature.
He held my face with his hands and I faced him too, hoping for something more. Seconds later, he had done a silent reading of my aura which was attracted by his fascinating gaze.
He decided to leave my face free, taking his hands away from me.
“Now go in...” that was all he said me.
Once more I obeyed him like a domestic animal.
Then I returned home as I was cautious and happy for those unique moments.
Before I passed over the front door, I looked back at him and saw his departure. He walked slowly and disappeared thereupon.
As if he didn’t exist.
I walked up after that and began searching my room with my eyes. Then I rose from my bed, went to the open window and gazed at the orchard. There was no person in it, just a cutting wind that made my window’s curtains dance from side to side.
Seconds later, I went back to my bed, stared down at my feet, and I noticed they were dirty with earth and its grains, the same grains of clay from my orchard.
CHAPTER 17
I had been oversleeping.
Every afternoon, after school, I always came home and went to my room, where I usually slept for twelve hours.
I couldn’t understand why I was so sleepy.
All this time my mother had been worried about me. She thought I was sick, maybe I could be anemic.
“I’ll take you to see a doctor,” she said as she was so worried about me.
“I’m okay,” I said, trying to make her change her mind.
“You sleep too much,” she insisted. “Tomorrow, we are going to see a doctor.”
***
The next day, we drove downtown to the doctor’s office. While we were in the waiting room, I was looking at a middle-aged man as he was in his white medical coat.
My mother was by my side and described to the doctor my behavior over the last few days.
He started asking questions about how I was feeling. I responded to all his questions, irritated, as I thought everything was just nonsense.
A nurse walked me to the emergency room and lay me down on the stretcher. My mother stayed with me. I looked up at her face and noticed she was nervous, pacing back and forth.
The nurse brought the necessary instruments to collect my blood. I looked to my left when I felt the needle of the syringe move into my left arm. The clock was ticking and she was still trying to collect my blood, but it didn’t seem to pump.
After several frustrating attempts, she decided to call the doctor. My mother got even more apprehensive about what was happening to me. She knew there was something wrong with me.
The doctor came in, followed by the nurse as she was telling him all that had happened to me.
“What’s going on?” my mother asked the doctor, with a weeping voice.
“There is nothing to worry about. We just couldn’t find the blood vessels of your daughter,” he said prudently.
After three attempts, they finally managed to find my vein.
My blood was dark and thick.
I noticed that something was unusual. The result of my blood test would come within three days.
My mother and I walked out of the clinic and I looked down at my arm. Then I saw swelling and hematoma on my skin.
“Satisfied now?” I asked my mother when I stepped into our car.
“Not yet. I need to check your blood test,” she replied.
“I will never set foot in that damn clinic again! Look what they did to my arm!” Then I slammed the car door as I was outraged.
CHAPTER 18
The next day, I went to school in a bad mood, all because my arm was still swollen.
Before I entered the classroom, I met Eros in the hall. I tried to turn back and not face him. It was too late. He walked beside me, side by side.
“Are you still angry at me?” he finally asked.
“No,” I answered, looking ahead.
“Why are you avoiding me?” he insisted.
“I’m not avoiding you.”
At a faster pace I tried to leave him behind. But he held my wounded arm, obstructing me.
“Ouch!” I screamed out.
“Are you hurt?” He looked down at my right arm. “What’s this?”
“This was an unlucky blood test.” I looked away awkwardly.
“Did they collect your blood?” He raised his eyebrows
at me.
“Yeah.” My voice was very weak.
“Are you sick?” he asked.
“I’ve been sleeping too much and my mother is worried about me…she thinks I’m anemic.”
“That’s stuff is nonsense…” he said, glancing at me with a slight smile.
“Do you think this is nonsense?” “What if I’m really sick?” I asked, disappointed.
“That must be a lack of blood,” he said, in a serious tone.
“How? Lack of blood?” I asked perplexed at his supposition.
“You need red meat,” he explained.
“I eat red meat every day.”
I ingenuously gave him details of my meals.
“Try to eat only raw meat,” he said, staring at my face.
“Thank you for this hint!” I said, ironically.
Would who eat raw meat? I thought to myself.
“I’m serious,” he said again.
Eros and I stared at each other in silence.
I felt another chill as I stared at him. Then I became confused. He seemed to understand more about my problem than my own doctor.
CHAPTER 19
I returned to the school library. I was on tiptoe, in several frustrating attempts to pick up a book that was on a shelf. But I didn’t get to even touch it.
It was then that I heard a voice that made me stop. That same voice always made me tremble every time I heard it.
“Let me pick it up for you.”
Eros didn’t need to be on tiptoe to reach the book. He just lifted up his hand and brought the book among his fingers. When he raised his arm, his shirt sleeve went up and I could see a tattoo on his left arm.
“Here it is,” he said leaving the book securely in my hand.
Then I held the book distractedly, because my thoughts were on the tattoo on his left arm.
