We both know we’ll never meet again. Why do you keep deceiving me?
“Ok,” she agreed.
Suddenly the silence that had fallen over them was cut off by some unknown ringtone.
Marc took a cellphone out of his pocket that Berenice had never seen before.
“I’m coming,” was his laconic answer before hanging up. “Berry, I’ve to go.”
“Of course,” she could say as her heart seemed to break in her chest.
“I’m calling you, ok?” he said, going towards the front door.
Berenice nodded imperceptibly as she realized Marc did not have left her any contact number or e-mail.
She just had to hope he had memorized her number at which he had called her several times from home, but at heart she felt she would have never seen him or heard from him again.
How many times her exes had said her goodbye, telling they would have called her and then they just vanished into thin air!
On the threshold she saw him hesitate for a moment.
“See you soon,” said Berenice, struggling to contain the sadness for their parting that made her feel very bad.
“ Keep in touch,” said Marc in his turn, before stepping out of the front door.
No parting kiss. No last hug. Nothing.
Only a quick glance and then the void.
A void that tore her heart and soul to pieces, ruining her deep down.
That’s why I didn’t want to fall in love.
That night she cried as a child and when still found all the clothes Marc had put on in those days, she used them as a pillow on which she fell asleep.
14
The following days were really hard to face.
Everything reminded Marc to her: any kind of food in the fridge, the breakfast with his wholemeal rusks and raspberry jam, his oak shower gel with which he had started to wash himself, his clothes still scattered around the house, the very comfortable sofa he had given her as a present, the room perfumer he had chosen for her…
The only thing she could control was tv. She forced herself to keep it off for fear of finding Marc on the screen.
However every day she wore the pendant he had given to her and saw the pictures and the videos he had shot.
For the first time she watched the film clip where the two of them were in bed after making love.
She watched herself on the screen as Marc spoon-fed her, made fun of her, then kiss her.
She was so beautiful and cheerful in that film clip that if she had not been sure of it, she would have thought that girl was not her.
Berenice was surprised to see herself so charming and seductive in a man’s arms, although she did not have clearly the body of a model.
Also Marc looked happy and captivated by that woman he hugged tightly and touched softly.
When her mother visited her, she immediately realized that something was wrong.
“He left you, didn’t he? I told you. That kind of man is very hard to please.”
“It’s not like that,” answered Berenice and finally told her all the truth.
The only thing her mother was able to say was: “And did he sleep with you in spite of your twenty excess pounds?”
“Yes, mom, he did. He also told me I’m beautiful.”
That day her mother left her daughter’s house without saying a word.
Something in her measured- by-weight world had gone the wrong way.
At work, Sandy tried to speak to her again, but Berenice was really fed up with her negativeness, so decided that long-standing friendship had come to an end.
When Sandy asked her for an explanation, she answered: “A real friend not only would have comforted me for those pounds in excess still there despite hundreds of diets we’ve followed, but she also would have incited me to smile and accept my body for what it is, telling me I’m beautiful and special anyway, instead of making me feel inadequate.”
Exasperated by her mother and Sandy’s constant phone calls she refused to answer at home, she decided to pretend to be out of town and disconnected the telephone.
Also on Facebook she posted her greetings to her friends and the photo of a tropical beach.
Her cellphone was the only contact she had with the world. The girl always had it on and near her, waiting for a call from Marc that unfortunately she never got.
Both her mother and former friend rained calls and voicemails on her cellphone too, which she paid no attention to.
Shut herself off and disconnected from the world outside, Berenice mostly devoted herself to walking and became a fan of the organic and wholegrain products being sold in the small shop near her house.
The girl was so immersed in that new and strange reality without job, friends, overbearing parents and Marc, that she let time pass inexorably. That period was only marked by the minutes she spent to have a look at the phonecell every now and then, waiting for a call from Marc.
She did not even realize she had lost almost seven pounds.
After three weeks Berenice decided it was time to turn over a new leaf. Once and for all.
She threw away the last pot of raspberry jam and resolved she would have stopped thinking about Marc from then on.
However, as she was about to take off the pendant he gave her, her hands started trembling and she finally had to take a deep breath to not cry.
One step at a time. Today the jam. Tomorrow the pendant.
She had already put all the clothes and things regarding Marc in a box. The following day she decided it was time to tape it, so that every night she would not have rummaged in it anymore to smell the perfume of the shower gel and his skin on clothes.
Why did he leave all those things to her? Why had he wanted to torment her? Berenice hated herself to let Marc have such influence over her.
At the end of the week the necklace with the raspberry-shaped pendant was still hanging on her neck and all photos and film clips still saved on her pc.
The girl had tried to delete them many times, but as she watched his face on desktop stopped suddenly and cried.
That folder was inaccessible to her. That was why she had decided to never open her laptop again.
One morning Berenice was rudely awakened by the doorbell ringing.
She looked at the clock: 7 a.m. It was very early.
The girl made for the door, dazed and annoyed.
Everybody thought she was still vacationing on a deserted beach of the Maldives.
Frightened, Berenice hoped it was not her father again, but as she looked through the peephole she saw Marc’s face.
She started in surprise.
Trying to not make noise, the girl looked through the peephole again to make sure she was not seeing things.
It was Marc. It was really him!
Why did he come back? Did he want her to get hurt again?
Hesitating and sobbing, she stepped away from the door as if she had burnt herself.
Berenice wanted to open wide the door and rush to hug him, but she was too scared that the sense of hopelessness she had tried to leave behind would have come in too, so the girl controlled herself.
“Berry, open the door! I know you’re in there!” exclaimed Marc knocking vigorously at the door, but she did not answer. “Berry, open the door. At once.”
She heard him get angry and take it out on the bell until the voice of Mrs. Tennely, her next-door neighbor, came to her ears. The old woman was hurling insults at him for disturbing her that time of morning.
Knowing Marc, Berenice expected the two of them to have an endless diatribe, so she opened the door and dragged him in while apologizing to her neighbor.
“Why won’t you let me come in?” got angry Marc, still annoyed for the old woman’s insults.
“I was sleeping.”
“You were just behind the door. I heard you.”
“Marc, what do you want?”
“I came to take you to my family, remember? I had told you.”
“Actually I haven’t heard from you for weeks and honestly I was pretty sure I’d never see you again.”
“You still have to give a present to me.”
“I’ve already had and you rejected it.”
“Yes, I did, and I also had told you to give another one to me. Do you have it?”
“No, I don’t,” answered Berenice who did not want to seriously believe in his return.
“Too bad.”
“Marc, everything is not just about you.”
“But you knew I’d come back.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“I had promised you.”
“Sorry for not believing you. You left without hugging or kissing me after what we’d just been through. You didn’t leave me any contact number and promised me you’d call me, but you didn’t,” burst out Berenice in tears, releasing all the sadness she had felt over those three weeks.
“Sorry… I’m really sorry.”
“I was disappointed and hurt by you,” she confided him, struggling to drive away the flow of emotions that was about to overcome her whether she liked it or not.
Marc tried to embrace her, but Berenice push him away.
“I don’t need your piety,” she sobbed, broken-hearted.
“I’m so sorry. Forgive me, Berry. It was selfish of me,” he admitted, feeling like a complete heel in front of her tears. “The fact is that I was so sorry for parting with you…”
“Bullshit!”
“The truth is that you like me. You liked me from the very beginning and when I realized you fell in love with me, I felt bad ’cause I knew I’d hurt you by going away. But when it was time for me to come back to Los Angeles, I realized I returned your feelings. When you gave that cross to me as a present, after what I had told you, I just felt like killing you. I didn’t want to be rejected by you. That’s why I didn’t want it. And besides, I gave that dress to you and you were so beautiful and sensual that I just wanted to sleep with you and not leave anymore. That’s the reason why I didn’t hug or kiss you. If I had done it, I never would have stepped out,” explained Marc hardly, since he was not accustomed to open his heart.
“Why didn’t you call me and leave your contact number to me?”
“Berry, how could I have worked and finished the movie if I had known you had my contact number and could call me at any time? It would have been impossible to me. I was going to spend every minute checking the calls.”
I did it.
“You could call me if you really cared about me.”
“I wanted to, but then I was worried you might have cried, making me feel like a complete heel, just as I do now, and I’d have been forced to leave the set to run to you.”
“I wouldn’t be asking anything.”
“Yes, but I’d never have had the courage to go on working while knowing you were here, alone and sad because of me.”
“Marc, you’re under no obligation to me. We aren’t together.”
“I know. I think that by dint of being your not-boyfriend for so long, I finally got into my character more than I expected,” jested Marc, trying to hide the embarrassment he felt at his own words.
“Feel free to do what you want. You owe nothing to me,” repeated Berenice, struggling to hide the disappointment.
“Alright, now are you getting dressed? It’s already late and we have a three-hour drive to Pieville.”
“What?”
“My brother lives there with his wife Melissa.”
“I’m not going.”
“You are, instead.”
“To be your scapegoat for all your extravagant spending with your brother’s credit card?”
“Exactly. Aren’t you thanking my bro for that wonderful sofa?”
“I didn’t ask you to buy it and I don’t even have money to pay back his loan.”
“You’ll have to find a plausible excuse, then.”
“Isn’t being jobless and the victim of an asshole enough plausible?”
“I’ll be enough to Melissa for sure.”
“It’s not fair I’m obliged to resolve your problems,” she protested at Marc who had already taken possession of her wardrobe.
Finally she did nothing but surrender and agree to spend the day with Marc, hoping that day might pass by in the best possible way and, above all, quickly.
To avoid any other complain, she wore the pink dress he had given her before leaving.
“This is not suitable!”
“You gave it to me.”
“Yes, to stay with me, not with anyone else.”
“I like it and hope I’ll make a big impression on your family,” since I’ll have to justify all your spending.
“I remind you that Arthur is married.”
“I’m not interested in sleeping with him.”
“Yes, but with this dress you’ll make him think about it.”
“ Don’t be so dense!” laughed Berenice cheerfully, slipping into a pair of white flat pumps with a pink bow on the front.
“You look like a child,” grumbled Marc, trying to fix the tulle that had gotten entangled on her shoulder.
“Have you lost weight?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Could you cook something eatable while I was away?” he got worried at once.
“Marc, I’ve been living without you for more than twenty years and I certainly don’t suffer from undernourishment. Do you think that three weeks without you made me stay off food?” answered Berenice annoyed, trying to not to be fooled by his kindness one more time.
They could set out in the end.
The drive lasted a little over three hours, during which Marc told her what he had done in those weeks, since Berenice seemed to be reluctant to talk.
Once they got to Pieville, Berenice found herself in the open country, in a small town dominated by two villas being not so far from each other.
Marc took her by the hand to lead her to a very large green farmland.
She heard him call out his brother and a short time later they saw a bare-chested, very suntanned and quite muscular boy come to them.
However muscle-bound Marc might be, Arthur was not outdone by him.
Only at close quarters Berenice noticed the boy’s young age: he was four or five years younger than Marc. Despite being brothers, they weren’t exactly alike .
Marc’s olive and slightly tanned skin highlighted his brother’s dark and sweat-drenched one.
Moreover, Marc had green eyes with golden specks, whereas Arthur’s ones ranged from light green to blue. But what struck Berenice most was his smile: broad and genuine, almost childish, so different from Marc’s often sarcastic and sneering one.
I fell in love with the wrong brother!
“Marc, at last! I’m so happy to see you. You missed me,” exclaimed Arthur cheerfully, hugging his elder brother.
How sweet Arthur is!
“Arthur! Well, look at you. Haven’t you divorced yet?”
Marc, you’re a bastard!
“ You haven’t changed a bit!” laughed his brother, not at all offended. “And you must be Berry. Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you,” whispered Berenice embarrassed, shaking his hand.
“Sorry for welcoming you half-naked, but today it’s hot and I’ve been in the vegetable garden since eight in the morning. Melissa doesn’t feel very well and doesn’t stand the heat , so to prevent her from getting tired I’m trying to deal with everything by myself,” apologized Arthur, inviting them to follow him to one of two villas dominating the small town.
What a solicitous man! Marc would have left a woman even under a blazing sun and feverish to avoid going to work.
As they followed him to the villa, Marc gave her a painful pinch on her side.
“Ouch!”
“Stop it!”
“Doing what?”
“ Making eyes at my brother,” hissed Marc in a low voice to not be heard.
“It’s not my fault if yo
ur bro is a wonderful man… unlike you!” she provoked bitterly, being pinched again.
Once they got to the house they found some pleasant coolness there .
A very young and heavily pregnant woman came to them.
“Melissa! Here you are, in the cool air, while Arthur’s working like a horse under the scorching sun! I can see idleness made you fatten up like a side of a house,” burst out Marc sarcastically, startling Berenice for such rudeness.
“I’m pregnant, bastard! You’d know it if you had come to the party we gave five months ago,” answered the woman biting, without letting herself be overawed by him .
“He knows, Mel. I told him months ago,” intervened Arthur. “And now excuse me. I’ll freshen up and be right over.” Then he got close to her wife and put a blond lock behind her ear softly. “Are you ok, Mel?”
“Yes, I’m. I only have to finish laying out the table,” answered the girl, being lost in his look full of love that made Berenice’s heart beat too.
Those two, very young and already married, were so in love that it was impossible to see them without being moved.
As Arthur disappeared upstairs, Melissa got close to her guests.
“The last week I received the bank statement of Arthur’s credit card! Even if my husband was vague about it, there’s only a bastard able to run through such sums of money within three days! You, Marc!” burst out Melissa, trying to not be heard by the consort.
“It’s all her fault,” defended himself Marc, pointing at Berenice who felt herself flare up with shame.
“Only an asshole like you could use a woman to save your ass. You’re really a bastard!” snapped Melissa disgusted, before bending her gaze on the girl. “You must be Berry. I’ve heard about you. My name’s Melissa, Arthur’s wife.”
“Nice to meet you,” whispered Berenice shyly, comforted by the friendly smile the young woman addressed to her.
“Are you really Marc’s girlfriend?”
That question took Berenice by surprise, so the girl cast a glance at Marc who nodded to her.
“ Yes, so it seems,” she smiled, embarrassed.
A Star in My Life Page 12
