“Pen, your mother should write a self-help book with every dilemma she has ever taught you... Not that it's bad advice” said Suzane at the end of her laugh, and her tone of voice, changing to something more serious, made me go back to the present. She was having the annoying habit of saying things and then rethinking them better. That's when I didn't change the subject so suddenly, that I even lost the thread of the strike. I didn't like her to treat me that special way. It made me feel like my brain could have been affected by the accident (not that it was a lie), but I didn't have the courage to be unpleasant and tell her to talk to me like a normal person. “She has the gift of the word. Or you know how to lie very well about this advice.”
“I would buy her book” I mocked with a low giggle. I had rehearsed that sound so many times to look normal, that now I even believed it was genuine. But it wasn't. I didn't smile like I used to. I didn't think it was the same fun in the most diverse issues of life. And I didn't feel like the clown of the class. “Despite knowing all the advice by heart and sauté, I can't be accused of inventing all of them. I would never have such a great ability to invent so much nonsense. Even if I'm very stupid.”Suzane laughed again, but this time, the noise was overshadowed by the sound of the crying of one of her babies. She had two small and emotional babies; a girl and a boy, both with blue eyes inherited from Suzane and her father's dark hair. I've never heard of children crying so easily! They completed ten months the night before, and Suzane gathered some people at her house to celebrate what she called a month-versary. I was the little girl's godmother; Eylem. And I had attached myself with all my heart to that child already so smart and naughty.The rare times I left home, I mainly worried about paying a visit to Suzane and taking some toy for her babies. She was annoyed with most of my visits, because she just didn't believe it when I said that there were only noisy toys for babies of that age. The twins already had a whole room made just to receive their toys, because their mother had no problem maintaining a very high and enviable standard of living. So, even if they had not yet started babbling or at least trying to sit alone, the babies could already flaunt more riches than myself. Adam and Eylem were the twins who appeared the most in local gossip tabloids, because Suzane Johnson's public life has never been better.Sometimes I had an outbreak of pride for what my best friend had become. Only the two of us knew how the past always came back to torment us. She had been very strong. She was her own anchor in the middle of the tsunamis, and never let herself down when it came to protecting those she loved.But Suzane has always been a creature of isolation. She never had active social networks, and never liked to appear at chic events or parties that her social status guaranteed her. She sent me to those events because she knew I was a representative at her level. But now life had made a turn of three hundred and sixty degrees. Suzane was appearing in the spotlight and enjoying the life of being a known person. And I was erasing myself by the weight of my conscience. But I couldn't stop rejoicing for her. Suzane deserved the world in the palms of her hand. And I trusted her potential to make sure she would get there very soon.It was because of Suzane Johnson and Hunter Johnson that the world was changing. People were often demonstrating in favor of minorities, refugees, those who needed help and had no voice for it. They had made a selfish and superb population — since Americans never bothered to show many feelings for each other — not to shut up in situations of injustice. A single couple managed to make the world join their hands, even if it was for a few seconds, just to be able to change something in the lives of those who could not survive with the same financial conditions.But the change that both caused in the world, made me also affected, only in a slightly more complicated way. It turns out that I was involved in a plot of terrorism and criminal factions that I never had any idea existed outside of action movies. My family had proved to be a ruthless enemy to several nations. And the people I considered most kind or examples of what I would like to become in the world, proved to be the ones who most subdued or tormented the lives of the poor and oppressed.It's cliché to say something like that, but you really never expect to be surprised by the people around you. I was always the kind of person who trusted those around me and who would give everything of me to protect them, something like me would easily throw me into a pyre of fire just for my friends and family to save themselves. But all this has changed in less than a year. I've been confronted with everything I've ignored all my life, and I'm not dealing with it. My life changed because I realized that I had lived for years in a bubble totally indifferent to what was happening in the rest of the world. It was sad to realize this, but I also changed after Suzane and Hunter began their changes around the world.My only consolation was to realize that, despite the changes and adversity, at least I could still pretend very well when my self-confidence fell through the drain. At least I could still make it seem that the media did not bother me and that public opinion was just another of the lies that arose in my life. Deep down, everything affected me painfully.I could easily understand that the reason for Suzane's call was precisely so that I could apologize and shamefully blame my medicines for having slept too much and missed family lunch - which actually consisted of bringing together Suzane's best friends and her two younger brothers, since all the rest of her family was a mess and were not worthy of our company. However, as much as Suzane pretended to believe in this and started a completely random issue about her trip to Miami in the next few days, we knew it was not the truth.I haven't been able to say what it was like to leave the house for a long time. I didn't have pale skin from those who didn't sunbathe. I even left the curtains open or went to my backyard to water some plants, and that made me receive some vitamin D. I didn't have my leg muscles totally unprepared for escape situations, because I even stretched myself from time to time to try to get some utensils that were at the top of the kitchen shelves. I would not fail to receive my orders by the postman, because I had put a sign on my mail saying that the letters should be left under the entrance door. But considering that all these things were not something to expect for Penelope Maxwell, then, yes, I wouldn't leave my house anymore and that was not healthy.What no one understood was that I started a period of isolation in my home long before the government declared any sudden stop in its daily lives. I had much more fun when I was alone, without having to force smiles or invent last-minute j
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 good will 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 for 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 appo
Colton said something, but I knocked on the window and closed the curtains, extremely upset and even more shaken. My television stopped in the last song, and to tell you the truth, I wasn't interested in listening to anything else at all. I decided to really 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 offi
In a nutshell, one could describe Colton as something irresistibly annoying. In the past, he had been the one I never considered attractive. Not for lack of beauty. For real content. Colton was very serious. There were strange quirks. And I didn't like strange people "I mean, except Suzane. And he annoyed me in ways that no one would consider normal. He didn't even have to be talking to me, actually. We almost never talked. Only, as director of the Marketing department of Suzane's company, I had to deal with him a little too often. His sector was the one that hired the most young apprentices, so he always came to my office to collect resumes and give me those he found most attractive.Since the day I started working at the company that was my father and that was bought by Suzane, Colton has shown himself to be the kind of man who can be genuinely educated and a gentleman. And these two characteristics were not possible to be found in any man. That's why he annoyed me so much. His cour
Because I could say a lot, but I couldn't deny that Colton's help didn't just make my mother's spine not try so hard to have to carry me around the corners of the house, but that I also didn't let myself totally fall into that darkness that took over my chest just for his company. Colton was good at everything. And that annoyed me too. He could sing like a true poet. I could make jokes that left me breathless. And he could brighten my eyes every time he took off his shirt or dressed in an apron to cook for me. But I felt that even if I was naked in front of him, he still wouldn't look at me with desire.Not because he thinks we should start a relationship before having any sex. But because he saw me in my worst state. He carried me on his lap when I couldn't feel anything but pain in my spine or legs when trying to walk. He wiped my drool when I couldn't breathe through my nose and had to sleep with my mouth open. He put me under the shower "still in clothes" to take cold showers when
Colton, on the other hand, made me realize how uncomfortable he felt when imagining me with other people. Especially after everything we went through together. Of all the overcoming of our greatest fears. He didn't admit that he wanted more than my friendship. And I had so little courage to assume that I had a great curiosity to know how deeply he could know me in bed. But the respect he had for me also attracted me in a more intense way. I knew that if you ever let me get carried away and let him between my legs, it wouldn't be just once. Colton was not the kind of man who let himself escape. I was sure of that. He was too reserved, and that was one of the best in sex.So my plan was to make them fall in love with each other and that I could get on with my life, without either of them. Because I wouldn't know how to choose. And also because I already had too many problems to deal with troubled relationships. I wanted tranquility in my life. And neither of them seemed like the kind of
I didn't talk about anything last night with Colton.I didn't have the courage.I didn't even find words that could make sense to that fear.He knew that I was being constantly harassed since my brother turned out to be a terrorist. Colton realized long before me that the whole world would be unable to forget the atrocities that the Maxwell family caused in the name of money. That's why he had been by my side from the beginning; because he feared that I might let myself be affected by that mass negativity. He was right, because it really affected me.Imagining that some of those people who wished me so much hate could have entered my house without me realizing it, made me even more affected. But worse than hatred or fear, it was knowing that the Brotherhood itself "criminal faction that my father and brother gave rise to" was looking for me and, on top of that, entering my house without me realizing it, left things at a much worse level of fear.As far as I knew, my father was impriso
I knew I was jealous. I knew it wasn't right for me to be bothered by that. But nothing stopped me from simply leaving my dishes for another time and going to take a shower. Nothing made me think twice while I chose a dress of blue and white flowers and dressed up all over to make an innocent visit to my best friend's house. I had a perfect excuse to visit her without implying that I was only there to see with my own eyes how many the relationship of my two unfinished loves walked. I stroked my hair in curls at the ends and filled my face with some basic makeup while going out.The party took place at Suzane's house, so I had an excuse to go there. I even bought a gift for my goddaughter, her daughter Eylem, as a perfect pretext to suddenly appear in the celebration of her family for the meeting with Mikaela's perfect boyfriend. I didn't know how they had been so dumb to believe that Mikaela had even been related for years at a distance with someone, and that that someone would be ric