04

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 appointments in the same gym where he practiced his muscles, and had to set up his own 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 on the basis of 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, and 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 obviously 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 in 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 the 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!"