I just wanted to know why you were sad

On the TV screen, scenes of a movie she has seen many years before. No sound. She has turned the volume down. She really doesn’t want to hear words of love and funny jokes. Fuck that.

She grabs a peanut from the jar and tosses it into her mouth, chewing it absent-mindedly, her eyebrows slightly furrowed and a small dimple appearing between the two of them.

The guy in the movie grabs the girl by her wrist, makes her spin around and kisses her.

Carmen grabs another peanut and throws it on the TV. Then, she closes her eyes and rubs them slowly, deliberately slowly.

And suddenly the almost perfect silence of her emotive life and small apartment is broken by a knock on the door.

Carmen jolts, looks up, frowns again. She sighs and stands up, motioning to the hall. She has no idea of who’s knocking and doesn’t really care.

Nevertheless, she opens the door and doesn’t flinch when she sees Shane. She’s grown a little older — she’s 31, now — and, if possible, even more charming than she remembers her to be. Her hair is longer, her face much paler, her figure a bit skinnier. She wears a black shirt, a loosened white tie, black jeans and boots, no jacket.

Carmen notices everything in a fistful of seconds and doesn’t flinch. Her eyes stare at the woman who has left her in a white tent full of flowers and relatives and friends with nothing more than a short message.

Shane’s head is slightly bowed, as usual, but her eyes are looking up. None of the two women says hello.

“I just wanted to ask you something”, Shane murmurs, and her husky voice is something that is still the same as Carmen remembers. Only, the tone is different. There is a sort of resignation in it, a failure that she has never heard before.

Carmen tilts her head meditatively, then steps aside. She points at the hall, vaguely, implicitly inviting Shane in.

Shane sighs, walks over and everything in her attitude shouts discomfort and stress. And Carmen doesn’t flinch. She’s way too tired to flinch of jerk or jolt or scream. She’s way too tired to think, even.