The best penance

I walked out and wandered aimlessly, ending up at the door of a Chinese-owned business. I bought a one-liter bottle of water... And I saw the park. It was already night, and it was deserted. I sat down on a bench. It was nothing more than four gardens and a wilted fountain that emitted awkward gurgles of dirty water, as if they were the last gasps of a fish agonizing between the nets. The last conversation I had inside the pharmacy came back to my mind.

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- It's better if you get dressed and leave - he had told me without looking at me.

- The only thing I'm asking - I had responded while getting dressed in a hurry - is that you answer this: What was the prize? What was the candy you promised me?

He wasn't even looking at me. In fact, I didn't see his face again that afternoon..

- I thought you would... enjoy or be interested in something I had planned to tell you. But I realized it would only have messed you up more.

- I'm not sure I understand something, and I prefer not to keep listening - I started to fear that this could end up becoming something more than unpleasant.

-I'll tell Fernando that I won't be able to continue with the project, and that from time to time, I'll make some contributions.

- Are you trying to say that you won't collaborate anymore on the food bank project? - I tried to understand.

- It's better if you leave now - he kept not looking at me. I gazed at him naked, his ass and back. He was really well-built for his age, although I didn't think he was more than eight or ten years older than me.

- I suppose someone is waiting for you at home, I know. But we should finish this conversation another time - I suggested before leaving through the access door to the portal.

- At home? Nobody... nobody is waiting for me anymore - a halo of bitterness surrounded him-. Nowhere, almost. Even less at my home! My wife left three months ago, and my children have been living their own lives for years.

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That bastard not only had labeled me as "leftovers," and, consistent with my submissive character, thinking about it, it wasn't what had messed me up the most. Nor was it that I was an instrument to pay off debts.

But he had inoculated me with a virus, a germ so damaging that it could drive me crazy. I suppose whoever has read this far (which I appreciate from the heart) knows what I'm referring to.

The damn prize! The cursed candy! It had had the same effect, or even worse damage, without having tasted it. I repeated to myself, sitting with my head down on that dilapidated bench in the twilight, that it couldn't be, that it wasn't possible. Shaking my head like someone swatting flies, I tried to convince myself that what Aranda had thought of telling me didn't involve Fernando at all.

Sometimes, even the truth is overvalued. The same...