Nemo - II - Consequences

I don't remember how I got to the hotel.

I remember the elevator. The hallway light. The card trembling between my fingers before opening the door. After that, everything becomes confused, as if someone had ripped several minutes from my memory and left only disconnected fragments.

The room was silent. Too silent.

For a few seconds I stood by the door, unable to move. My body felt heavy, foreign, as if it belonged to someone else. The wardrobe mirror reflected a figure I barely recognized.

I went into the bathroom and turned on the shower almost by inertia.

The water took a few seconds to warm up. I sat on the shower floor before even taking off my clothes and stayed there, letting the steam begin to fill the small room. When the water finally fell over me, I felt no relief. Only a distant warmth, sliding over my skin without managing to reach anywhere.

I closed my eyes.

For an instant I imagined it was him there.

That he opened the shower screen with that calm he always had for everything, that he sat beside me without asking questions and wrapped his arms around me. I imagined resting my head on his chest while he told me that everything was over, that I was safe, that none of that would ever happen again.

The image lasted barely a few seconds. Because I knew it was a lie.

It had been him who had left me there. He said those words. He had decided that my fear did not matter. And yet, my head kept searching for him like a child searches for his parents after a nightmare.

That was what scared me the most. Not the pain, not even the humiliation, but discovering that the only person I wanted comfort from was the same one who had just destroyed me.

I turned off the water. I don't remember drying myself, or changing clothes.

I only know that, at some point, I ended up lying on the hotel bed with the lights off. I curled up almost by instinct, hugging a pillow to my chest so tightly that my arms ended up hurting.

The phone rested on the nightstand, its screen black. I couldn't stop looking at it.

I was waiting for a message. A call. A simple “Did you get there okay?” Anything.

I kept telling myself that, when his name appeared, everything would have an explanation. That surely he would regret what had happened. That he would hug me, ask my forgiveness, and make me feel special again.

An hour passed.

Then another.

The screen stayed dark.

And I remained there, hugging a pillow that was beginning to grow cold, waiting for a man who probably was not even thinking about me.

I don't know how long I stayed there. The phone was still off. Not a message. Not a call. Not an explanation.

Even so, I kept looking at it every few minutes, as if by waiting hard enough I could make his name appear.

It was ridiculous. He had managed to make my mood depend on a noti...