Nemo - IX - The Reunion

When I looked at the clock again it was almost seven in the morning.
I had kept walking for hours without paying much attention to where I was going. The city was beginning to change. The first shops were opening their doors, buses were starting to run more frequently and some cafés were beginning to fill with people. The night was receding little by little and, with it, the feeling of being hidden from the rest of the world.

I still felt exactly the same.

I had remembered too much.

His return, the way he had come back into my life and how, for a while, I mistook that renewed attention for a second chance. Then came the demands, the transformation of my body, the new rules and that feeling increasingly difficult to ignore that he wasn't looking at me like before.

I had become something he could use.

And yet, when I thought of him, I still hoped his name would appear on the screen.

That was what hurt me the most.

I knew nothing about him.

Not where he was, nor what he was doing, nor if he even thought of me. I had spent the whole night waiting for a message that never came. Every time I took out my phone I found the same empty screen.

Finally I decided to go back to the hotel.

The way back seemed much shorter to me. When I entered the lobby, the morning receptionist greeted me with a distracted gesture. I went up to my room and closed the door behind me.

Everything was exactly the same as when I had left.

The unmade bed.

The coffee cup still on the table.

The backpack open next to the closet.

I stood for a few seconds in the middle of the room not knowing where to start.

Then I took out the suitcase.

I folded the clothes slowly, without any hurry. I put away everything I had left scattered during the night. It was a simple task, almost mechanical, and I was grateful to have something to do with my hands.

From time to time I looked at the phone.

Nothing.

At a quarter past seven I finished closing the suitcase.

I sat on it and looked at the room for the last time. I had spent barely a few hours there, but it seemed like a whole week had passed.

I put the phone in my pocket and stared at the closed suitcase. I thought that maybe the best thing was to leave, go home and leave that night behind. But then I remembered the first time we had seen each other again.

It had been me who traveled to his city. I remember perfectly the nervousness of waiting and the excitement with which I arrived, convinced that those months of distance would disappear as soon as I could have him in front of me. However, from the first moment everything was different from what I had imagined.

I spent practically the whole day attending to him while he ignored me. I prepared things to eat, tidied up, ran small err...