They were touching my hair, softly caressing me. Trailing from my cheek to my neck and then back to my hair. I fell in love with his touch.
I opened my eyes to see who was causing these caresses. Donovan was looking at me. Neither of us said anything. The silence and darkness were our best allies at the moment.
Why had he distanced himself from me for so long?
As if reading my thoughts, he stopped caressing me and returned to his stern expression.
“Can you speak?”
“Yes…” I said, and then I started coughing forcefully. My throat was burning.
Donovan ran to a place in the darkness and the lights turned on. It seemed like a small apartment. There was a kitchen and a tiny living room. A bathroom to my left and a single bed to my right.
He returned running with a glass of water. I grabbed it and took a sip, the sensation felt like swallowing needles.
“I’m not surprised you’re like this, you’ve been screaming all the time, and very loudly.”
Was I screaming all the time? I felt like I wasn’t talking, that I was mute… Everything around me was silence.
I don’t even remember how I got here, where are we?
The music was still playing, although it seemed quite far away from us. How long had I been asleep?
Something on Donovan’s hands caught my attention, his knuckles were full of dried blood and his jacket had drops of it. What the hell…?
“This?” He realized what I was looking at. He made a grimace and grabbed a rag that was in the kitchen to clean himself. “I told you he wouldn’t hurt you again.”
“Did you…?” My hoarse voice could barely finish the sentence.
“… Kill him?”
“I didn’t murder him, Alicia, though I certainly had the urge. If you hadn’t started screaming, I would have done it. But all I’m going to tell you is that he’ll have to get his ugly nose and maybe his jaw fixed.”
“Thank you.”
“Damn it, Alicia, don’t thank me for that, anyone would’ve…”
“No.” I cut him off, knowing that not everyone would have done the same. There were thousands of people there, none of them did anything.
He stopped speaking, just moved closer and knelt in front of me. “Why did you react like that? You were unhinged. I couldn’t control you. I couldn’t stop your screams.”
“I’m sorry…”
“No, Alicia, don’t apologize, this wasn’t your damn fault. But it’s not normal.”
At my lack of response, he cradled my face again, though this time I didn’t hit him to let me go, I just enjoyed his warm hand on my face while my skin tingled underneath. “Did your father ever touch you?”
I knew where this was going and I didn’t like it. “No.”
I got up and walked towards the only door there was here. I didn’t want to hear the next question.
Donovan stepped between the door and me. “Did someone touch you, Celina?”
“No.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“Do you care now? Really? Where have you been all this time? Why didn’t you call?” I strained as much as I could for the words to leave my mouth.
I came urgently to see him, but this time I urgently needed to run away. He was not going to know about Shawn. He was not going to do it.
“Don’t start, Celina, don’t act defensively. I asked you a question, you’re not leaving until you answer.”
I noticed the determination and confidence in his voice, he was not going to let me go.
He can’t know! Nobody can! Damn!
“Let me go, I beg you.”
“I won’t do it.”
Tears began to gather in my eyes again and I bit my lip hard enough to make it bleed. I was nervous.
“Who touched you, Celina?”
“Nobody, damn it! Nobody!” I began to choke, Donovan quickly got to my side and gave me the glass of water.
“I’m sorry, I’ll stop,” he said.
Donovan stayed with me at every moment of my shock, he held me and saved me, I feel more than grateful to him, being by his side makes me feel very safe. Unable to control myself, I leaned on him and to my surprise, he wrapped his arms around me.
We spent several minutes like this. I could hear his heart beating wildly.
“If you keep going like this, you’re going to die from an attack,” I said, unwilling to let him go.
“If you don’t want that to happen, you should let go.”
I did, I let go, but he didn’t stop wrapping me with his arms.
“Same goes for you, Donovan.”
I took a brief look around. The guitar was next to the sofa, there was a beer can on the counter and a jacket on top of it.
“Where did you go?” I asked over his chest. Everything in him tensed up. He knew the moment was over and that I would be stripped of one of the most beautiful feelings on earth, being in his arms.
“You shouldn’t have come, Alicia…” he hardened his voice.
I laughed indignantly. He moved away to the other end of the room, as if he couldn’t be near me. “Is that going to be your only answer? That I shouldn’t have come?”
“You have to leave.”
“I’m not going to leave!” I yelled, moving closer to him, but he began to move so that it didn’t happen. “Do you have any idea how many times I’ve looked for you?! Since the day you left me at the hospital you’ve been treating me like shit!”
“What are you doing here then? I thought you were smart and would stay away. Do you like being mistreated, Alicia? I can do it…”
I knew he would start doing that, he would act defensively, then he would go into denial and after that, he would explode. I know him.
“Stop it! Stop acting like that! You’re not cynical with me!”
“Your problem is believing you know me.”
Incredulous, I leaned on the door, almost as if I couldn’t stand. I wanted to stop and just have him apologize, hug me and never leave again, was that so difficult? “We’ve already gotten past that, I know you, I spent whole weeks with you.”
“You spent, past tense, why don’t you do it anymore? Because I left. Get the hint.” The indifference in his whole body surprised me. He was a very good actor, I always told him.
“Indirectly, like the songs you sang looking at me?” I crossed my arms, half laughing, I couldn’t believe he thought I was so stupid.
“I looked at you, at Vanessa…” He answered quickly, but began to get nervous, I noticed.
“That’s stupid, Donovan, you never took your eyes off me.”
He let out a huff. He blinked a couple of times, afflicted, thinking about how to respond to me. “You want to feel special.”
I got exasperated that he was being so stupid.
Explicitly I had to tell him how I felt, practically risking too much to allow a broken heart. “I don’t want to be special! I want you again! No… Don’t you miss me?”
He didn’t change his expression, he remained unbreakable. “No. I would have answered some of your sick messages if that were the case.”
“The hug from a few minutes ago?”
He shrugged. “For old times’ sake.”
“Do you think I’m stupid?”
“If you weren’t, you would have already left. It’s pathetic how you don’t stop.”
I raised my hand and stammered. He was hurting me. “Stop…”
He shook his head and I saw some pain in his eyes, but it was quickly replaced. “Seriously, Alicia, you have no dignity.”
I grabbed a handful of the side of my blouse and squeezed, trying to channel my anger into something other than Donovan’s face. “Everyone was fucking right about you! You’re a piece of shit person!”
“Who are everyone? The kid you’re with?” He spat venom at those words and his eyes lit up with anger.
“What?”
“Cris? I’m not with…”
Now I understood the song “Tell me a lie”. He was jealous. How did he know I was dating Cris?
That thought I stored for later, it was not important now, I already discovered how to get to Donovan.
“Good, go with him, you’re wasting time with me,” he growled, looking at me almost with disgust.
“I want to be with you,” the words come out easily, I really meant them, but I was never so open with anyone, and honestly, it was stupid to be so with the only person who can screw you over.
His fury is increasing, I know it, I see a dozen more screams coming, I was provoking him, it affected him. “What part of everything I told you did you not understand?”
“You’re an idiot,” I declared, but I did not stop walking towards him.
“Leave,” he ordered, taking the same steps as me, but backward. He wanted to get away.
“And yet, I only think about you.”
Damn, telling Donovan was not easy, but I needed it and he was not going to give in. “Enough,” he says pleading and demanding, a strange combination, but evident.
“And yet, I like you.”
He put his hands in fists at his side and clenched his teeth. “Please, stop…”
There was no room to keep moving away. Donovan’s back hit the kitchen counter and I was only a centimeter away from him. I had him too close, I could see his eyes totally crystallized and his pupils dilated. His breathing quickened.
“And yet, I love you,” I finished, more open to my emotions than ever. Donovan changed me, I’m not as hard as before, I still don’t know if that’s good or bad, but for now, I only focus on the person in front of me.
Donovan wrinkled his nose and his whole face contracted. “Damn it! I don’t love you!” He roared in my face causing me to now back away with my heart in my feet. “Can you understand that? You’ve become damn unbearable this time! I had to disappear so you wouldn’t chase me! Didn’t you realize you were suffocating me and I was with you because I felt sorry for you?! I can’t stand your damn presence anymore! You’re worse than your cousin! That’s why you’re looking for me, because you don’t have anyone else who can stand your…”
I didn’t let him continue because my open hand went straight to his cheek. My eyes were filled with tears that fell one by one down my face. He was impassive, he stopped talking and just looked at me. I wanted to keep hitting him, the anger flowing through my blood asked me to, but I didn’t. I walked quickly towards the threshold and found a short hallway with another door at the end of it, I opened it and there was the bar, the people, the dance floor, and next to it, the stage.
“Celina…” He tries to reach me, so I walk towards the respective exit. I hate giving him the satisfaction that his words completely shattered me, they poisoned me. “Celina, wait.”
The moment he dares to touch my arm, I push him away and the anger has already consumed me. I try to slap him again and in a second, he grabs my wrist to prevent it. I want to hit him with the other and he avoids it using the same cowardly method, he knows he deserves the hits I want to give him.
I start to struggle with his grip but obviously, he’s stronger than me, I want him to let me go, why the hell does he want me? Why does he like to torment me so much?
“Let me go!”
“No, calm down! I’m sorry! Okay? I’m sorry!”
“You’ve already said everything, damn it! You’ll never see me again!”
“You don’t understand!”
“I’ve understood everything! You don’t have to feel sorry for me anymore!”
“I can’t love you, Celina, you don’t understand! I can’t! You drive me crazy all the damn time, when you’re not with me I feel dead! You ruined everything for me! Everything went to shit! And this time that I’ve been without you? There were nights when I didn’t know what to do with my life, with me, with everything! I didn’t know what the hell to do! I didn’t know if I should call you or find some damn way to rip you out of my memory!”
Tears kept flowing and now more than ever, I loved every word.
“You don’t understand that you were suffocating me and I was with you because I felt sorry for you.”
“I don’t believe you! I hate you! I hate you for making me believe that you and I felt the same. I hate you because I got so used to your damn presence that without you around, I’m going crazy! And I hate you even more because I love you so much that my damn heart hurts every time you try to break me!” I yelled in his face as tears ran and soaked my cheeks.
He moved so fast towards me that I couldn’t process anything in the moment.
His hand taking me by the nape of the neck and his countenance coming towards me was something I could never predict.
“You hate me? I hate me too.”
At this moment, this very moment, I’m closer to the clouds than I’ll ever be. Donovan fixed his warm, soft lips with mine. He kissed me ferociously, enjoying every contact and movement of our mouths, I dared not move, I did not want it to end, he stopped for a second to murmur in my mouth. “I didn’t mean all those things, you’re… You’re beautiful.”