Page 9 of Welcome to the Friendzone

Thankfully, Director Burns gave his okay to visit her house and get some of her personal possessions but he reminded her that too many visits could alarm the mafia if they were still observing her house. Officially, the CIA had declared her dead, making sure that the mafiosos were left in the dark about whether she survived the major injuries she suffered from. It had been tough, the doctors told her parents to say goodbye to her more than once, but she fought her way back to life every time. She wondered a lot about what for. Was her life worth living now without Frank? Without the Peach?

What was left that she was looking forward to? What was left to make her happy and smile, or forget the tragedy of her life?

While sitting in an armored SUV that the CIA gave them to leave the headquarters, she turned her head to the side and watched the man who steered the car through the traffic of Washington, D.C.

She couldn’t deny that Oliver made her smile and she’d only known him for a few hours. He’d offered his help, he’d tried to lighten her mood while still keeping his polite distance. Not asking for any details, not pushing any agenda.

Oliver turned his head and gave her a side-eye, smiling a little before he concentrated on the street in front of him again. Silence lingered between them but it wasn’t uncomfortable. Marta was concentrating on her breathing, making sure she wouldn’t have a mental breakdown as soon as the car was parked on the driveway of her and Frank’s house. She’d talked to her therapist multiple times about returning and every time she’d said she wasn’t ready yet. Marta had no clue what had changed but right now she felt strong enough to face the house. The white door with the little window in it. The empty hallways and the silent rooms.

She was ready.

She wanted to be strong and this was her first step toward accepting her new life and moving on. At least that’s what she was repeating over and over again in her mind in a desperate attempt to keep the panic attack at arm’s length.

“It’s the third house on the left,” she whispered towards Oliver, who only nodded in response and slowly drove the large black car onto the empty driveway.

Marta closed her eyes and took a deep breath but before she was able to open her door she heard Oliver open the one on the driver’s side.

She quickly opened her eyes and looked at him with furrowed eyebrows.

“Wait, where are you going?” she asked.

“Helping you get the stuff out of the house and into the car. Want to make sure you’re okay, too,” he mumbled, but she saw in his features that he regretted not having asked her before.

“That’s really kind of you but I have to do this alone. It’s… it’s something mental. My therapist said I need to face the demons of my past in order to heal. So I need to go in there alone.”

“Okay. Understood. But… Gimme your phone.”

Marta wasn’t sure what he was up to, but she grabbed the new phone out of her pocket that Director Burns had given her. Keeping the old one would have been too dangerous.

She also wondered what the neighbors would think when they randomly looked out of their windows and saw a “dead” woman walking along the front porch of the house. Maybe they’d think they saw a ghost. She’d scare her neighbors to death.

Oliver typed something into Marta’s phone and started a call between the two phones.

“You don’t have to talk to me, but please put the phone in your pocket and keep the call open so I know if something happens to you and come to save you. Is that okay with you?” He looked at her narrowed eyes, not sure if she was okay with his suggestion or not.

“Okay,” Marta nodded, appreciating that this Agent cared about her. He was a really good man. She felt it in her heart.

Seeing all the candles, handwritten letters, pictures, and flowers on the front porch of her house made tears well in her eyes. A lot of the pictures showed her, Frank, and friends. Smiling and laughing, beers in their hands, at parties or barbecues. All those happy memories had now turned into painful ones. Painful to remember her old life. The life before last Christmas.

She grabbed the key that Director Burns had given her and opened the door. The CIA had changed the locks after the tragedy. The mafioso had entered the house without breaking anything, so they must have had a key. To prevent them from returning, the CIA had changed the locks as soon as Marta was in the hospital and the clean-up team was done restoring the house as much as possible. After securing all the evidence first of course.

The hallway looked exactly how she remembered it, just a little dustier. The gray particles were laying heavy on all the furniture Marta had chosen for the house. Her eyes fixed on the sideboard next to the door, remembering how she had entered the house a few months ago, and had headed towards the hidden pistol in it. With a shake of her head, she went into the living room next, collected some of the dusty decorations like vases, candles, and other stuff and placed all of them on the wooden coffee table. They had their favorite wedding picture hanging as a canvas over their couch making sure they never forgot how happy they were on that day.

Seeing the picture again made Marta smile. They were really happy and she would have those memories forever. While still staring at the large picture of her and her really handsome husband she realized that she wanted to take the photo albums with her. It was one of Frank’s weird ideas, to make a photo album after every holiday and, obviously, they had one of their wedding too. He’d said they could look at the albums again, remembering their past vacations and the amazing times they spent together. He’d preferred that over thousands of pictures on his phone but, to be honest, they hadn’t looked at the albums after their vacations.

The vacation albums were in the living room but she remembered that Frank had stored the wedding one in their bedroom because they actually looked at this one quite regularly. Sometimes before they went to bed, cuddling under one big blanket, they indulged themselves in the memories of their first day as Mr. and Mrs. Gómez.

Marta quickly paced up the stairs, skipping almost every second step. With her lips pressed in a thin line, her shoulders suddenly slumped and a pressure bloomed in her chest, Marta placed her left hand on the handle of the bedroom door.

As slowly as possible she opened the door to her bedroom, trying really hard to ignore the screaming and agonizing memories that threatened to come to the surface again. She didn’t want to think about this. The moment she’d found Frank had haunted her dreams for so long now. Marta was proud of herself because she was able to open the door and enter the room that had once been her favorite place.

Until it became her worst nightmare.

But here she was, standing in the doorway of her own bedroom, letting her gaze wander around the room. She realized that the clean-up team hadn’t actually cleaned up. The walk-in closet was still a mess, with different clothes lying on the floor, a few of them belonged to her, a few that were Frank’s. She could see some of his favorite flannel shirts. She grabbed three of them and threw them on the bed. She was taking them with her. To have something from Frank in her new life. As a reminder. So she would never forget. They were all clean so none of the shirts would smell like him but at least she had them with her.

It took Marta a tremendous effort to finally let her eyes drop to the place where Frank had been lying, where she collapsed on the floor right next to him. Of course the blood was gone and the herringbone parquet was not stained with crimson anymore.

She let out the breath she was holding, feeling relief flood her body in an instant.

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