Page 20 of Two Marlboros

She chuckled, as happened every time I opened my mouth. I met Ryan’s gaze and he pulled his lips to one side, and I had confirmation: I had dreamed it all.

“You should know by now that Nathan has developed a steel temper against deadly lessons.”

“Yes, you are extraordinary!”

I had noticed both, as I did every time. Ryan who had gone back to calling me “Nathan”, without abbreviations, andLaura who always used exaggerated adjectives to describe me. I wouldn’t have minded either, if it didn’t imply an obvious change in the relationship between us.

Laura leaned her head against the wall. “I have a lot of things to do and zero desire to do them, but I have to,” she bellowed.

I patted her shoulder and smiled at her. She grabbed her bag and slung it over her shoulder, then waved her hand. “See you guys next time.”

We waved goodbye and watched her disappear from our sight. He went back to looking straight ahead, but his steady gaze suggested to me that he was thinking about something else.

“Are you alright?” I asked.

Ryan’s gaze remained fixed for a few more seconds; then, as if only then did he understand what I had asked, he turned his head towards me.

He huffed, “Oh, I didn’t think you cared nowadays.”

His eyes stared at me and sent an icy chill through my body. With that look he had also frozen my lips, which remained closed and without a ready response; and it was only when he turned his gaze away from mine that the blood began to flow hot again. He grabbed his shoulder strap, slung it over his shoulder, and stood up. He gave me a fleeting glance the moment he passed me, after which he went on his way, without me being able to find the courage to say anything to hold him back.

I returned home and managed to convince myself that the only way to take my mind off Ryan was to transcribe the notes I had taken at the seminar. I sat on the floor in front of the coffee table, pen in my hand, ready to plunge into polyethylene. I glanced at the clock and - fuck! - I remembered the date with Alan. And not just the date: I also had to think of an excuse to convince him to accompany me to the party. Or how to catch himoff guard if he turned down the invitation. After all, I wasn’t at all sure he would accept; after all, what reason would he have?

We basically didn’t know each other; he had asked me out, yes, but it wasn’t necessarily going to go well. Perhaps I had been rash in my talk with Steve, and suddenly I felt under a bus. Had I been stupid or was the exasperation over that amoeba amplifying everything?

I got up and headed for the pantry, looking for something to munch on. Why did I only have crumbled crackers without salt? The breakfast cookies were gone. Gummy bears didn’t fit. I had smoked my last cigarette not even half an hour earlier, and it didn’t feel right to bottom out the pack. My palms were sweaty, and I had a great urge to scream and disappear forever.

Why was I so agitated?

Maybe because I had a chance to get rid of Steve painlessly? Because everything seemed to be going my way? Or maybe because it was the first real date in ages?

The clock on the wall suggested it was less than two hours until our meeting, so I went to the closet in search of something to wear. I didn’t want an overly sophisticated outfit, but neither did I want to give the impression that I didn’t care, so I opted for jeans and a T-shirt, with a splash of cologne. When it came time to go out, I walked past the mirror and gave one last brush to my hair, then adjusted the belt buckle in the middle, straightened the T-shirt with my hands, and stood in profile to look at the last result, which I was satisfied with; then, after a deep breath, I decided to go out.

The subway was traveling quickly, in a silence broken only by the squeal of wheels on steel. To my left sat a lady with wrinkled hands, of whom I could only peek at a floral dress and a handbag along the same lines; in front of me was a teenager with a phone in his hand and a cap hiding his face. I tried todecipher the advertisement above his head, but the glow of the lights was too dim for me to read anything. Someone to my right sneezed several times and turned out to be a bearded guy who was occupying as many as three seats, lying down with a bottle of liquor in his hand. He mumbled something in an incomprehensible language and downed a sip or maybe two.

When my stop was announced, I was well pleased to go back to the surface. I found myself in a rowdy square, and in the distance the lights of the arena illuminated the night. I moved a few steps toward the chaos that prevented me from seeing right in front of me, and in between jostling, I came to the crosswalk, which would take me to the side of the arena. The green light clicked, and I took my first step.

“Nathan?”

I froze and was engulfed by the crowd, which jostled me until it was finished. The cars started speeding in front of my eyes again, but I was too busy thinking. I had heard that voice before, of course. I knew it, I knew who it belonged to. How could I have forgotten? How could I have forgotten...

“...Harvey?”

I turned around.

There he was, standing in front of me.

My first love.

He was smiling at me. He was not much different from the 20-years-old boy who had left me, except that he looked more mature. Perhaps it was thanks to that goatee I had never seen on him, but also to the more defined features of his face. Looking at him more closely, I found him slimmed down and his cheeks a bit hollowed out. He also had a scar under his right eye.

His smile took me back to my eighteen years, when I had felt like a bewildered kid and he had been my guide, because he knew what had shaken me in my teenage years. No one else hadbeen able to read me inside like he did; and in fact, I had had no more serious love stories.

“It’s been forever since we’ve seen each other,” he whispered.

He brushed my cheek, with his warm touch and those wispy fingers, and, for a moment, I barely quivered. I felt as if I had gone back in time, to that time where one look from him was enough to feel a twinge in my stomach and my cheeks burning.

I continued to be enraptured by his eyes, while he was still smiling at me, not at all surprised by my reaction. I really couldn’t believe he was there, standing in front of me; I didn’t think my past could make its entrance like that, ripping through the present with a smile.

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