Page 152 of Two Marlboros

“No? Why?”

I thought about what I was going to say. I didn’t want to believe it was true, even for a moment, but it was.

“He told me that he was hired at the ranch and that he doesn’t even know if he’s coming back. So, I think it’s right for me to give up.”

“Why?”

I looked around for consolation, but found only blinding neon and white walls, like those in the interrogation room. Aseptic, detached, like I really was, perhaps, in that most intimate part of me.

“If he thought that, even for a moment, it means his priority is not me. He may decide to come back now, but who’s to say he won’t want to leave for good in a year or two? I would be forced to choose then. I couldn’t stand for it.”

Nelly looked at me skeptically. She shook her head and tried to articulate a sentence freeing herself from astonishment.

“And you are willing to give him up just because of his future, hypothetical decision?”

We stopped in front of Nathan’s room. Two hundred twenty-three, blue sector.

“You’re right, but I’m not the hero you all think I am. So yes, I’m willing to give up for this.”

I braced myself on crutches, even though I didn’t really need them. As soon as I looked out into the room and he turned toward me, I knew there was something between us. I had held him in my arms under that big tree and we both knew that I wouldn’t do that with anyone else, and that way of looking at each other for a long time, without saying anything and without feeling embarrassment, was not something that two simple friends would have done.

He and I weren’t, and we both knew it, because deep down we were more like two lovers who didn’t have the courage to find each other and discover each other, protected by silences, fleeting glances. The occasions between us were just pretexts to get closer without getting burned, just like it had happened the night of the party between Nathan and Harvey. And if I had teased them so much that time, now in Harvey’s place there was me, trying to have that boy around all the time, under whatever excuse. How was it possible that he had changed my life like that? Could one person really do so much in such a short time?

“Uhm, may I?”

Nelly popped up behind me. I turned to answer her, but her eyes focused on the boy bundled inside the white bed.

“Nathan!”

She sprang suddenly toward him, under the astonished stares of the relatives of the other man in the room with him. Nathan frowned for a moment, then opened his eyes wide.

“Nelly?!”

“What did they do to you? Who did this?”

I tried to reach them before the surprised tone of Nelly’s voice became capable of smashing glasses.

“I don’t know, some assholes. But… do you two know each other?”

Nelly and I looked at each other for a moment. “She’s Oliver’s sister.”

Nathan opened his mouth wide. “What?!”

He continued to stare at Nelly without being able to say anything else, and I wondered if he had also told her something about me, as I had.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Nelly retorted, amused. “What did I know? Do you know how many Alans and how many Nathans exist in this town?”

She seemed tense, but I was more so, because that last sentence of hers left little room for interpretation - apparently, both Nathan and I had confided in her. He continued to study her, uncertain how to respond, until he let out a nervous laugh, only to cry out a moment later.

“That hurt! Freaking fractured ribs.”

Nelly reached out a hand to grab a nearby chair and pulled it to herself, then sat on the tip of it.

“Gee, so it’s serious!”

Nelly and Nathan continued chatting, or perhaps it was more accurate to say that Nathan was trying to contain Nelly’s exuberance. She wanted to be told in full detail what had happened, and for a moment I thought Nathan was going to say I hadn’t done enough for him. As was obvious he said nothing of the sort; he remembered very little. The next moment I feared instead that Nelly might reveal some of my confidences to him, but that did not happen either. When I had told her about my feelings, I certainly had not thought that she knew him personally.

Nathan smiled just enough, perhaps not to give in to the temptation to laugh, but he seemed very serene, his features relaxed. Nelly would not stop talking and asking questions, and he occasionally looked at me with complicit eyes, but I was almost embarrassed, as if that kiss had really happened and we had to determine whether we were friends or boyfriends.However, there had been no kiss, and consequently there was no ambiguity about our relationship.

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