Without waiting for a response, I pressed the power button. The dry click of the cell phone echoed in my ears like an unnecessary echo.
With a careful movement, I put the cell phone in my pocket, leaving behind the sound and vibration of incoming messages.
With all my determination, I took a step forward. Steps that avoided making noise, with a hunched back and hands in pockets.
I felt the weight of the cell phone against my right leg, as if insisting on reminding me that it was still there, that nothing had ended.
My gaze remained fixed on the ground, not out of distraction, but out of caution. Raising it was tempting Tyche's randomness.
Each step sounded louder than it should, as if the ground remembered that I was alone.
The cold of that gray morning, with dense clouds hiding the blue of the sky, revealed the dark humidity of a special day for me.
That icy sensation not only slipped through the collar of my coat; it slid down my back, wrapped around my neck, and climbed up my skin like a silent warning.
Upon arrival, the plaza was brimming with life, but not the kind I could touch.
The lights of the signs flickered with an annoying urgency, wanting to force my eyes to look. Red and green neons dissolved into reflections on puddles, and each store shouted its existence with signs saturated with numbers, exclamations, and colors too vivid for that hour.
The constant murmur of conversations, disorderly laughter, and shrill squeals of children running between benches and columns vibrated in a rhythm that didn't include me.
I advanced as if the air had weight, sinking into an invisible liquid. I walked underwater, while the world floated above, light, alien, inaccessible.
The air smelled of freshly made food: warm sweets that melted just with the aroma, juicy meats sizzling on steaming grills, hot breads with golden crusts that crunched when broken, and a trail of sweet and spicy spices that tangled in the nose.
My stomach responded with a sharp knot, a stinging reminder that I hadn't eaten all day. But the hunger didn't feel real. It was hollow.
I turned to the sides. The image distorted before my eyes. Life continued its course with brutal indifference.
A pair of children, dressed in yellow raincoats, ran uncontrollably, arms extended like wings.
One tripped on a hole hidden under a gray puddle. It seemed like a fall that should end in tears. But, for no apparent reason, they both looked at each other... and burst into laughter.
The standing child extended his hand. A gesture that didn't erase the smile from either of them; on the contrary, it reinforced it... and turned it into a new laugh.
And with that help, he got up. Without breaking the rhythm, both resumed the game and ran past me. One of them brushed my coat without noticing... and they continued, as if I didn't exist.
I stood still, watching them disappear into the crowd.
I was just a spectator. A translucent silhouette dragged by the current. A ghost that no one had invited.
My gaze fell on the stepped puddle. The water that previously seemed gray now looked clean. As if the opaque layer, broken by an unexpected laugh, had revealed that at the bottom... there was always clarity.
A small laugh escaped me, followed by a smile. The brightness of that clean puddle, for the first time, didn't bother me.
I left that image behind, as the sky began to clear.
I spotted Mian in a corner, sitting at one of those metal tables that seem uncomfortable until someone occupies them with grace.
She was surrounded by the warm lights of a fast food place, and in front of her, a container of fried chicken rested almost untouched, with the waxed paper wrinkled at one edge, as if she had opened it without hunger, just to pass the time.
Her posture was relaxed, almost careless, one leg crossed over the other, shoulders loose, and she chewed with that calm rhythm that only those who don't expect anything urgent have.
For an instant, I envied her. She seemed to fit perfectly into that artificial setting, as if the world was designed to revolve around her without stumbling. As if neither the cold, nor the noise, nor the wait weighed on her.
I approached her side, pulled the chair in front of her and sat down slowly, as if the simple act of bending my knees was already a burden that the body hesitated to accept.
The cold metal pierced the fabric of my pants with an almost offensive rawness, reminding me that even resting hurt.
I let out a low sigh, the kind of sound that doesn't seek attention, but carries the weight of something that hasn't been said in days.
My hands trembled slightly on the table, fingers crispated in a clumsy attempt to appear normal. I hid them under the edge as if hiding a crime, ashamed not of the trembling, but of not having enough strength to disguise it.
—Mian... do you think a cake would be enough? —I asked, my voice barely brushing the air, as if I feared that by raising it too much, the question would become real.
My fingers, restless, intertwined and unraveled under the table, as if looking for something to hold onto, something that wasn't there.
She raised her gaze slowly.
Her eyes met mine, and in that fleeting crossing of glances, time seemed to spill in slow motion. There was no judgment on her face, just a calmness that hurt to look at.
She chewed slowly on the last bite, as if she didn't want to interrupt the moment with empty words.
Then she set the container aside, unhurriedly. The plastic crunch against the metal seemed louder than normal.
She tilted her head, just slightly, with that strange tenderness of hers, that gesture that seemed to say: "I'm trying to understand you, even if you're not sure what you're saying."
—Enough for what? —she asked, in a low voice, as if afraid of pushing me to a place I couldn't return from.
The nonchalance had disappeared from her face. Now only the Mian who listened seriously remained.
Her eyes, previously serene, now sharpened, as if trying to strip away my words to find what I was really trying to hide.
She no longer chewed, no longer played with the container, was no longer just Mian waiting. She was Mian seeing.
I looked away. Not out of shame, but out of fear that if she saw me too much, she would also see the cracks I had covered with empty gestures and half-phrases. If I spoke, if I said it out loud, the world I had created for Rinn—fragile, made of silences and cakes—would break like a poorly polished crystal.
The murmur of the plaza became a distant buzz, as if everything had submerged underwater.
The garish colors, the running children, the strident advertisements no longer existed. There were only Mian and I, trapped in a bubble that smelled of poorly disguised truth.
—Stop deceiving yourself.
The phrase fell without adornment, without pauses, without compassion. A dry blow, directed at the chest, right where one keeps what one doesn't want to face.
—At some point you'll have to tell her, how will you do it, Marl?