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“What you’re going to do is crush on me as much as I’m crushing on you. Maybe, in the end, you’ll even love me and stop hiding all your little secrets.”
I’m waiting for him to chuckle. But Eric closes his eyes, and his face remains solemn.
“No, I can’t, Jude. If I awaken those emotions, I’ll just get hurt, and you’ll get hurt too.”
“What kind of foolishness is that?” I ask.
He tries to change the subject. Again.
“What do you think we should do tomorrow?”
I sit down on the bed and move a lock of hair from my face.
“Eric, what is this BS?”
“It’s the truth.”
“My emotions are already awakened, and nothing can be done about that. I like you. You drive me crazy. You fascinate me. And don’t lie—I know I have the same effect on you. I can see it on your face, in your eyes when you look at me, in your hands when you caress me, in the way you possess me when we make love. So just tell me once and for all what those medicines are about.”
His jaw tenses, and he gets up. I follow him to the bathroom, where he throws some water on his face, grabs his toiletry bag, zips it, and throws it angrily against the wall. I don’t know what’s going on, and I look at him uneasily.
“What’s happening? What did I say that could put you in such a state? Does this have anything to do with the calls you get all day from Marta and Betta? Who are they? I mean, look, I’ve tried to be quiet, to not say anything, but I just can’t take it anymore!”
Eric won’t look at me. He rushes out of the bathroom and stands by the window. I follow and force myself right in front of him, face to face.
“Don’t run away from me. You and I are here right now, and I want you to be honest with me and tell me what’s going on. Goddamn it, Eric, it’s not like I’m asking for eternal love. I just need to know what’s going on with you, and who those two women are.”
“That’s enough, Jude. I don’t want to talk anymore.”
I’m despairing, and when I see my naked reflection in the closet-door mirror, I realize I need to get dressed. I put on my underwear, a torn T-shirt, and a pair of denim overalls.
“All right,” I say, turning back to him, “so what is it that you don’t want to talk about anymore?”
“I said, ‘enough’! I’ve had my share of these little scenes for today.”
“Your share of these little scenes? What are you talking about?”
“Your questions make me uncomfortable.”
But now I’m emboldened.
“My questions make you uncomfortable? Well, your inability to respond makesmeuncomfortable. I understand you less and less every damned day.”
“I’m not trying to get you to understand me.”
“You know what? I had almost forgotten about you right after you disappeared from my life, and then you showed up at the door of my father’s house ...”
“Forgotten about me?” he hisses, now really close to my face. “How can you say you’d almost forgotten about me when you tattooedthaton your body?”
He’s right.
The phrase I tattooed on my body is ours, and I don’t see how I can argue.
“Yes, I tattooedthatbecause of you. Something inside me told me you would be an important person in my life, and I wanted to have something on my body that belonged to the two of us, and that would last forever.”
“The two of us?”
“Yes!”