Trying Not To Love You - Amabile Giusti Page 0,102

walls and the fire escape.

Holed up under the covers in Barbie’s bed, Penny cried all the tears ever created by God. She thought about all the time they’d spent together: the way they had first met, their first standoffs, their first kiss, their first time.

Though it hurt her, she wondered what Marcus and Francisca were doing. Were they making love again? Were they sleeping in each other’s arms? Were they eating dinner together and laughing and catching up on their four years apart? When would they be leaving?

Will Marcus ever think of me?

Will I ever stop crying?

In the morning, she left home early to go to the hospital. She had barely slept an hour, made up of minutes-long stretches when she’d managed to drift off, only to start awake again.

She spent the morning with Barbie, ate nothing and drank a disproportionate amount of coffee from the hospital vending machine. Her grandma alternated stretches of sleep with moments of confused chatter, and when she was awake, she began to cry desperately, wailing that her son was dead, as if it had happened only an instant before and not almost twenty years ago. Penny hugged her and cried with her.

Upon returning home, she felt as weak as a child with a high fever who’d been up all night vomiting. She walked slowly up the stairs, fearing she’d run into Marcus, hoping she’d run into Marcus. When she reached her own landing, however, instead of entering the apartment and closing herself in and shutting out the world, she let herself be led away by a delirious temptation.

She climbed the spiral staircase in silence, and put an ear to the attic door. What she heard was the absolute end of even her faintest hopes. Marcus and Francisca were having sex – those sounds were unmistakable. She didn’t doubt that they’d been doing it for hours, doing their best to make up for so many years of forced separation.

She put a hand over her mouth to keep from screaming. She wanted to shout his name, even if she didn’t know why – maybe because saying it would mean he still existed for her and wasn’t part of a past she had to bury.

But she remained silent. She went back downstairs, trembling, and vomited her coffee along with a sea of acid. Then she looked at herself in the mirror: her eyes were red, swollen and devastated with sadness. Her lips too were swollen, and bleeding. Her nose looked like a purple plum. Her emerald-green lock of hair was beginning to fade, turning now to a blue-grey – more grey than blue. And she realised she didn’t deserve this much pain all at the same time.

So she did something she wouldn’t normally do.

She called Igor. They agreed to meet each other that evening. He seemed really happy with the call, recognising it as the miracle it was.

In the hours beforehand, Penny got ready carefully – she even put on make-up – and put on the only provocative dress she owned. The one Marcus had criticised, the green velvet sheath she’d worn to visit Francisca in prison. She liked it. It was snug and short enough to suggest her precise intention: she would sleep with Igor – out of desperation and vengeance, and for her own oblivion – and she wouldn’t look back.

Igor arrived on time with an exultant smile on his lips. He got out of the car and held out his arm for her, opening the passenger door like a true gentleman. He wore a trench coat over his jeans, and a trilby.

Penny was about to climb in when she felt her heart jump into her throat. Without understanding why she was suddenly falling, Igor’s hand shot out and held her steady, thinking perhaps she had tripped because of her high-heeled boots. In actual fact, she had spotted Marcus and Francisca walking together just a few feet away. They were pressed against each other and holding bags as if they had been out shopping. That familiarity, which screamed, We don’t just have sex, we eat together, breathe together – we are as one, hurt Penny more than their stolen moans through the door.

But Penny pretended not to see them. She pretended to be a happy girl who was going out for a real first date with her high school crush and saw nothing but him. She pretended to be a relaxed twenty-two-year-old in a green dress with a faded green lock of hair and a