Leonardo

Growing up, I underwent a weird experience. There were days when I would return from school and nobody would be home. The help would be busy with their chores and my nanny would be off in some room, talking to her friends on the home phone, completely unaware of my arrival.

In my company-less room, I felt the walls constricting me. I tried screaming, hoping someone would come to rescue me before the walls squished me but my voice cemented.

Sweating and laying in a pool of it, I muffed my ears to the ever-growing, ever-rumbling sounds of the moving walls. I focused on my heartbeats, thumping in my ears and pushing into my ribs. Rendered breathless and immobile, I clawed at the marble floor only to slip. The walls quacked the floors.

Laying at its feet, I hoped for mercy.

For a brief moment, those shuddering structures would halt. The drilling sound would cease. The floor would stabilize and so would my drumming heartbeats.

Within seconds, it would begin all over again.

Skylights would sway, and the furniture would disappear from my sight. Only a hazed vision would remain. In those final moments, before the walls squeezed my life juices, I would attempt another scream.

That was all I remembered, shutting my eyes closed. The next recollection - of my nanny's soothing voice, being picked up from the ground and laid on the bed - appeared clearer.

Reality would jolt me back.

The walls never moved. The ceiling had not fallen.

My nanny had narrated that incident to my father several times, all of which he concluded as my need for attention.

It was the therapy that channeled the truth to come out. As a child, the defeating silence of the mansion affected me. It made me assume the walls were coming to get me.

While I hoped for some respite as I sat on the beach, all I could think about was Zemira. About how I abandoned her in the apartment.

The crashing waves and the salty taste of the sea breeze couldn't soothe my flaring senses. Yet, I sat there - a man who had a home to return to but never felt more homeless.

After I arrived at my apartment floor, I stood in the hallway. With hope bursting in my chest that Zemira would still be inside and fear of never being able to see her again, I pushed the door open.

The note I left for her was my way of telling her about my incapability - I could never make her happy. I could never match her love. It was my means to convey she needed to move on and away from me.

Yet, I couldn't stop wondering if Zemira would have ignored all my hints and still decided to stay with me.

I walked across my apartment.

No muffled music streaming from any room. No tap tap tap of a pen against the laptop flap. No gargling slurp of her smoothie.

Deafening silence prevailed.

It was then that I felt it again - the rumbling of the walls.

Starting slow, it gradually quaked the floor. I was scared that those walls would collapse on me again with the only difference - nobody would jolt me back to reality.

I walked around the hall, ignoring the tremors rippling on the floor, ignoring the moaning cries coming from the corners of my apartment.

My sight drifted towards Zemira's bedroom. It was cleaned up. Abandoned.

I check each closet and opened every drawer in the hope of finding something. A forgotten shoe. A broken label tag. An intentional note. Nothing.

There was not even a plastic wrapper of something in the room to indicate someone lived there. The bed was neatly covered in its previous attire of white sheet.

Like a tornado that swept an area, Zemira cleared everything in her path and rolled off into the unknown.

I sat on her bed while the room danced with her memories, her scent. I fell into the springing embrace of the mattress. The covers radiated her scent - of vanilla and lavender-infused perfume.

My ears pled to listen to her hymn the latest chartbuster while preparing her smoothie. Zemira was a ball of energy after her jog. She would sing butchered lyrics with an unbearable baritone. My eyes longed to see her use a spatula as a speaker and scream into it.

Zemira couldn't sing even if her life depended on it. Yet, she matched the confidence of an adrenaline-pumped rockstar.

The noose of her memories tightened around my neck as I tiptoed on the chair called life. Any of her reminders could kick its legs. In reality, I wouldn't die. But devoid of emotions, I would be cursed to witness everything from a vegetative state called heartbreak.

"Leo..." Mom's voice resonated from the hall and so did the sound of her heels as she trotted around the kitchen. I jerked up, wiping off residue tears with my sleeve. "Where are you?"

"In here."

Mom stood at the threshold, leaning against the doorframe.

"She left, didn't she?" She pursed her lips and nodded - a sign of displeasure she put on display whenever I goofed up.

In my desperate and lonely moment at the beach, I had rung her up to narrate the events which transpired since Monday. I rivered about Antonio's deeds; Zemira's confession, and my act of cowardice. I told her how I ill-treated the girl who fell in love with him.

I burnt Zemira with four acrid words - I don't love you. I broke her in unmendable ways. It didn't take long for me to understand, I nipped her budding love that long remained dormant.

Mom's glassy glare traveled across the room before landing on me. Without a word, she walked inside and sat next to me. We stared at the wall-mounted television as our reflections spoke.

I disappointed her too.

Mom rose from the bed, dragging her weight into the kitchen where she started a fresh batch of coffee. The roasted aroma wafted through the air.

I walked into the kitchen and sat in silence next to the machine that bubbled and rumbled, spewing steam in the air.

Pouring over a cup, she slid it towards me.

"I know you're mad at me," I said. "You can tell me."

Mom nodded sideways, waving one hand in the air to cut me off while the other hand nested her favorite blue coffee mug.

"I'm not mad, Leo. I am disheartened," she said, drawing a long, deep slurp and closing her eyes. "I'm disappointed that you of all people, who's an expert in understanding even a change in my breathing pattern was not able to read Zemira's emotions. I can't believe that you weren't able to see what everyone else could."

"What's that?"

"You care for her, Leo. But for god knows what reason, you're torturing yourself and Zemira in the process."

Taking a longer step, Mom stood next to me. With the pressure of her inner palm, she softly squeezed my hand. Her eyes darkened as she looked up, gazing at her disappointing son.

"I'm your mother, Leo. I can't be fooled by your so-called tough exterior." Her long-drawn sigh felt like a whip. "It's clear to me that you love her."

An electric shock ran underneath my skin. I jerked my hand, moving away from her; even her shadow.

"I don't love her, Mom. I've told you this a thousand times."

"Then why are you sad? Zemira left. Big deal. Wasn't it as per your plan?"

"The plan was for a year, Mom," I yelled, tugging at the roots of my hair. "In that one year, her business would have flourished. I'm sad that I couldn't deliver on my promise."

"Yes, I remember that." Mom crossed her hands across her chest, exhaling a soft grunt from the back of her throat. "The timelines got moved up and it scared you. Zemira was breaking down your walls and you felt vulnerable. Love makes anyone feel vulnerable."

I pressed my hands over the counter, blinking at the designer grey marble top. When I made a call to my mother - my voice of reason - I assumed her to agree with my decision.

Zemira was too good for us, for me. I could only offer her pain and suffering and nothing else.

"I don't love Zemira, mom." Exhausted breaths carried my words. "I only loved one girl. She's gone and with her, all the love I carried is gone with her too."

Unlike all the other times when I talked about her, Sofia's memories didn't flood my mind. Her smiling face didn't appear in my thoughts nor did her funny retorts replayed in my ears.

Was I dreaming?

Mom was still there. The apartment was still standing. I was still alive. 

The only difference from the usual was Sofia's memories that didn't make an appearance.

Like the wind that drifted with dead autumn leaves in their hold, Sofia's voice, the sound of her laughter and her features felt feeble with every passing second. 

In the background of Zemira's memories - of her smile and her happy self -Sofia had camouflaged.

For the first time, I couldn't feel Sofia's presence but someone else's.

~

Oh Leo, when will you learn?

Do you think our idiot boy would do the right thing? Or will he just run like always?