18

Szzzu szzu...

When Helen opened her eyes there was this noise coming from under the pillow: it was her cellphone brightening the realtor's name. And by raising her eyelids up the screen she found out it was 10 in the morning. She had lost the appointment with Mr Miller.

"No! I'm coming!" She screamed to the other side of the line.

"Lost your chances, Miss Navarro. Next week only. Have a good Saturday."

"No! Wait!.. ugh! Stupid English people!!" She threw the phone away. "I can't be late 5 minutes!!" - and looking over the bed to the clock. - "Yeah, actually 30 minutes; but who cares?"

She opened the apartment's door snorting and saying bad words to herself. "Ah! You again?! How long have you been waiting for me in this hall?"

His gaze was raised towards her. Instead of an answer he dryly showed the water and energy bills. For some seconds Helen waited for a hello or remnants of the previous day's sweetness but his eyes kept solemn and distant, reading the papers.

"Why are you ignoring me?" She asked. Her words vibrated and slowly evaporated in cold air, like reminiscent echos of a lonely person while he didn't give a shit.

Feeling like screaming more bad words — real ones this time — and locking herself into an isolated prison in India Helen turned around to Ap2 again and closed the door behind. Getting some consciousness and remembering she was supposed to see Mr Miller, went back. This time Octavian had finished the letters and was responding some iMessages, with the door to his apartment opened already.

"Why are you ignoring me!" She cried out.

He sighed, impatiently. "And why would someone care?", and making eye contact with her. "... I am your neighbor, not your friend."

The hall's lamps flicked tones while she picked up her heart that was smashed on the floor. So the hot chocolate thing was a joke! so was his personal questions and his brown eyes, she knew something was wrong as soon as he started communicating and being friendly, like a human!

Right now Helen's desire was to cry, so she looked down at her feet and started the beaten way back to her cave. Mr Miller would not listen to her anyways and Octavian was an asshole, perhaps Logan and him could make a political party and rule the world with Trump, she wouldn't care as long as they didn't affect Canada.

Blam! The door was closed tight.

Something was smelling badly in the kitchen. It was the industrial quesadillas she'd put on the sink to unfreeze, maybe it was of a bad quality but throwing things in the garbage requires too much courage, so she just stared at it. The Mexican dish is a thin dough with cheese (queso), but most of the times she would find meat quesadillas without the cheese and this was extremely confusing. Perhaps Octavian was like a quesadilla, at first you see at the frozen section in the market and think "oh no, I only trust real Mexican-made quesadillas!". But then time passes and you feel like you miss quesadillas, so the second time at the market you think "oh well, the package is so pretty and there's good stuff written in here, I will buy". But then when it is finally time to try, the cheese quesadillas are meat quesadillas that stink your kitchen.

What is his problem, has he got tired? Has he mentally confirmed she was homosexual and lost interest?

"Why would someone care", Helen mumbled, "and why would I care; have more important things to resolve like a damn house to sell and these fake tortillas to burn, incinerate, fake fake fake!"

Weird, how sometimes after you just experienced a memorable situation your brain starts thinking too much about it and unconsciously re-creating whole scenes with different outcomes. The number of alternative realities we are capable of making inside our thoughts are infinite, and while Helen dealt with the sink, images of the hallway and Octavian Gardner invaded her mind like water being absorbed by a sponge.

"Oh, you again? How long have you been waiting for me in this hall?"

He looked up and smiled, showing the correspondence. "Unfortunately getting love letters from girls are past, heh? I miss those."

"I am sure you never received one." She teased.

"Wrong... one day I wrote a letter to a brunette from my classroom and she responded. True love is like this, bae."

"Yes, true love." She snorted; and Octavian asked if she was still mad at the ex husband, and if she needed help with something. Helen said no, she was only pissed at the realtor, and that without the man the papers from her apartment would be stuck forever.

"But are you leaving already?"

"Well, if Mr Miller keeps on taking so long I think I will stay till death."

"Don't go." Octavian said, forgetting the letters and stepping closer. "You don't want to leave and spend your days regretting your marriage." He was closer than she wished him to be, and grabbing her shoulders he looked intently into her eyes, "you and I know how much much fun we can have together..." She was slowly pushed backwards, towards the door behind, which was Ap2's. She felt the door on her hells and her butt and then her back. Octavian brushed his nose on hers and she felt an overwhelming need of—

Plof, plof, plof! Helen scared with the sudden crashing of the wet quesadillas on the floor. Oh, thanks God or she would have gone too far...