Renata+Alves


 * A hard lesson I've learned**

“Damn” I screamed to Henrique through the window of the car while he was still parking. It was the thousandth time my boyfriend was late and I just couldn’t take it anymore. “I’m done with it” I screamed again, as loud as a Heavy Metal concert.

Henrique just stood there sitting in the car, with a nervous face, trying to calm down to explain to me that it wasn’t his fault, and in his opinion, it never was… but we were really getting into each other nerves. Henrique looked deeply at me and left without a word.

I wasn’t expecting this attitude from him and it took me about 3 minutes to realize that I wouldn’t go out without him… When I finally took my mobile phone to call him, it rang and as I thought it was Henrique, I answered at the first ring.

“I’m sorry”, I murmured and waited for him to yell at me, as he usually did.

“Hey, what’s up, Little Head?” asked me João.

I was speechless for a while, but as I was needy, I just kept talking and started walking away from home as I heard his voice, sweet and calm, asking me out and saying how beautiful I was. //The last time I sow Richard// was running through my head “You like roses and kisses and pretty men to tell you all those pretty lies…”, yeah, it was pretty much who I was or am, I’m still not sure.

“Hi, my dear…” I couldn’t help groan at him just as I couldn’t help feeling embarrassed for being happy with the call; “But he is just a friend… There’s no problem having friends, is there?” was what I thought.

João asked me gently to go to his house and as it was just a few blocks from mine, I got there pretty soon, while we were still talking on the phone.

“Hi there, Little Head” he said, with a pleasant smile on his shaved face. We both hung up the phone with a silly laugh as he opened the door and let me in.

“Hi…”, I answered back with a shy smile, wondering if someone saw me getting in. He had a nice house, it was small, but very organized and clean. He had a nice and comfortable red couch and a big TV in his living room. His bedroom door was half-open and all I could see from that angle was a king size bed and some clothes scattered all over the floor.

All of a sudden I felt ashamed and sorry for being there. There was no excuse for cheating and I knew he hadn’t asked me just for a beer… “You’re in hell, hug the devil…” I thought as I stared at him, thinking he was going to kiss me… But all he did was ask if I wanted a Heineken or a Brahma.

“I’m going for Brahma…”, I announced, “but I’ll accept a Heineken later”.

João turned the TV on and we started watching a fight. He was very interested in the fight, so I didn’t speak much so as not to disturb him and kept quite quiet while I was drinking the beer and some vodka he had laid on the coffee table.

“Can I take my jacket off? It’s a little hot in here…” I asked after almost two hours. I was actually starting to get drunk by that time.

“Sure, beautiful!” whispered João, “I’m sorry, dear… I’m not giving you enough attention, am I?”.

“It’s not a problem, Big Head… I like drinking, you know that!” I laugh “but you sure can bring me another beer…”.

As he handed me the beer, I had this strange thought “What the hell am I doing here?”, which happened to be the verse of a song I like very much. And it was the last thing I thought, because all of a sudden João hugged me and gave me a breath taking kiss, throwing me at the couch. He stopped for a moment, took some air and left without a word. I got up quickly and locked the door. As I didn’t know where he had gone, I took my clothes off and waited completely naked for him, standing up in front of the TV.

“Oh, hell! You’re beautiful!” groaned João grabbing and kissing me. He kissed my whole body and I kissed him back, taking his clothes off. João laid me on the couch and made love to me.

“Are you ok?” João asked. I looked at my mobile and there was as many lost calls from Henrique as drops of water in the Ocean. I tried to ignore it, but it kept kind of bugging me. “What is wrong with me? I just had amazing sex with this gorgeous guy and I’m wondering about my stupid boyfriend.” Was what I actually thought, but “I’m great, are YOU ok?” was my answer instead. “How couldn’t I be ok? I’m very happy that you came, Little Head.” João said.

Not long afterwards I dressed myself and walked to the door. João followed me and asked me to sleep over. “I shouldn’t have done that…” was my only reply. Slamming the front door I walked fast to get home, feeling dirty, afraid, feeling a moral hangover a thousand times worst than the alcoholic one.

Getting home, I took a shower and went straight to bed. The sleep, though, didn’t came and I remembered of a phrase I’d read not so long ago… “Don’t you just hate nights like that, when you think over every mistake you’ve made, every hurt you’ve received, every bit of meanness you’ve dealt out? There’s no profit in it, no point to it, and you need sleep.”, that was exactly how I felt. Eventually the sleep came, but the dreams were the worst possible, probably because just feeling horrific while awake wasn’t bad enough. I woke up all in the middle of the night to drink some very cold water and started thinking and tried to figure out my feelings. And it was there, standing in front of the fridge, sort of drunk and sort of hangover, that I realized... I didn’t love Henrique anymore, but it was too late for me to break a relationship of years.

I didn’t know what to do, so I just stood there, thinking about what the hell I had done with my life and about everything I was supposed to figure out and decide before talking with Henrique again. All these thoughts combined with the drinks gave me a big headache, so I just went back to sleep, hoping that all this mess could disappear as time went by. Sometime later the sleep was interrupted by a phone call. By then, I thought I had it all figured out. I was going to pretend nothing had happened and keep going with my relationship.

“Hi, baby.” I said, still sad and a little bit confused.

“I love you, you know that, right?” murmured Henrique.

“I love you too”, I answered, not so sure about it.

We didn’t see each other for the next few days and the only smile I gave was when (and took him long enough) João called.

“Are you ok, Little Head? I was thinking about you…” once again João was using his rough and seductive voice.

“Not so much, I was hoping we could meet and talk about some things I’ve been thinking. But that’s just if it’s ok with you…” I was almost apologizing myself for asking him that.

“Sure, beautiful, anything for you. Can I pick you up at seven?” he sounded pretty excited and that made me happy.

Everything was set up and he showed up on time. We rode a little before parking in his house. Once inside, I started talking about everything I was feeling and about how I wasn’t one of those girls and that could never happen again and… as if from nowhere, João appeared and kissed me, maybe just to shut me up, but I couldn’t deny it was a lovely kiss.

“What the hell!” I groaned. And all the words I had in mind went down the drain and I lost myself again in his arms.

By the time I got back home, I was already half in love with him. And I knew that someone was going to get hurt, after all, someone always got hurt when it was about love. Thinking about him, I fell asleep and had the sweetest dream I could have imagined.

In the middle of the night, I picked my mobile and dialed Henrique. “I need us to break up.” I said and even for me it was completely out of the blue. It was the worst fight we’ve ever had, there were screams, we both cried and promised eternal love, but in the end, there was the agreement that a time apart from each other was exactly what we needed.

A few days passed by and I was getting depressed. I still talked over the phone with Henrique everyday and the whole day. But the call that I really was expecting didn’t came. With a pain in the chest I asked Henrique out and we drank the whole night. “I guess he is my destiny, after all. Maybe I still love him”, I thought with a sparkle of happiness in my face. We drank a little more and it was time to go home.

“Will you call me tomorrow, babe?”, Henrique asked and I answered that I would, of course.

Before going to bed, I went to the backyard and dialed a-well-known number.

“Hi?”

“Hi, can you speak?” asked Renata.

“Sure, Little Head! Are you ok?” answered João.

We talked as if our lives depended on it. Talked for hours and I was certain that he was on the same page, but (poor me), for a moment, I forgot a very important fact about men. They almost never feel things with the same magnitude as we do, so what I believed to be a proof that he cared as much as I did, to him it was just a normal and innocent conversation with a friend who happened to be a girl.

A few days later, there was a party in a city nearby and Henrique asked me if I wanted to go with him. Getting there I looked for João the whole time and after a beer or seven, I finally found him, with his beautiful hands all over his ex-girlfriend. Hot tears rolled through my face and I just stood there, frozen, I didn’t whimper. I couldn’t help the tears from rolling, though.

Henrique noticed the tears and followed my stare. At that exact moment, a part of him died and he couldn’t express how wrecked he was, but he was as destroyed as a crashed airplane. From that moment on, the scene was a cascade effect. Henrique kept looking at me, João realized what was happening and tried not to let his girlfriend become aware of it, I glanced at Henrique and for a moment, the entire scene was kind of comic.

I paced calmly still sniffling and João come to talk to me.

“Hey, little head, what’s up?” asked João uncertain of what it would be my attitude.

“I thought you liked me.” I glared at him waiting for a reaction.

“I like you, my dear, but I’m not boyfriend material. I’m worthless. You deserve better.” João excused himself.

“Yeah, so do I.” Henrique whispered, with misery in his voice.

At that moment, I became aware that I had screwed up. Not only did I hurt someone who loved me and who I loved, but also that the relationship that you spend a lifetime building, can be demolish in a second. It was a hard lesson, but the worst of all was that I knew that I would do it again.

The end!