Chapter 8 Estella #4
With the way I move, the way I think, the way I exist. And that thought curls in my chest like fire trapped in ice.
“I know that,” I whisper, the words slipping out in a blur, heavy, hazy, thick with certainty, as his gaze locks onto mine. “I know I’m all those things.”
“And I know that you know,” he answers calmly. His shoulders ease, as if he’s released whatever invisible hold he had on me. “Still,” he adds, his voice dropping quieter now, “it doesn’t mean I don’t see it. Or that I shouldn’t say it.”
I want to smile, but my face doesn’t seem to remember how. What I manage instead is a small, crooked smirk—strained, unnatural—a poor imitation of control.
I shift in my chair, warmth pooling low in my stomach, spreading and pulsing faintly—a sensation I haven’t felt in so long, if ever. Not from the words themselves, but from the way they sink in, deeper than any physical touch could reach.
“Why don’t you get a vinyl player for yourself if you want it so much?” I ask, my voice carrying a defensive edge I can’t hide as I try to change the topic. Desperate, I cling to the shards of control slipping through my fingers, biting my skin as they scatter.
“I always thought you only owned things like that when you had a home to keep them in.” He pauses, letting the words hang between us. “I still don’t have one.”
Home.
The word lands like a stone in calm water, sending unstoppable ripples through me. It tastes strange—bitter, acidic, sharp enough to sting the back of my throat. I don’t have to summon the memories; they surge on their own, vivid and relentless.
The cold walls.
The suffocating silence stretched between shouted words.
The quiet, gnawing humiliation of trying to please people who never wanted to be pleased.
Unwanted. Unloved. Unfixable.
I stare at my plate as the warmth in my lower stomach fades, cooling into something entirely different—a familiar emptiness that curls inside me, staking its claim. Discomfort rolls through me in waves, making me shiver despite the warmth of the evening.
The only thing that could bring back the heat is killing someone. I try to focus on that thought, silently weighing the options.
Waitress or family. The second would take more time, and the first deserves it more.
So much more.
“Do you think I have a home?” I ask, steering the conversation back to me.
He pauses, chewing his food, eyes drifting upward as if the answer is etched across the sky. “You have a nice place here,” he says finally. “Feels like you put a lot of effort into it. I’d call it a home.”
“My, my,” I tease. “You seem like a romantic.”
He lets out a choked laugh, leaning his elbows on the table and rubbing his palms together. “What made you think that?”
“I just feel some things,” I murmur, letting the laziness drape over the words. “It’s hard to explain. Besides, you spent the whole day exploring me instead of the city, like I’m some fucking succubus.”
“I don’t think I’m a romantic,” he says as the blush returns to his face. I wonder if he reacts like this only with me.
“Oh, come on.” I roll my eyes. “It was your idea to come here.”
“Because we were starving, Estella,” he replies, trying to sound nonchalant, yet failing miserably.
I wave him off. “We could’ve gone to McDonald’s or literally anywhere else. You didn’t even ask me where I wanted to go. I saw you glued to your phone, hunting for the ‘best’ spot. Look around.” I circle a finger around the restaurant. “It’s fucking romantic in here, and you wanted it that way.”
He laughs, and I fidget in my chair like a child caught in wonder. There’s something magnetic about the sound of his laugh—light, effortless, but threaded with a shadow I can’t ignore. Surface-level darkness, maybe. But still, it’s intriguing.
“Guilty,” he finally admits, raising his hands in surrender. “I just thought we needed a nice place to relax.”
I mess up my paella with my fork, arranging mussels as eyes and green peas as a mouth, creating a ridiculous smiley face. Pride swells despite the absurdity.
“So how come a romantic like you doesn’t have a girlfriend?” I ask.
He hesitates, clearly caught off guard, then clears his throat and straightens in his chair. “I had. One.”
I roll my eyes, disbelief curling through me. Leaning back slightly, I glance at the smiley face I made, enjoying the little triumph of it. “One?”
He takes a sip of his water before he continues. “One true love. I thought it was mutual, but apparently, it wasn’t. You can’t build anything when you’re the only one with feelings.”
“And you just let her go?”
“Had to.”
I wait, pressing for more, my patience fraying. The sensation that he hides something behind this simple story gnaws at me. “Meaning?”
“She died. Motorcycle accident.”
I nod to myself, taking a moment to read him. He can say whatever he wants, but I catch the blank stare in his eyes. It’s as if he knows he should miss her, mourn her, no matter how much time has passed—yet something inside him refuses.
Still, there seems to be even more to it than meets the eye. A twinge of something I can’t name surges through me, memories of my parents flashing unbidden. Part of me wants to tell him I understand, that I know this feeling.
But I can’t. Something grips my tongue, locking it in place.
Heat rises in my blood, and I glare at him instead, relishing the faint discomfort in his posture.
It’s not pain from the past—he felt that when it happened.
Now it’s only the residue, a hollow echo of what once was, and he’s unsettled by his own insufficient grief.
I inhale sharply, lungs expanding until my chest aches. A faint crack echoes somewhere inside, sending a shiver of satisfaction along my spine. My hand trembles as I hold the fork, gripping it tighter than necessary to keep it from clattering against the table.
“How does it taste?” I ask, nodding toward his plate. The sudden shift in topic seems to startle him.
“Amazing,” he answers lightly. “Trying traditional food in every country we visit… that’s what I was most excited about.”
“Food,” I muse, letting the word linger. “It’s only part of the fun. What about the trinkets and souvenirs?” I brush my fingers over the paper bags, making them rustle softly.
“I wasn’t expecting to go shopping on any of our trips, to be honest,” he says, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“Then we’ll make this a thing,” I declare before the thought fully crystallizes in my brain. “The flea market was the bottom of the well—in a good sense. Usually, I shop at better places.”
“Was this a test?” he asks, amusement threading his tone. The melancholy from before is barely a shadow now. “Am I worthy of moving further?”
“I wasn’t intending to make it a test,” I admit. “But it came out that way. And yes, I think you deserve to move on to something better.” I sweep my gaze over him from head to toe, then stab my fork into the smiley face, scoop a bite, and bring it to my lips. “If you don’t get killed, that is.”
“Can I ask why you love this so much? The clothes and trinkets.”
I sneer. “Who doesn’t love nice shopping?”
“You’d be surprised. Most people find it tedious. Some don’t enjoy it at all.”
“Those are some psychopaths,” I say, voice muffled by the food in my mouth.
He snorts. “Can’t argue with that.”
I lean back in my seat, taking a moment to contemplate whether I want to start this. “My mother,” I finally begin. “She was a cunt, but she had a good eye for fashion. We lived in a shithole, hungry all the time, so she got creative.”
A smile surfaces, delicate and fleeting, breaking through like a shard of light.
It trembles on my lips, fragile against the surrounding shadow, as a memory flickers behind my eyes—oddly bright, startling in its clarity.
“I remember her taking old, stinky curtains, cutting and sewing them into blouses, dresses—” I trail off, nodding slightly, as if the motion stitches the memory back together. “She could make anything.”
My gaze returns to Dante, and my smile widens. “I think I got this from her—my creativity.”
“You’re better than her,” he says.
It’s one of those lines that sounds obvious in my mind, but hearing it spoken aloud gives it more weight. Something long buried deep inside me flares to life, sparking in the quiet spaces between words.
“I know,” I whisper, blinking rapidly as the edges of the space blur. A tremor snakes through my body, and a lump rises in my throat, heavy and unrelenting.
I exhale sharply, nostrils flaring, when a shadow cuts across my face. Alert, my lips twitch as I snap my head up, annoyance flaring for a heartbeat, before I see her.
A woman stands by our table, late forties, maybe early fifties, her skin kissed by the sun and hardened by the city. Deep lines curve around her mouth, her smile soft but knowing, her eyes darting between me and Dante with a subtle, practiced curiosity.
My gaze drifts lower, to her neck: charms and pendants hang in a delicate jumble—an eye-shaped amulet, a tarnished silver coin, a tiny vial of something dark.
A street psychic. I hadn’t paid much attention before, though I’ve seen women like her scattered around Barcelona—usually perched in the middle of the street beneath worn umbrellas, calling out fortunes to passersby.
“?Podemos ayudarle? Can we help you?” Dante asks, his voice tinged with confusion.
“She’s a street psychic,” I explain, seizing the opportunity as it presents itself.
A childlike thrill surges through me, rushing under my skin like a jolt of pure adrenaline.
My lips curve into a smile as I turn toward her, every sense fully attuned, every fiber of my attention absorbed by the moment.