Chapter 31 Clarity
Clarity
Coco
When I curl up in a ball on the bottom bunk, I hate knowing Aroa’s asleep right above me. Right now I wish I could start kicking until she wakes up and then drag her by the hair out of the RV and not let her come back in. I’m really pissed off…with her and with myself.
I’m numb. Exhausted. I don’t understand a lot of things about what happened tonight. I’m confused, but the only thing I’m really worried about is Marín. What have I done?
I grab my phone and make a rookie mistake. I write him a WhatsApp. A super cringe one:
Coco:
Please…don’t leave. Don’t leave yet. Give us a chance to talk. Give us a chance to…I don’t know. I can’t justify my actions, but we need to talk about it, Marín. Don’t leave before we can talk. Don’t leave without me.
I stare at our chat for a long time, but the two ticks don’t turn blue: They stay gray.
He hasn’t logged on. I don’t think he will tonight.
Finally, I put my phone down on the pillow and curl up tighter.
If he were here, he would make me leave my phone outside the bunk. He hates that I sleep so close to it.
“That can’t be good, Coco. One morning you’re going to wake up with brain damage.”
Look. He was right about that. It’s already starting.
I close my eyes, but I can’t sleep. I pick up my phone again. He still hasn’t seen it. I open my chat with Gus and write him without thinking twice about it.
Coco:
I’m really sorry I pushed you to fuck up like that.
He instantly shows as Online. Typing.
Gus:
It was both of us.
Everyone knows at this point, I’m guessing.
Coco:
When I got back, Marín was the only one here.
Gus:
Tomorrow, just blame it all on me. I don’t think anyone will have trouble believing you.
I scoff. He was a piece of shit and now we’re two pieces of shit.
Coco:
Don’t be a martyr. It’ll all be okay.
Gus:
If this were my only fuckup, I’d agree, but I have a lot of yellow cards.
This is a red card. I’ll give you a heads-up.
Coco:
Now you’re using soccer metaphors.
Gus:
I do what I can. How are you?
Coco:
Awful. I cried, I attacked, I blamed, I begged and, finally…I kissed Marín.
Gus:
Totally your style.
Coco:
Is he there?
Gus:
Yeah, next to me, snuggled into my chest and babbling in his sleep about how much he appreciates me.
No way…he came in, grabbed the car keys, and when I tried to say sorry, he told me not to say anything.
Slammed the door on his way out. Fin.
Fuck.
Gus:
Listen, Coco. Stop spiraling.
Right now there’s no solution and everything seems worse at night than it really is.
Coco:
Is that why you live more at night than in the day?
Gus:
Isn’t that a song? Come on. Listen to me for once. Go to sleep. We have plenty of time to feel miserable. Good night.
I put my phone under my pillow again, but I don’t sleep. I stare at the ceiling for at least an hour and a half. Marín never answers. He must be on his way home.
* * *
I feel uncomfortable as soon as I wake up.
It’s really hot in here. We’ve been really lucky up until now with mild days, but that seems to be changing.
But on the other hand, we don’t have much time left.
A hard, shame-tinged nostalgia spreads through my chest. The heat woke me, but once I’m fully conscious, it’s the memory of last night that torments me. It’s time to get out of bed.
I find a handwritten note on the cute little countertop.
It’s from Aroa. It says she’s going to the beach alone and she doesn’t know when she’ll be back and that we should make plans without her.
I’m relieved but kind of think she’s the fucking worst at the same time.
A coward and a brat. Okay. The few hours of sleep have not calmed me down in the slightest.
I head out of the camper clenching the scrap of paper. The last time I checked the time on my phone, it was seven in the morning. Now it’s noon and the sun is relentless. It’s beating down, and there’s not even a hint of breeze to soften this muggy, sticky heat.
By the way, Marín still hasn’t answered. I don’t know whether to feel annoyed or start calling hospitals.
Finding Blanca sitting on the terrace and holding a Styrofoam cup full of steaming coffee almost kills me. She’s blowing on it, but I don’t think that will be enough to cool it down much in this heat. I would kill for a coffee, but I’m already about to have a heart attack.
“I bought you a coffee,” she says. “It’s still boiling—be careful.”
I sit across from her. She looks terrible: Her eyes are swollen and red, two huge purple bags under them, and she’s pale. I take the coffee and two sugar packets and thank her.
“Are you okay? You don’t look great.”
“I had a bad night.”
“It was really hot.” I don’t want to pressure her.
“Yeah, well.” She smiles sadly. “And other stuff.”
I pour the sugars into the coffee and sneak in for a second, looking for two cubes of ice. When I come out, I offer one to Blanca, which she puts in her coffee.
“Do you wanna talk about it?”
She flicks her finger at Aroa’s note. She gives a half smile. “The princess is pouting,” she says, changing the subject.
“Well, that makes two of us. I kissed Marín last night.”
“And you slept with Gus.”
Her reply isn’t hard or malicious, but I can sense her disapproval. What did I expect? Friends aren’t there to rub your back when you do something wrong.
“Not exactly.” I spin the ice cube around in the coffee with my finger, careful not to submerge it. “That was my intention, yes, but it didn’t happen.”
“No?”
“No. Sometimes the universe works in our favor to stop us making things worse.”
“You didn’t sleep together?”
“No. I was ready to and we tried, but…Gus is in love with someone, even though he says he’s not and he talks about it like it’s a problem. He can’t just do it with anyone anymore. I don’t wanna get all TMI, but I think he’s experienced what love really is and…”
“Seriously?” She raises her eyebrows. “Can Gus love someone?”
“You know what Gus’s deal is?” I lean back in my chair and stretch my legs under the table.
I’m starting to sweat. “He uses sex as a shield, Blanqui, but that boy has been touched for real this time, someone got under his skin, and he doesn’t even have that safeguard anymore. He has nowhere to hide.”
Blanca sighs, like she has no interest in getting into debates about Gus’s love life.
“Blanca, do you think it’s possible that Gus, that the girl Gus has been with…is Aroa?”
She’s taking a sip of coffee when I ask the question, and at first, all I get as a response is raised eyebrows. “No. How would that make any sense?”
“It would fit. They hooked up nine months ago…more or less around the time Marín and Aroa broke up.”
“That’s just a coincidence, Coco.” She puts her coffee on the table. She looks awful. “It’s really hot, right?”
“Yeah. Listen, are you okay?”
“Yes. Yeah.”
I take a sip of coffee, and I’m embarrassed to realize that my hypothesis that Aroa was the girl Gus is pining over only has one explanation. I find ways to make it about me. Suddenly everything I thought sounds so dumb.
“Blanca, why…? I mean, last night I saw you in Mandala before I left. You were crying.”
“Yes,” she sighs.
“Why were you crying?”
“There’s something I haven’t told you, Coco.”
“I thought so.”
“I know you’re gonna be mad at me.”
“I doubt it.”
“Just wait.” She rubs her face.
Loren pops out with eyes puffy from sleep. “Were you the ones jabbering like cockatoos for hours last night?”
“No, babe,” I retort. “That must’ve been the site next door. Or in your dreams.”
“Nightmares. I slept so badly. Is that coffee for me?”
Blanca doesn’t answer. She’s staring into nothing.
“Blanqui…are you okay?”
“I don’t…” She moves her neck gently. “I don’t feel good.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
“She didn’t sleep well,” Loren says, going over to her and putting his hand on her forehead. “Jesus, Blanca…you’re drenched.”
“It’s really hot here,” she groans.
“But you’re drenched in cold sweat.”
“Do you want me to go to the showers with you?” I offer anxiously.
“You’d be better off lying down.”
“Eat something with sugar.”
“There’s a little orange juice left in the fridge.”
Loren and I are talking over each other, but neither of us stops. I’ve never seen Blanca so pale. I guess we’re all freaked out.
“Loren…get some water,” I say when I see her trying to get up.
“No, no. I just need to wet my neck a little. It’s… It’s…this heat.”
“Blanca, don’t stand up,” Loren says.
She ignores him. She looks at us.
“I’m just overwhelmed…”
The final “d” stretches out a little in her throat, and she takes a few steps.
She’s breathing fast, like she’s just run a race.
I’m about to tell her to take a deep breath slowly or she’ll start hyperventilating, but when the chair falls and she doesn’t even seem to hear it crash to the gravel floor, my warning feels a little late.
We don’t have time to get around the table and chairs before she falls to the floor, even though it feels like it’s happening in slow motion.
Her eyes roll back in her head, her eyelids flutter closed, her knees give way, and her body falls, folding in on itself eerily.
Loren manages to grab her wrist and soften the fall, but she probably didn’t even feel it.
“Blanca! Blanca!” I scream, slapping her cheek. “Loren! Get some water!”
One of our site neighbors, a German as big as a car, comes over to us and asks in clumsy Spanish what happened.
“She fainted,” Loren says, rushing in to grab a bottle of water while I hold her legs up.
We move fast, but we don’t really know what we’re doing.
People are starting to come over. Blanca’s blinking rapidly, but she’s not responding.
Her chest is heaving because even though she’s unconscious, she’s still breathing fast and hard.
A lot of people from the neighboring sites are starting to crowd around us, and everyone is giving advice with the best intentions.
“Sit her in a chair.”
“No, keep holding her legs up.”
“Call an ambulance.”
“Wet her head.”
“And her wrists.”
Loren empties part of the bottle of water carefully, using his hand like a funnel, over Blanca’s head and then on her hands. She seems to shudder a little. She’s still blinking.
“Blanca… Blanca, please…”
My voice is barely coming out. I want to tell Loren to call an ambulance or a doctor or I don’t know who, but I can’t get the words out. There are a lot of people around. Too many.
Someone bursts through the onlookers, shoving their way through. He barrels toward us so fast I don’t even see his face.
“But what happened? What happened?” he yells, kneeling next to Blanca. “Blanca, can you hear me? Get all these people out of here, for fuck’s sake! Come on! Give her some space!”
It’s Gus.
“Loren, grab her legs. Higher. About forty-five degrees. Blanca…”
He puts his mouth next to her ear, and then he pulls a towel off the strings we’ve been using as a clothesline and puts it under her neck and then tilts her head to the side.
He’s moving really fast.
“Blanca,” he whispers. “It’s all right, okay? It’s all right. Can you hear me? I’m here. I’m here. With you.”
I stand up and move back a little. There’s something in my body clenching my stomach into an imaginary fist, and it’s not just fear. There’s something that—
Blanca opens her eyes and splutters.
“It’s okay. You fainted, okay?”
She tries to sit up, but he gently presses her shoulder back down.
“There’s no rush. These people are leaving. Coco, get everyone out of here. Everything’s okay.”
“Gus…” Blanca stammers.
“I’m here, little one. I’m here. It’s all over. You see? It’s all over.”
Blanca’s shaking. She’s shaking a lot, and I’m scared, but…
I can’t take my eyes off her, off Gus. The way they’re looking at each other.
Gus’s voice, so used to performing in front of people, of trotting out words to make his fans tremble with desire, the ones who want to howl with pleasure under his body…
That voice that’s suddenly so tender, so sweet, it doesn’t sound like his.
Gus’s fingers caress Blanca’s temples, and he keeps whispering, “It’s okay.
I’m here, little one.” Little one. Little one. Little one?
Her dazed smile only wakes up when she hears him. Their hands, fuck, their hands are clenched over her stomach. They’re gripping each other so hard their knuckles are turning white.
“Coco, get them out of here, please,” Gus says again.
I take a step back and turn to the crowd. “Everything’s okay.”
“Should we call a doctor?” someone offers, trying to help.
“No, no. We’ll take care of it,” I say, still in shock.
They all ask me to call them if we need anything, but all I can do is nod and thank them awkwardly. Their steps crunch away back to their own sites, and the noise of conversations drifts away.
Loren is still holding Blanca’s legs up, but his arms are starting to shake. I drag over a chair and prop them up on that now that she’s feeling a little better. She’s dazed, but she’s responsive.
“What day is it?” Gus asks her.
“Saturday.”
“What’s your name?”
“I’m fine,” she says, trying to sit up.
“Don’t get up yet.”
“Honestly…I want to sit.”
“What’s the best song of all time?”
“‘Que bien’ by Izal.”
“God, you’re worse than I thought. I’m going to have to identify your body.”
They share a laugh, but Blanca’s is weak.
The laughter. The looks. Their hands still clenched.
Everything around me goes blurry, and my stomach is churning, I’m stunned by the realization, but I’m noticing every tiny detail.
The looks. All the looks. The ones they avoided speak loudly too.
Like that afternoon, when we were having tapas, when they didn’t even say a single word to each other.
They were avoiding each other—they didn’t hate each other.
The sentences one would start and the other would finish in a kind of never-ending tennis match because they always seemed to have something to gripe about.
And jokes, of course, jokes that nobody laughed at because we didn’t understand them.
“You two have the same weird sense of humor, for fuck’s sake,” I would complain sometimes. But they understood each other.
Their phones, always in their hands, carrying on a parallel conversation.
The crumpled napkins with handwritten stanzas…
that weren’t for me and weren’t meant to be thrown in the trash—he probably hid them wherever he could think of, hoping none of us would catch him.
Her. Malasana. Nine months. “Ruben and I haven’t really been getting along lately.
” The poems, all of them, about his “little one,” him running around Madrid, his regret.
The arguments. The tears last night, Gus stumbling around in a daze.
It’s her. It’s her, fuck. My best friend is her.
No, Coco. They’re not two people who didn’t really get along. They were lovers. And you’re the only one who didn’t know.