Dont wake me up
-Where...
-We are in your house.
Laura's soft voice is next to me. I open my eyes slowly. The sky continues to spin. My head is a cluster of broken glass poking around corners.
-Calm down, don't move.
Karina helps me sit up against the back of my bed.
-What happened?
-You fainted.
Laura brings me a glass of water. I refuse it. My stomach is in the spin program.
-The party...
Clarity comes to me along with bursts of shouting and insults.
-Mariam left with Paul and the guests disappeared behind her. We took you inside. You were begging to go home.
-Did I do that? -I scratched my forehead, digging through my memories.
-You don't remember? -Karina is worried.
-No.
Laura brings her hand to my forehead.
-I'm fine.
Voices from outside intensify and bounce off the walls of the room.
-Blake doesn't move from the door and Anthony won't let him in. They have been arguing for over an hour.
-Her uncle was at the party," bursts of memory flash through my mind. Wasn't it a dream?
-No.
Each small quota of memory drags immense silent tears to my eyelids. Disconnected words stun me looking for an explanation.
-We'll tell him to leave and come back another time. Anthony sure is happy to kick him out. Sofi, honey, don't cry.
Eyes mist behind the sorrow of my broken heart.
-He lied to me . He lied to me? Nothing he said was real.
-We don't know that," Laura runs to the desk and steals a tissue packet from her purse and hands it to me. We've only heard screams of nonsense.
-Did he say anything to you?
-He says he won't talk to anyone but you," Karina combs my hair with her hand. You'll have time when you feel better. You need to rest. We'll tell him to go away.
-My memory is a song in Swedish. I don't understand anything.
I stand up. I unbalance the first step. In the second I started to improve. My head continues to be a separate entity from my body.
-This is the last time I'm asking you nicely! I have to see it!
-When you want to start!
On the other side, the screams bring down the furniture. Blake and Anthony follow each other in a chain of continuous insults.
-Put on my pants. I have to get dressed.
The girls help me get ready. I am barely able to support the weight of my clothes. Gravity pulls me down to the cold floor.
-Leave me with Blake. Alone.
-No way.
-Please, I need to see it," I hold my forehead so it won't slip away.
-Not at all.
I approach and confront Laura's protective sensibility with what little strength I have left.
-I love them," I say, widening my vision towards Karina, "but I need to know what all this shit means.
They both look at me again and again.
-It's all right. We'll let you know what can happen.
-Girls, one last favor," they both turn from my bedroom door. Take Anthony out of the house.
-No way. We'll stay in the kitchen.
-I'll be fine," I say, pressing my forehead, which is splitting like a ripe melon. I'll call you as soon as I can. I swear. Please take Anthony. I don't have the strength.
They both consent, but not before stepping back to give me two kisses and a huge hug.
-If you need anything, anything at all, you holler. We'll be in the café across the street. We won't move from there.
-Thank you.
At the other Anthony's grumbling becomes unbearable. He never did take well to taking orders. A door slammed and the abominable silence took over my house.
-How are you feeling?
I don't have the courage to look him in the face. Fear of the unknown freezes my veins.
Blake enters my room at a slow pace. His appearance is no better than mine. He has dark circles under his eyes and puffy eyelids. If it weren't impossible I'd say he's been crying.
-I need to know. My words are a plea.
-My uncle is fighting for an inheritance he believes belongs to him.
-No!" The refusal wells up from inside me. The beginning. I want the beginning of everything.
Blake approaches the window. Seeing the tension in his body strengthens my doubts. Why would anything go right when it could go worse.
-When I was a child, I was diagnosed with leukemia," he looks out the window at the street as if it were a teleprompter. My parents were desperate. They searched high and low for donors and couldn't find a match. They placed ads and offered exorbitant sums of money. They put a price on my right to live.
I fall on the bed sitting on my ass and without a parachute.
Is Blake deathly ill? My palms press against my mouth to keep me quiet so I don't squeal. Is he cured? Am I going to lose it? The sharp crystals stoke all at once inside the hell of my head.
-They did everything to save me. They set no limits. And they succeeded.
-What did they do?
-They sought donors in exchange for a large sum of money. Advertisements, posters, you name it. Time was running out and their son was dying. They were desperate. Money can't always do everything. Or so they thought until one afternoon a woman arrived with a baby in her arms. She said she wanted them to do compatibility tests. Both of them.
-Two?
-Her and her baby. The lab assured my parents within a few days that the child had the bone marrow I needed to stay alive.
A quota of comprehension hits my neurons trying to explain itself. I hold it back. It's a madness too macabre to be real.
-That little girl. How old were you when you got sick?
-Sofia...
-How old you were!
-Four and a few months.
-Exactly the same age difference you have with me.
My heart is tearing me apart. It does not deny me. It doesn't say I'm wrong and that I'm an imbecile who can't count. The atmosphere begins to weigh lead. My veins become clogged. My body is a prison for movement. Nausea tightens my stomach. Lead imprisons my throat.
-Was it me? She... sold me?
I stand up to face him. The sympathetic look infuriates me.
-Sold me out?!
-According to what I was told, he collected the money and left.
-Did he leave?
-He left you at the hospital where we were admitted.
The hundreds of pieces of me that I thought were held together by the force of my own self-improvement explode into useless little pieces. My mind struggles to move the hundreds of parched gears that crunch my pasty brain.
I run to the closet.
I stand on tiptoe trying to reach the highest part. I swear loudly at my short stature. I go to the bathroom to get a stool. I return in such a hurry that the stumble against the mat almost kills me.
-Sofia, what are you doing? -She tries to hold me. I stop her with a strong push.
I climb the bench stretching my fingers to drag the worn leather suitcase. It falls to the floor. I follow.
-I'm fine," I push him away from me again. I don't want him to touch me.
On my knees I move the zipper and search inside crazily.
-It has to be around here somewhere. I remember. It has to be.
Tugging on the inside. A half-baked and somewhat dirty ribbon shows a small castle and some letters.
As a child I never tired of looking at the drawing. When I learned to read, I would sneakily look for the tape to translate the meaning of its letters. Something inside the old empty suitcase called me again and again. I was never able to throw it away.
-Mary... Mary... -I read over and over again.
-Maryland. Baltimore is a state of Maryland," the thick voice answers my question.
I sit on the floor next to the suitcase without letting go of the worn label. I caress it looking for an answer that will take me away from this maddening truth.
-But my grandmother... She took care of me. What happened? -Blake hides his head behind his arms. What happened!
-My parents stayed with you until you were four years old. But you don't remember us. Your memory has decided to forget us. You were my spoiled child. I carried you in my arms like a doll. You had laughing eyes and adorable little hands. My heart was yours. Your soft hair was my peace. You were my Love.
-Love?
-That's what I called you from the first day. You conquered me as soon as I saw you.
-I grew up with my grandmother. She took care of me. She loved me. She was the only one.
-And I adored you," Blake came over to sit next to me on the bed. When you were about to turn four, my mother suffered a severe depression. She was devastated and thought she couldn't take care of you. That's when she managed to find her.
-I was annoying him," my ironic laughter barely possesses any strength.
-Depression is a disease. He saw threats where there were none. I was afraid of losing my father's affection. It's not what you think.
-He got rid of me. Her real son was cured. The child abandoned by her mother was no longer needed.
-Heaven.
I move my shoulders from side to side. The warmth of his hands irritates me.
-Why are you here? -My tears meet his gaze. Why Blake? Are you sick again? Are you looking for my blood? How much does the market pay for a liter of red liquid?
-I don't need your blood.
-Why are you here?
-When my mother recovered, she felt very bad. She always remembered you.
-Why are you here," I spell each word.
-When you left, my mother got worse. Remorse wouldn't let her live.
-I don't remember her. None of you. Why Blake!
-My mother did. She always felt guilty about letting you go," the black pupils widen, "in her will she wrote that part of her shares in the Agency should go to you.
-What are you saying? Have you gone crazy?
Silence settles in a room that contains me so that I don't run away.
-Ever since I had the means I looked for you. I was crazy to find you. I chased false leads. I didn't know who to turn to. I didn't have any of your information. I only knew that your grandmother lived in Madrid. So when Simon told me he'd found you, I did everything. Even deceive him. Sofia," he holds my face so I look into his eyes, "your blood runs through my veins. We are one. We always have been.
-No. No," I walk nervously, bumping into the furniture.
-We can talk about it later. It's too much for one day. I don't want you to suffer.
-You? You don't want me to suffer? You don't know how grateful I am. Oh, don't be sorry. You could have thought of that before you cheated on me!
-Everything is more complex than you think. The agency was created by my grandfather.
-I don't want to know.
-When he passed away, he left sixty percent of the shares to my mother and forty percent to my uncle. He didn't trust her greedy decisions. That's why he left the majority to my mother. When she left in her will that you should be a shareholder with the same conditions as Mariam and mine, he went crazy.
-I don't understand anything.
I walk dizzily. Cold sweats run up and down my back.
-Mariam and I own forty percent as does he. By finding you and fulfilling my mother's will the remaining twenty percent would leave him in a position of weakness. Don't you understand? My mother wanted to compensate you.
-Did you do it out of interest? You want those shares. You were afraid of losing everything....
-I have never wanted anything! I will transfer my shares to you. I am not interested in money.
-Did you lie to me?
-I wasn't sure of your identity. I needed time. Besides, there were clauses I couldn't get around.
-Go away.
-Not until I can tell you everything.
It's funny. The lie loves to be hidden until one day it can't stand it anymore. It can subsist under the basement for centuries, but when it takes the first step, there is no God to stop it.
-Go away. You can keep it all.
My shoulders slump forward. The weight exceeds my strength. My heart no longer beats. It has frozen in the lake of my lost feelings.
-You are wrong.
His black eyes shine brighter than ever. Jet hair covers half of his face. I feel myself dying from the inside.
-Go away.
-Love...
-Don't call me that! I don't want to listen to you. I need you to leave.
-I will not leave you. I love you.
-Please go away," I pleaded with my face drenched and my head drooping to the ground.
-As a child you bewitched me. I could never forget you. I always knew I was missing you. I looked for you in every face and every clue. You were what I needed.
-Go away. I beg you.
I walk to the window. I turn my back to him. I want him to go away. My feelings say they were naive idiots.
-I loved you...
-I love you in the present and for the rest of the future. I will not give up on us. I am still yours and you are still mine.
His footsteps move away. I don't see him go. I don't have the strength to do it. I am a plant that has been robbed of the sun.