Chapter 1

Living in a rainy city had its advantages, I could just pretend I didn't know anyone and stay in my house in my pajamas and slippers pretending that the outside world didn't really exist, just like in all the romantic movies I had seen since I was little. 

I was tired, it was obvious, because everything inside me was just a way of living on autopilot living the same day over and over again until I was completely tired. 

- Rebecca, honey, shouldn't you get up a little? Get some air outside? - my mother said, trying hard not to make me look like the usual zombie. 

It was not easy to see a daughter who should have been married for years sinking into tea and romantic books instead of fulfilling her role as a woman.

She should have given birth to many children in sequence with a lumberjack husband who worked in the town factory. 

It was a disappointment, to say the least. 

- Mom, I really don't want to get up! I'm watching this incredible documentary about - I didn't even know what to say, because the truth is I got lost in yet another Frankenstein novel.

- I worry, Beck, with all my heart, you really need to get some air, where is Anna? Can't she go with you? - said my mother worried enough to almost throw me out of the house. 

- Anna is organizing the wedding, she doesn't have time to waste on me anymore," I said with a little more wisdom than I intended. 

- And you are the worst godmother in the world, aren't you? Shouldn't you be helping your best friend? - she said, a little indignant with me.

It was nothing personal with Anna, but after being left at the altar, I think I have developed a natural repellent for weddings and love affairs. I no longer have any interest in suffering like a convict with a combination of shame in front of everyone who watched you be born and grow up. 

It was recent, I didn't want to walk around like him, letting it appear that I was over our breakup. 

Maybe he is, since he now parades around town with a huge blue-eyed redhead, as if he were a king. 

- I know why!  I know why you don't want to leave home! - she said, "but at some point you have to stop, Rebecca, you have to stop! - I saw in her eyes the need to protect me from myself

myself, the need to protect my feelings again, like last time. 

I had a panic attack, cried myself to death, and in the end found that apathy made me worse than the relentless crying in my grandmother's wedding dress. 

- I'm trying! - was the only thing I could say at that moment, I was trying! - Was I? I was really trying. 

She closed the door behind her and left me alone with yet another silly romance that had nothing to do with what I wanted to live.

 I knew my mother would end up inventing something to get me out of the house. I started to hear the familiar footsteps on the stairs and knew exactly who was there. 

- Just get in! - I shouted before Anna came out into the hallway 

- Emergency Miss Rebecca, your mother called me. What's going on? - she said, grinning from ear to ear, it was even a little annoying to see her so happy. So it was jealousy, I wanted my best friend to be the happiest woman in the world, but the fact that I had been dumped at the altar didn't give me a very high tolerance for brides who were about to walk down the aisle. 

- I'm as usual, reading a little! - I said a little harshly, it wasn't exactly my natural state, I was always happy.

 

- You're always reading a little, but answer me, you haven't washed your hair in how many days Beck? - she said in an accusatory tone. I couldn't even remember the last time I had used shampoo on my hair, nor could I defend myself. 

- It's been about three days Anna! - said my mother entering my room - I'm sorry daughter, I had to take an attitude! You've got me worried. 

A traitor living under my roof 

- Get up Beck, go take a shower and we'll get something to eat! - said Anna, as insistent as ever. 

- Do I have the option to just say no? 

- No! You don't have the option to say no, Rebecca! 

They were both staring at me like I was really sick, so I decided not to argue. 

I grabbed a towel from my closet and went straight to my bathroom, locking the door in the hope that my chest would hurt a little less with the hot water falling on my skin. I knew very well that this was just a passing state of my feelings, but even with all the hope in the world, I still felt that horrible pain that spreads through the body without us realizing it. 

Longing pain for someone who never told you the truth, longing for a person who never gave you flowers and never told you how beautiful you are. 

Longing for elbow pain. 

I took a long shower, deep down I was rooting for Anna to give up, for my mother to get off my back so I could get back to my mystery book. 

But as I came out of the bathroom in the middle of the steam I saw them talking, they stopped talking on the spot but the mood was too heavy to ignore. 

- What happened? Why are you looking at me as if someone had died? 

- It's nothing, put some clothes on! Let's go somewhere for lunch, I promised your mother that I would get you out of this dungeon that you call your room. Rebecca, how is it possible that you live all day in this pigsty? 

Anna was direct, not mincing her words even if it was going to hurt someone. It was swallow or throw up.

 

- Can you at least leave my room so I can put on my clothes? - I insisted. 

- Okay, be quick! - the two of them came out of my room, and as soon as the door closed I heard them talking again, probably the subject I had interrupted.

They were talking quietly but I could hear "She still loves him, she is still devastated about everything that happened, I can't take the risk again Anna, last time we almost lost Beck".

I understood what was going on in my mother's heart, it must suck to see a person you love from the bottom of your soul go down and you can't say anything or do anything to help. 

But I couldn't complain, Mistress Mary and Anna had been offering me a lifeboat for some time! The problem was that I couldn't swim against the current to get into this boat. 

I took the first clothes I could find that were the least dirty and put them on without much desire. I looked in the mirror and saw a fragment of the woman I once was, the image in the mirror looked like me but was not me. 

Anna came into the room and stopped behind me in the mirror, she hugged me tight like she did a million times and said "This will pass Beck!" 

- Do you think so, Anna? Do you think this will ever go away? Will I stop thinking of him as a good person? 

- When it comes to the end we start to romanticize the beginning Rebecca, but that doesn't mean it was good. Victor has always been the most idiotic man in the world with you.

- Yes, everyone noticed Anna, except me! - I felt a tear run down my eye. 

- No problem, let's eat a hamburger like we did when we were teenagers and talk about what's hurting you for hours! 

- Anna, did you leave your wedding preparations to come here to rescue me? Are you crazy? It's an important wedding, you're the mayor's daughter!

- And you're my sister. You need me, the flowers I have to pick will bloom tomorrow too. But you," she hugged me tighter, "you need me now, and I would move the whole world and cancel any appointment to see you live a little. 

With that demonstration of love she convinced me, there was no option to say no, and after the last sentence spoken in my dark and stuffy room, I couldn't say no.