Last explanation
“The next morning I was outside shooting my gun. You came to me with a cup of tea to tell me that I was clumbsy but that that was to be expacted...given that it was my “first time” with a woman.
It wasn’t.
And to get one thing straight. I wasn’t clumbsy! Obviously...
It wasn’t my first time on drugs either.
We talked shit again to conceal the truth.
You said I was clumbsy, and I told you sex between woman is overrated.
I wonder what were we so cautious about?
What did we run from? The truths or it‘s consequences?
There is no shame in admitting that we enjoyed it because that’s what we did.
It was sex, hella good sex at that and we enjoyed it. We had to let off steam and that’s exacly what we did. That was it. We liked it.
Sex wasn‘t the most important thing for me anyway. It contributed to the story, certainly, but love gives it the plot? We were fighting it.“
Was it really? Just that? Just sex? Maca had doubts. She reread that part.
You never made clear what it really meant to you. Even then you couldn‘t bring yourself to write it down directly.
“Afterwards, we started talking or rather you did. Something did change after all.
I did not need to tell you about myself let alone had I to listen to your stories, but I did it anyways. You were there for me but at the same time out of reach.
Every move I made towards you was subtle, I prospected for a minor indication from you, that the little things I did, meant something to you too. Only to be rejected time and time again.
You were standing steady, not to be moved.
In denial.
So was I.”
All was wrong. Is wrong. There is nil that can justify my motifs. At some point you didn’t even try to talk back. You simply stood there whenever I rejected your tries, closed your eyes, took a deep breath and shooke your head. I tried! The best I could to be there. But I wasn’t able to go all in. I cared. So much. Appereantly not enough to show you.
“I wanted to protect whatever it was that we had even if that meant protecting something that shall not exist.
It made you happy ”
Really, did it make me happy? I don’t know. I talked but what I would have wanted was to hear your lifes story.
All of it.
Without filter.
The brutal truth.
“... and that was enough for me. It was one of my reasons why. Just like In The Giving Tree.”
A loud buzzing snapped Maca back into reality. Makeing her jump. It was her phone. She threw it a displeased gaze.
“Saray” it said. She didn’t pick up as she wouldn’t be able to get out a sentence without her voice breaking. The phone kept ringing a few more times before it finally pinged again announcing an incomming text message.
Where are you. R you ok?
She wasn’t, and Saray didn’t need to know just yet.
I’m fine. I’ll come home soon.
Maca send back. Obviously lying. She was staying with Saray and her family for a few days so she could sort things out with the Caravan.
*Ping* another message.
You sure?
Maca didn’t answer that one either. Instead she put her phone on mute and set it aside before continuing to read. Aware that Saray would most likely terrorize her with messages and calls. Worried about her wellbeing. At that moment though Macarena couldn’t care. She had to be alone.
“I’m telling you all of this because I want you to know that what I’ll be doing is partly because of you but mostly for my own ego. I won‘t allow myself to die sinile in a hospital bed all ugly and weak.
The ending of our final coup is already written in stone. I‘m the author of this story and that, you have to accept. I won‘t apologize for what is right.
Don’t worry, Cariño. I thought about it. Throughoutly. And admist thinking I suddenly understood why I never truely loved life as such. I leaned towards loving life at the fullest every time I started to lose it. And now I see clearly. That the reason was you. Be it trying to kill each other or saveing each others life only to cause one another more pain in the end. We gave each other purpose.
Yet, I hope that one day you will have the privilage of doing something you don‘t understand for someone you like... a lot. Because I don’t understand myself just now.”
Oh but I already did. I came back to you. Twice.
“Again you didn’t hear that from me! Keep my threat in mind.
My time has come and when your time has come, you have to go. Those are the rules.
I’ll never write another word again, plan another heist or be at your side. I’ll be gone for good this time. No longer here. So let me rest. You must forget your past.“
I can forgive you but I can‘t ever forget you.
„I want you to be happy.
More than I want happiness for myself.
I tried that for a long time. Being happy.
And look what it brought me... There’s been only suffering.
For all my life that I longed for freedom and happines I had the misfurtune to quite simply fall prey to the world. I was hunting for a miracle an happy end that was never there to begin with. Chasing a phantasma to elucidate what happened to me when I was a child. What bad could a child have possibly done to get hammered like that? To be condemned to live at the edge of society?
Some questions simply have no answer I guess.
In my search for it I have suffered much more, trying to find happiness, than I neccessarly needed to. And the few fortunate moments I have experianced in my life because of it haven‘t been nearly enough for that.
I could have lived my life differently. Hell, I wish I did. But I gave that chance away when I killed the man responsible for all the dolour that followed, in the wake of my fatal action.
I gave up on that too.”
If only you would have told me earlier... you’d still be here. I might have stayed.
You didn’t deserve what life spat at you. Life had given up on you but you yourself never gave up on life. Instead you made it your own. Look how far we’ve come and how far we could have made it if only we tried to.
“I don’t expect you to understand but I hope that the time of understanding will come for you at some point.
Much less do I understand myself right now. Did I already say that? I can‘t recall. It doesn‘t matter.”
I don’t. I tried that but I don’t. You did. But you forgot.
“I’m aware that you can‘t take everything back that you said or did in the past. It’s a universally know fact that the past can‘t be changed. But still, I have faith, that there is always the possibility of building a stronger foundation. One that is able to burry the past.
I understand that what I did is unforgiveable yet the naïv hope remains in me...
Deep down I hope that we did just that. That we work out our differences in order to find our way back home.
All I ask for now is to part in peace.”
Oh don’t you see. You are asking for something that we did already. We burried our feud when you safed my life. Maybe even before.
Equals or nothing remember?
“In the end, you have been a half-decent companion. Joder, in another life perchance we would have worked out.
Now it‘s too late for that.
All there is left that I can do now is to promise you a little piece of heaven as I‘ll be waiting for you on the other side.
We could try again. Maybe we do work out.“
Maybe...
That‘s it. I am finished and I dearly hope that the time for understanding will find you rather sooner than later.
But first of all, are you going to flee in the helicopter and leave me behind.
That’s what you will do.
You’re more predictable than you think, Rubita. I don’t judge you for that. It’s just how it is. It is what’s right.
Quite, some people from the past told me that I lost my sense of telling when I have lost a battle. That was never true. I might have lost the one or the other fight I admit but I always, always had the upper hand.
Now, I reached a point in life to call for peace. I know when I have lost a battle. An this is not losing. It‘s makeing a deal.
Everyone deserves a second chance in life. And despite the fact that you will sell me to the police I’ll give you a third chance in life. Because you deserve to get away. You deserve it so fucking much.”
I didn’t. I never asked for this. I never asked you to give away your second chance. I didn’t deserve it after what I did to you. She felt guiltier than ever before.
“Raise this child and be the mother I never had the chance to be because life took that away from me.
All I ever wanted was a normal life in freedom. But appereantly, that was too much to ask for too.”
She was nothing, she had nothing but even nothingness has it‘s borders.
I found yours.
Mortility. Humanity.
Macarena couldn’t take it much longer. The rain now sounding somewhat melancholic. The windows darker, almost black, were covered with fog because of the heat in the caravan and the cold weather outside.
Maca got rid of her jacket. Took a deep breath, uncecessfully tried to wipe away her tears and went on.
“You see, all my life, I have been so afraid of loseing my loved ones, that I refused to love anything at all.
In an attempt to keep me safe. I locked it all away and threw away the keys.
Never to be found again.
It was never recovered.
And I was never able to love again. Not like I used to.
It was impossible.
But I liked you profoundly.
And yes maybe people change. Maybe love makes a person change in a matter of weeks. How ought I know for sure? But despair. Black despair changes you in the mere blink of the eye.
Life put me infront of a last lesson, eventually. And I had to choose. Give or take.”
The rain started to become sinister again as the wind got stronger. Knocking on the window, eager to invade her space. Thunder struck time and time again. Similiar to the following words that hit her heart in the same manner.
“Accepting your fate in general is hard. It got harder when you said you wanted to return to a normal life.
As it meant loseing the only person I had wanted to spend my life with. Voluntarily and without gaining anything from it. I wanted to spend my remaining months with you Maca.
But it gets even harder when you have to say goodbye to a person you lived in. Someone you found yourself a home in.
Because that’s what you were to me. Rubia.
Home.”
Home. Maca repeated stunned. Not any home but her home.
“I spent my whole lifetime on the run and now I am condemned to see my future escapeing from me.
After a lifetime lost on running, though, I was able to find my home in you. A last place to finally rest. You calmed my demons. Sparked anger because you’re dumb at times but you managed to soothe me down nontheless.
As a matter of fact I loved being with you. I loved every second I spend with your annoying stupid being. And I feel dumb for admitting it. But it’s true. Our time together brought me the lifetime of joy I had missed out on.
In the end, you even wanted to save me. I know you did, and maybe, just maybe that would have been the right thing to do. Joder Tía, perhaps life might have even had some more adventures for us in store but that was not for you to decide.”
It was not and I hate you for being right.
There were only a few more lines left now.
The weather started to calm down at last. A slow steady ripple falling onto the sand. The lake flat again. Trees were still.
Maca turned to grab the last page. Reading in silence.
“Rubita, it kills me to think that you might not know after all.“
Know what?
“You know, I’m not this ice cold heartless queen of hearts that people made me.“
I know you’re not.
I know...
She looked up outside the window to gather herself. All she saw though was her own defeated reflection. She laughed at that. How miserable. Wiped away the never stopping stream of tears and continued.
„I have feelings, so many, yet I had a hard time showing them. I decided not to let them be seen as that too meant weakness. A blind spot that people would use against me.
Look what happened the one time I let my feelings come through. It ended, like so many times before, in the death of someone dear to me.
I have nothing to loose anymore besides you. But I’m the one falling out of life.
So I’ll confess one last time. For I have faith in you. You will find your way even without me.
You mean the world to me.
Macarena Ferreiro.
There you have it! I broke my own word.
I told you again. One ultimate time.
Cherish it, keep it close to your heart. Lock it away perpetually for you will never hear it again. This is Goodbye.“
Maca restlessly tried wipeing away her tears. Hot streams of salty tears flowed over her cheeks. No way to stop them anyhow.
„Did you know that animals gets really anxious when they fear to die? But once it is certain of it’s faith. That it can not bypass death. They become very calm?
People associated scorpions with me so that in the end became one. I‘m like those animals right now. Very tranquil.
I came clean with my sickness. It hurts, deeply, but as long as I’m still mostly myself, preferably without a fried brain it’s up for me to decide.
My life and sickness belong to me until the end.
You once asked me what I was afraid of.
I don’t recall giving you an answer did I?”
You didn’t I have an idea but you haven’t told me. No.
“The time for telling you has come I guess.
You see death itself, the mere idea of dieing never scared me. Qué será, será. Whatever will be, will be. Dying is something natural. Every living organism will get to meet the Grim Reaper at some point in their life. It’s only a question of time. A matter of where and when he will strike. But that never really scared me at all because fear, being scarred of something so conventional is incredibly pointless.
I’ve lived without fear for all my life and I will die without it. No doubt in that.
There’s something I am far more afraid of.
All my life I’ve feared life itself. Life scared the shit out of me. Because I knew what it was really like. What it meant to live and what it takes from you.“
No, maybe you were scared of something else. You feared love. You resistes love all your life as it took everything from you. Afraid that someone would start loving you for who you were. Earnestly, with all their heart. I hid the truth but deep down you knew it too. You always knew. You could read me like an open book.
„I made my peace with it. I’m at peace right now. I am at ease.“
You‘re in denial. I am. You were.
„I don’t know what it was that you saw in me that made you stay for so long but I’m eternaly thankful for you, for staying by my side. I never got a chance to show you. Whatever, good you saw in me, remind yourself of the pain I made you suffer. Don’t forget it. Maybe that will help you to forget me. It‘s for the greater good. Only like that I can garantee you the life you always wanted.
So please, search for me inbetween the stars when it gets hard, Macarena, but if I mean something to you at all please grand me that last wish. All I want is for you to let me go.”
She didn’t sign it.
For a moment in time the world turned silent. No movements no noice. No more storm outside. As if someone had pressed pause.
It truely was the calm after the storm.
Zulemas explainations and thoughts were running down her face in streams of poisonous black mascara. Angry, dark furious tears, hurt, confust. Creating a maskerade of absolute truths.
It was beyond her imagination how she was supposed to let her go so easily. Her mind was running like a steam lock.
How can I let go when you showed me the greater perhaps in life? All those possibilities that lay ahead of us...? And then when we were finally at a common point ready to explore them you left and took everything with you. How can I let you go when my daughter carries the name Maisa Noel after your daughter and the one thing you cherrished most. I could have helped you but you pushed me away. I lied to your face then left you behind. I sold you.
*I sold the love of my life. And when you sell the love of your life you‘ll realize that you‘re stuck in a puddle of mud slowly taken under sinking slowly one bit at a time*
Tell me how do I ever let go of this? How do I get out of this riddle of guilt? Why were we so damaged and destructive. Selfish. All...
She had been flipping the sheets around and in her emotinal chaos her eyes had missed a couple more lines at the end of the page.
Minutes past before she had gathered enough strength in order to read those final lines.
PS:
Call this number +64 21 083 47435.
He’ll give you the money. All of it.
I wasn’t honest to Goya, Triana or anyone else but they’re to stupid to realise that. Not only were the diamonds I gave them fake but the real ones were worth 5 times as much as I had told them. Before they find out we’ll be long gone. Well you will be. I’ll watch over you and your gremlin from above. The sky no longer carries bars for me. I am free at last.
You can keep as much as you want but please if this means anything at all to you send Cepo and Saray some of the money. They deserve it. It’s more than enough for all of you anyways.
With her last wish she wanted to do good. It was too much for Maca she needed room to breath. This letter. Those words. The confessions it held. They clenched her airways shut, makeing it difficult to breathe. It had harshly wracked all the process from the past month in a matter of minutes, without remorse. She got hit at full speed. Spireling down to were it all had started.
Maca triped over the threshold nearly falling outside into the night. She got a hold of herself before she could fall and eagerly sucked in the clear cold air, the storm had left behind.
Finding solace in the coldness that embraced her bare skin. It made her feel alive.
She lit a cigarette. Inhaled the nicotine deeply, holding it in. Allowing it to burn her throat. When the sensation diminished she slowly let the smoke slip away into the night. Trying to keep up with the incomming realizations.
Once she had finished the cigarette she raised her right arm. Revealing angry round marks with intentions to add another one to the already impressive collection.
A lazy look was painted on her face when she moved her hand upwarda closer to her skin to put the cigarette out on her bare forearm.
Her vain attempt to push away the landslide of incomming thoughts.
Just don’t do something stupid. Maca.
You‘re already at it she realized.
As the still smoldering cigarette bud met her skin she closed her eyes. Instantly she let her head fall backwards in satisfaction. Pleasure was flowing through her body with everything that hurted her physicly. Seeking for refuge in the pain.
This was her take at trying to cope with it. Copeing with a gapeing hole a certain someone had left behind.
Burning herself with the cigarette had become a habit she wasn’t proud of. Not only Zulema had left behind her marks on her. Everything was just too much. So she had to found herself a solution.
The constant pain she suffered hadn’t been visible by the naked eye until Maca converted them to the outside to get at least some sort of control over them from time to time. Burning was her twisted idea of solace.
You died.
I could have.
I didn’t.
But you did.
and for what?
The Money?
The baby?
Staying sane?
You’re right some questions remain unanswered.
She thought bitterly, while letting the stubble sink deeper into her skin. It looked gruesome already.
How does your end justify the suffering you inflict on others?! That letter had been a slap in the face. Dugging up the feelings she had so carefully burried and locked away. Suddenly she had found another option.
In one motion and rather unsatisfied with the amount of pain, she scornfully exhaled. Bringing her head back forward and flipped the cigarette bud onto the sand and stepped back into the Caravan.
Back inside she helped herself to a half full bottle of whisky a pencil and some paper. She had to write.
She wrote to Zulema because she wanted to believe, to understand herself and because she thought she owed it to her. An explanation of some sort.