“I’ll remind you that all this weighs a ton,” he says with a theatrical smile that creates little wrinkles around his eyes. “If you decide to keep shopping, I’m going to start charging for the service. And my rates are high, just so you know.”
Rebeca glances at him sideways, with an amused smile that only he can bring out.
“Don’t complain so much. Half of that stuff is yours.”
“But I’m the one carrying it,” he retorts, exaggerating his suffering even more. “Where’s the chivalry if you don’t let me show off?”
“Because you wanted to play the hero,” she replies without stopping. “No one forced you to take the heaviest bags.”
Bruno sighs dramatically, though his expression shows more amusement than complaint.
“That’s the downside of being an exemplary friend. Someone has to bear the burden of your whims… and mine.”
Rebeca smiles genuinely and can’t help but nod.
It’s been a long time since she’s felt this lighthearted in a conversation about her life. Bruno has always had that strangeability to defuse even the most complex tensions with a mix of irony and tenderness that’s impossible to resist. It’s as if he knows exactly where to apply pressure so that the cracks open without causing too much damage. And for that very reason, she hates the part about having moved to another city just a little bit.
They walk a few more meters before the conversation, almost inevitably, returns to where it seemed to be heading from the start.
The past.
Bruno adjusts the bags in his hands, shifting the weight from one arm to the other.
“There’s something about that whole story that’s always caught my attention,” Bruno remarks casually.
Rebeca turns her head slightly toward him.
“What?”
“That you never really understood why it happened. Or, rather, that you never wanted to understand it.”
Rebeca frowns.
“I understood it perfectly,” she replies, though the certainty sounds somewhat hollow even to her own ears.
Because even as she says it, she feels that something inside her isn’t so sure. A splinter beginning to shift beneath her skin.
Bruno watches her for a few long seconds, in no hurry for her to answer.
“Really?”
Rebeca walks a little slower, as if the words weigh more than her boots, and they start to come out before she’s decided whether she should say them or not.
“What I’ve always wondered is why,” she murmurs. “Why did she leave like that, from one day to the next, when she swore to love me above all else? When she looked at me as if I were the only safe place in the world. Even after what happened and no matter how many job opportunities she had.”
The memory comes back with uncomfortable clarity: the promises whispered in her ear, the arguments that ended in desperate kisses, the feeling that something was breaking without either of them knowing exactly how to fix it.
Bruno shrugs slightly.
“Maybe she couldn’t handle the shame of having screwed up your contract. I remind you that it took you a year for the big players to trust you again,” he suggests. “Or maybe she felt that things couldn’t be fixed. That the damage was already too great.”
He pauses for a moment to adjust a bag that’s threatening to slip, and when he starts walking again, he adds:
“Look, what I do know for sure is that Martina is right about one thing.”
Rebeca falls silent. Curiosity mixes with a slight unease that tightens her stomach.
“What?”
