It had been exactly seven days since I last saw Shawn's girlfriend, or whore. Seven days in which I hated her.
To me things, strange as it may seem, worked like this: Someone broke my routine and my head immediately drew a barrier between us.
But I wasn't thinking about her at all. My head had more important things to do, including the number of blue cars passing me as I drove to the Body Rock Café.
When I arrived, I had counted seven.
"Ten minutes earlier, as usual" Ally whispered as she handed me my work uniform, which was orange. At first I hated it, because that tonality worried me, but over time I learned to live with the feeling of discomfort.
"Are you sure I'm not a minute late?" I interrogated her with my eyes wide open, as if in this way I could detect any of her lies "My neighbor tried to flirt with me and I had to tell him that I didn't want to go out with him five times in twenty seconds to leave me alone..."
"Are you talking about your handsome neighbor?" My boss questioned me with amazement.
"Yes, Daniel, I..."
"The Daniel you always talk about?" Ally continued her interrogation while I counted three failed attempts to hide her smile.
"Yeah..."
"The Daniel you like since you were a teenager?"
"Yes, Ally!" I was beginning to get frustrated.
"Are you an idiot, Lauren?! You've been waiting for this moment for years!"
"I know, but he was interrupting my routine. He could've flirted with me from five to seven in the afternoon during my off hours, but he decided to do it when my mind was busy counting."
"Lauren..." I knew she would give me one of her speeches about taking things more calmly and less calculus, but I was too busy thinking about Daniel's interruption to want to hear it.
"I'd like to chat with you, Ally, but I'd better get started. Mr. Brown won't be long in coming" And it was these seventeen words that ended our conversation.
I can say that the beginning of my day, excluding the interruption of Dan and conversation with Ally, was quite easy. It was Wednesday, so four of the regulars didn't go, maybe because of scheduling problems. Even so, I didn't feel disturbed, as their positions in my head were occupied by five other not so regulars that they passed through there being the closest place to their work.
One of those clients was the girl I had nicknamed Shawn's whore.
"Mrs. Luna..." I heard that the crazy girl from last week called me as she tapped my shoulder repeatedly.
I answered the twenty-sixth tap. I can assure you that I was upset, because before that I was counting the pennies on my tips and now I had lost count, which meant I had to start over and consume more of my valuable time.
"I'm busy" It was the first thing that came out of my lips. I didn't realize her arrival at the cafe, but I wanted her to leave.
"I am also busy" She said to me with her soft voice as she tapped my shoulder five more times "Can we be busy together?"
My mind thought she was insane, and it wasn't wrong.
"Can you leave?" I know I was rude, but the constant tapping of her finger and her mere presence made me feel incredibly nervous.
The fear that she'd ruin my day again made me want to run away from there.
"No" She refused, and I could deduce that she was laughing behind my back. "I'm Camila" She showed up while placing her hand right in front of my face. The first thing I noticed was that this one was covered with a pink kitchen glove, and then the horrible drawing of what looked like a duck on her arm made with a pen.
"Camila, Camila, Camila..." I repeated it six times, and then another six times. I wanted to remember her name so I would know who to despise.
Still, even though I was supposed to hate her, her name tasted calm inside my mouth.
"When you say it many times it sounds funny" Camila laughed with her innocent voice "Now can you shake my hand? It hurts."
I agreed to be left alone, but she was still there, right behind me. Shortly after I felt her breath on my neck, which made me shudder.
"Would you like to travel to Africa with me?" She offered me.
That time I did turn around, and the first thing I found was her chocolate-colored eyes staring at me without any shame.
I concentrated on their blinks for seconds, as these looked like the graceful flutters of a hummingbird. I counted eleven of them before speaking again.
"What kind of lunatic are you?" I asked almost with fear.
The truth was that her presence made my hairs stand on end, as did her white dress with paint stains and her military-style boots.
"Just one more of the bunch" Camila replied seriously "What happened to you last week? I worried a lot about you. I even brought you a gift to cheer you up..."
She then took a piece of paper out of her boot, which I noticed was on the wrong foot, and laid it out for me.
The first thing I noticed was the terrible drawing of a naked girl with a pair of pages on her hands. I also saw paint stains on the sides and several tears all over the place.
It wasn't cute or flashy... but it definitely had something that made my head hurt and feel at peace at the same time.
"That's me in France" Camila told me with more joy than I had felt in my entire life "It's my best drawing, so consider it a great gift" If that was her best drawing I didn't want to see the worst "I called it 'The drawing of a prostitute that was drawn while drawing while drawing while drawing...'"
She repeated that sentence eight more times without caring how much her voice bothered me. I stopped her, of course, because I was starting to get headaches.
"Can you stop? I..."
But just then I was interrupted by a guy I knew as Charlie, a not-so-ordinary client whose life I didn't care to know, who held Camila's arm and quickly took her away from me.
"Did I tell you you could talk to her?" I heard him say.
I was so focused on what was going on between Camila and Charlie that I didn't count my money again or run to take Mrs. Parker's order, which I did every time I saw her, because she was incredibly impatient.
"You didn't tell me I couldn't do it" Camila wasn't trying to be rude or give him a great answer. She was being herself.
"What kind of whore are you?" The other coffee customers couldn't hear him, but I could, and those five words made me want to hit him eight times, and then seven, and then six...
"Yours."
She didn't seem humiliated or trying to be sensual. She talked about her work as if it was the color of her hair.
She seemed pleased.
"First you leave me in the middle of a blowjob and now you answer me like that?!"
It was then that I noticed the lump in his badly fastened trousers and his careless appearance, things that only made me angry much more.
Suddenly I didn't want to hit him eight times, but sixteen, and then fifteen, and then fourteen...
"I remembered that I had to greet Mrs. Luna."
"Will you stop talking nonsense?!"
"No nonsense! Mrs. Luna...!"
But Charlie didn't allow her to speak, as immediately his hand hit Camila's face twice.
She didn't scream or look at him again. She just stood there, static.
My first impulse was to run over there and hit him twenty-four times, and then twenty-three, and then twenty-two... I was surprised by my actions, because I wasn't an impulsive woman.
I didn't achieve my goal, of course, because Charlie immediately stopped my hand. Still, I managed to tell him:
"You're an idiot. Idiot. Idiot" I told him three times. The first to make him listen, the second to make him understand and the third to make it clear to him.
My words didn't seem to affect him at all, as he continued to hold my hand for five seconds before releasing it, but he didn't do it because he wanted to, but because the boys in the cafe and Dinah had him.
Ally was calling the police.
"Camila" I looked at her and held her chin to look at me, but her eyes were on Charlie, who was now really upset. I counted four delicate blinks. "Camila, Camila..."
I called her ten times before she finally spoke.
"Leave him!" She screamed desperately before running towards him "It's okay, he was just playing. Okay. We'll go."
But no one there was willing to let him go, and neither was I. At least, not before I hit him thirty-two times, and then thirty-one, and then thirty...
"Camila..." I tried to talk some sense into her.
"Mrs. Luna, tell them to release him. Please. He will help us go to Africa."
Although none of her lines made sense, I noticed her sadness in begging me for it.
It was like Charlie represented her everything.
"Camila..." She blinked twice while I said her name, trying in this way to contain her tears "No."
But it was too late, because Charlie had managed to escape and Camila ran after him. Strangely enough, being already close to the despicable man, Camila began to laugh.
When I set out to follow her I had already lost sight of her, so I repeated twenty-four times that she wasn't worth it, but I didn't believe this.
She was one of the few uncalculated things in my life that, at the time, seemed worthwhile.
"Are you okay, Lauren?" It was the first thing Dinah asked when she saw me. I noticed her worried.
I nodded, but I didn't say a word. I kept thinking about Camila, about her madness, about her strange drawing and how she had run away with the man who'd beaten her.
I told myself three times she must be crazy.
"I'm fine. I'm fine..." I've secured twelve times.
But I wasn't.
The truth is that now, strange as it may seem, I hated Camila even more.
I hated her because I had broken my routine for the second time, because I hadn't managed to organize my tips, because I didn't understand her and because, as strange as it might be, I had begun to count my time without her.
***
Second chapter! This will be amazing!
-Lore-
Note: Suffering is still slow to come, so be happy while you can.