SHORT STORY IT’S NOT YOU, IT’S ME
IT’S NOT YOU, IT’S ME
Automatic traslation from the original story in Spanish. Not checked manually
Blanca arrived on time, a punctuality that resonated like an irony in the freezing winter that embraced the María Luisa Park. Six years ago, spring had blossomed in that same place, a silent witness to the beginning of her story with Alex. Now, the frost covered the trees like a shroud, and Alex, absent, became a frozen premonition. Time, relentless, had sculpted wrinkles in her soul, while the wait stretched out, cold and sharp as the wind.
A child, an innocent angel in the midst of desolation, approached. “Are you Blanca?” he asked, his childish voice breaking the silence. In his hands, a pink envelope, Alex’s handwriting – nervous, sharp as a dagger – announced the end. The words, half-read, crumbled in her hands like ashes: “Timbuktu… it’s not because of you, it’s because of me… you’re wonderful…”
The lie, as fragile as paper, disintegrated under her fingers. Because the deception, naked in its cruelty, drove her away, to flee from the shadow of a cowardly goodbye.
A compliment, a superficial caress in the icy air, was received with the force of a lightning bolt. The resounding slap was a silent cry of liberation, a rejection of the banality that was intended to replace the void left by Alex. The contained violence, the repressed rage, were released in a forceful gesture.
Meanwhile, thousands of miles away, Alex savoured a Martini, the frivolity of his escape reflected in the shine of the glass. Cleo, the twenty-year-old girl with apple skin and orange scent, had been the cause of the perfect excuse, the shield behind which his cowardice was hidden. “It’s not you, it’s me,” the litany of evasion, the cheap justification of an empty heart. But fate, ironic and cruel, had prepared its own justice. The roar of the engine, the turbulence, the fatal descent… The Martini, symbol of his superficiality, rolled down the aisle, while the plane became his tomb. Timbuktu, an unattainable dream, vanished into the abyss. The final irony: Alex, fleeing from Blanca, would never reach his destination. His cowardice, his flight, had caught up with him.
It’s Not You, It’s Me – Short stories series – Copyright ©Montserrat Valls and Juan Genovés