109
Sitting among all the people talking, I stared down at my now empty plate, lost in thought, thinking about the meaning of my existence.
Where before I enjoyed such gatherings with powerful people, today I was permanently on the verge of exploding.
Those pointless talks about money. Those boasts about the latest cars and the best guns. Who stood above whom and who had to give way when it came to transactions...
It sucked!
As far as I'm concerned, these people could eat their expensive lobsters here and then drive home in their fancy sports cars and feel like the rulers of the world. I didn't want that anymore and then the moment quickly came when I got up without thinking and wanted to leave, but suddenly I saw my father coming into the restaurant.
I didn't even realize he was gone, though.
I ran up to him in a hurry and it didn't escape me that I hadn't said goodbye to anyone, but that didn't matter to me anymore.
You saw me for the last time anyway.
"Where have you been?" I asked him as he stopped right in front of me and grinned so stupidly my whole body tensed uncomfortably.
"Smoke a cigar," he replied, adjusting his gray jacket.
"So long? Why are you leaving me alone with these assholes anyway?! I'm here because of you!"
"You're here because of you , Emilio! This will be your business once I'm gone!"
He looked at me intently, but I just gave a desperate laugh and shook my head.
"You can mal me! Do what you want, I 'm out!"
I wanted to push past him and just get out of here because I finally knew what happiness was. It wasn't in that flimsy paper, as everyone would have you believe. It was in what made your heart beat faster... It was in being yourself, no matter what the consequences.
"Think it over carefully!", he called after me, but my steps got faster and faster, so that in the next moment I opened the double door and took in the fresh breeze that blew towards me outside.
The dark sky above me was clear and I could hear the sea lapping softly from here, which made me smile contentedly.
The voices of those motherfuckers stopped, and so did my thoughts of what some of them had done to me as a child, but I put it behind me and ran down the stairs, where Hector sat at the end, smoking a cigarette.
"We can," I spoke to him and immediately he got up and flicked his cigarette away to precede me to our limousine. "Did my father smoke outside?" I asked him while he obligingly held the door open for me and gave me a skeptical look.
"I didn't see him," he retorted, and a strange feeling crept over me that I couldn't have explained.
My gaze fell again to the entrance of the restaurant and I briefly remembered that these meals were usually more important to my father than his family. That's exactly why I was surprised he was gone, but it shouldn't be my business.
I got in the car, closed the door and took a deep breath, smiling again at the thought of my butterfly. No matter how short we knew each other and how ridiculous those feelings must have seemed to outsiders, I missed her as soon as I walked out the door and was just glad to be right back with her.
I looked out into the darkness with confidence, already dreaming of what my next few years would be like.
No more constraints...
No more father...
No more hatred and loneliness...
I saw only confidence, love and gratitude...
"We're here," Hector snapped me out of my thoughts and I looked up and shook my head almost imperceptibly.
My butterfly really seemed to take over my mind completely.
"Thank you," I replied to Hektor, who remained seated and quickly got out to look for the key when he reached the front door.
I unlocked it with a smile, hurriedly climbed the stairs and then quickly opened the apartment door, but my smile disappeared immediately.
It was dark, pitch dark... and after walking down the narrow hallway into the living room, I didn't see Arco or Isalie, which made me gasp in horror.
Caught like a little boy in the dark, I quickly ran over to the bathroom and turned on the light there, but there was no sign of either of them there either, which enveloped me in total loneliness that hung like an icy shadow around my body laid.
"Isalie," I breathed softly, eyes on the shower, and quickly turned to walk through the living room to the open kitchen.
I didn't understand what was going on at all and my heart was beating more and more desperately in my pounding chest until I spotted a note on the kitchen counter and started to read it with trembling hands.
Emilio,
I need time to think and air to breathe.
isalie
I read those few words several times and still couldn't grasp them. Something about it was wrong! Those couldn't be her words! She was happy, seemed content by my side...
"What's the shit," I whispered and then dropped the note to frantically pull my cell phone out of my pocket.
Having watched too many mafia films with Robert de Niro as a child, I had the brilliant idea of having a tracking device built into the butterfly. Not to monitor Isalie, but to protect her if ever the need arose.
I checked their location on my phone and quickly ran out of the apartment and down the stairs, where luckily for me, Hektor was still in the limousine and appeared to be typing on his phone.
"Go to the beach!" I instructed him out of breath and immediately he started the engine to look at me with wide eyes in the rearview mirror.
"Where to on the beach?" he asked, seeming nervous at my behavior, but I just stared at my phone with utter suspense, giving him directions as he drove down the narrow streets, my heart aching against mine chest thundered...
I wouldn't let her go and if she needed air to breathe I would give her that! She would have all the time in the world, but I had to be sure that she would stay with me.
What else would my existence mean...
