Chapter 22 Traps and conspiracies

Traps and conspiracies

They checked in "online", the airport was practically empty. They were wearing masks, just as they did every time they left. Everything was ready for him to board. Nina gave him a lingering kiss on the forehead and a soft seal on the lips. She hardly looked him in the eye and said softly in his ear:

- Goodbye, Richard. It was a pleasure to meet you. He held her with both arms around her back. He wanted her to look into his eyes.

- Don't do this. Please don't. Don't make me cry here. It's going to be a horrible scene! - Nina begged.

- Screw all this bullshit! Nina... You can be so much more than this! You can have anything you want.

- And what would I be that I'm not already, David? And what would I have that I don't already have? - Nina asked.

- Everything. - he answered.

- Everything? Everything what? I already have everything. I have a house that I love, I have my car, my job, even my childhood friends from Brazil are here. I have peace. At least I did until I met you. - Nina emphasized, smiling. He understood that she was joking.

- And that's enough for you?

David no longer knew how to express his frustration at that moment. He was angry. It was hurting inside his chest. He didn't know how to deal with the pain. And Nina was not making it easy. She was also making a superhuman effort not to throw herself on the floor and beg him not to go.

- Yes, enough. Who knew that I would open my heart one day? I will remember you fondly for the rest of my life. I swear it. - she declared, her voice trembling. One more word and she would collapse in the middle of the Bergen airport lobby.

- I'm angry with you, Nina. - he said, his eyes tearing up.

- Don't be. Remember all the good times we had. Whenever you think of me, remember that you knew simplicity and were happy. - Nina said, pursing her lips.

- You're being cruel, you're being mean. There's no need for it to end this way. You made me promise this nonsense of blocking you, of never calling, what do you want? Do you want to end my psychological state? If you weren't supposed to care like this, why did you go to such lengths to change me? - blurted out David.

- My God! We promised each other so much that we wouldn't do this. Now here you are at the last second wanting to fight me instead of hugging and kissing me. Are you sure this is the last memory of me you want to keep? - said Nina, this time crying quietly.

- I don't know what to do. - he said, hugging her then. - I don't know how to lose.

- Don't do anything. Don't hate me. I don't want to be your case, I don't want to be your crutch. I don't want to be dead weight in your glamorous life. I'll be fine after a few months... or years, I don't know. - she said, trying to smile.

- It wouldn't be like that. It really wouldn't. - he retorted, hugging her tightly and kissing her hair.

- Now it's your time, baby. You have to go. Good-bye! Take care, okay?

- You too. Take care. - He said goodbye, kissing her gently on the lips.

And he pulled himself together, let go of her hand, leaving her a folded piece of paper between his fingers. He put his backpack on one side of his shoulder, looked at her strongly once more, made a gesture of desperation as if he was going to walk to her, who quickly nodded her head saying no. He walked to the gate and the two of them stared at each other until the last look Nina and David's eyes could reach. Nina opened the wrapped piece of paper and saw that he had written with his own fists something that said: "Even for all the wealth of the Arab sheiks, I will not forget you one day, not one day. It was an excerpt from the song Nem um dia, by Djavan, her favorite song. Nina began to feel sick, her ground was missing, she was suffocating.

Nina immediately went back to the car, in an attempt to hide so that no one would see her crying out loud. She cried so hard that she had no way to drive until she calmed down. She couldn't think straight, she couldn't breathe. She turned off the sound of the car because the Bruno Mars song that was playing was a stunner to that poor helpless and desperate soul at that moment: "It will rain". Exactly at the part where he sings:

"If you ever leave me, baby

Leave some morphine at my door

'Cause it would take a whole lot of medication

To realize what we used to have

We don't have it anymore"

(If you ever leave me, baby, Leave some morphine at my door, 'Cause it would take a whole lot of medication To realize what we used to have, we don't have it anymore.)

Nina slammed her hand on the off button of the "Dub". Everything was bothering her. Never again would the songs and melodies have the same charm. Never again would she listen to the love songs she had always loved with the same feelings! Nothing would make sense without him.

Nina was without direction, without her haven. She was suffocating, filled with empty, dark feelings, she wanted to scream, but could not. She asked God to help her, she asked for relief for her heart. Suddenly she no longer dwelled in it. The pain of losing someone in life can be equal to or worse than losing them to death. A pain that hurts in the soul, that hurts in the simple fact of existing, that tears a piece of you out, the wound stays there open, and even if it heals, it will always be there to remind you. Not even time can ease this pain in some cases. There is evidence that the end of a relationship is capable of putting the brain through the same or similar suffering as an addict trying to quit cocaine (according to a study published in the Journal of Neurophysiology).

Arriving home Nina could smell his scent wafting through the air, she went to bed and he was still there, she couldn't calm those pulses of sadness that filled the emptiness he left behind, nor did the tears make sense, although she couldn't hold them back. She cried until she passed out from exhaustion in her hurting soul that late night, and in her dreams, she called his name softly... she felt emotional fever.

Nina woke up the next morning with her cell phone that wouldn't stop ringing, waking her up. Next, it was David's turn, and his phone was bombarded with calls. His phone had no more battery or room for so many missed calls.

Nina and David's faces were plastered all over the websites, blogs, magazines, YouTube channels, and every other gossip vehicle around the world. Everything David did, everything David said, everywhere he went, there were people hired to take pictures and record their moments. The pictures of Nina were purposely taken in angles and positions that would diminish her photogenically speaking. Naked pictures in the mountains, pictures in panties, in bikinis, in lingerie, pictures of the two of them in very sensual positions. David is always with his clothes on. Nina always with no make-up or hair. Pictures of absolutely everything they did all these months. It was almost a reality show, a diary of the covid-19. Step by step of everything the two of them did. Training, dances, games, "fight".

The material had been manipulated and had become too heavy for Nina's side. There was nothing that could compromise David in any way. A normal man, fulfilling his quarantine next to an ordinary woman. Almost a hero! Everything was already articulated months before so that David would be an issue for several months in a row. Everything was connected to keep him in the limelight for the publicizing of several new jobs that were coming up. Nothing that was publicized would have any consequence in his life. Her life, on the other hand, would never be the same.

David's agents had hatched a plan, even from a distance, to separate the two of them. They and some people from the production team had been busy fighting the "coronavirus", but as soon as everything was back to normal they got together to devise a plan to get her out of his life for good. They even let David relax for a few months during his isolation with her, as she was doing him a favor of healing him and keeping him emotionally stable. But under no circumstances did the agents change their minds about publicly slaughtering her and making her hate David and everything that came with him, as they did with the other girlfriends that had passed through his life.

Several videos were circulating on the internet. A dossier of photos. The plan was to expose her as much as possible. Nina's house was made of glass. Behind her house was a forest that gave access to a view of everything from inside her house. So was the mountain house in which she and David spent a period of their quarantine. Nina always with a drink in her hand, naked or in some pose as if she were fighting. The headlines hinted at the worst of her. All planned. One of them said "Find out who is the mysterious woman who got David Nichols infected with covid-19 in Italy. Another said, "Finally the face of the villainess who made David check into a nursing home to sell his photos to the paparazzi. So many lies, so many sensationalist stories released in such a short time. They wanted to turn David's twenty million followers against Nina, and they succeeded.

Her image was stamped on absolutely every gossip channel on Instagram, Facebook, circulating in WhatsApp groups, on open television channels, radio stations, and news and gossip sites around the world. It had several stories claiming that she was a scammer, that she had approached him to gain fame and money, and that it was all part of a scam to sell the photos and become famous and a millionaire. Paparazzi claiming that they had a deal with her. Documentaries talking about what a woman was capable of doing for fame.

Everything had been in place for months, they were just waiting for David to get back to work away from her to throw all the accumulated material onto the internet. As soon as David informed them that the two had broken up and would not be in contact, the agents exploded the bomb! The nightmare of her life was just beginning. Thousands of internet users, online haters, wasted no time in making thousands of comments and bullying... Her phone kept getting calls and messages from numbers all over the world. She had to keep it turned off until she could change her number.

Within a week her life had turned into a nightmare! She was the laughing meme of the moment. Every unscrupulous comment, one worse than the other. The agents had given her ammunition, they had certainly manipulated sites and even hired many of them, but it was the common people with a "weapon" called a cell phone in their hands who did the shooting. It reminded her of the time of the guillotine, the time when they burned people at the stake, where a huge audience would gather to witness and inflate the death penalty events and murders.

Women all over the world, the famous "fandoms", spared no effort to diminish her, to ridicule her. There were so many insults, so much humiliation, so much injustice, and cowardice, that I can't even start quoting one. I will start with the less aggressive ones: "ugly", "what a horrible woman", "how did he fall for a con like that? "He had to be really sick in the head to get involved with such an ugly woman". "He should be paying her to be with her. "Let's virtually lynch the scammer," said others in a group, asking everyone to pass on her image and the news.

Everything was set up in a way as if David had been the victim of a scam artist who had cheated him and wanted to grow at the expense of his fame. And nobody cared to publish anything that had not been induced, articulated by the biggest agents you had in Hollywood. Two old foxes, media hype machines. There was no way to beat them.

David didn't know what to do. He couldn't get through to her. Her phone was out of the area all the time. He had called her about a thousand times. He didn't know how he was going to stop it, and his staff and all the people around him were trying to manipulate him, without letting on that they had anything to do with it, of course.

- We are sorry, David. We liked her too. We were suspicious at first when that scandal in Rome broke, but you convinced us that she was different. We would have preferred the evidence not to be so obvious. See for yourself with your own eyes, these are selfies, pictures she took of the two of you in your most intimate moments. There is no way that a paparazzi could publish these photos straight from her cell phone. She sold these photos. And the worst of it is that she didn't even wait for it to cool down, she broke up with you one day and published everything the next. But we won't let it go cheap! You bet! If it was a fame she wanted, she will get it. She will regret it for the rest of her life!

- Don't do anything against her, do you hear me? Nobody here will lift a finger against Nina. I won't allow it.

- But David... There is irrevocable proof! You are an intelligent man, you can't deny that she did it! Look for yourself and analyze everything that came out of her cell phone.

- I'm telling you: she didn't do it!

And David continued to defend her irrefutably. The agents were trying to maneuver the next interviews he would give, doing everything so that the exclusive journalists would not touch Nina's name, just keeping the focus on work matters. They were afraid that David would spoil their plans if some journalists made accusations against Nina.

Nina had nowhere to hide. She could not travel to Brazil, there the harassment would surely be much worse, much more aggressive. She had no money to hide in a luxury hotel with security guards who could take her away. She couldn't go back to work after this emotional shock. She was lost. Her curtains at home were closed day and night. She was living in a house arrest. She couldn't even turn on the phone anymore with so many calls and so much news coming in. Even her phone number had been posted on the Internet so that the world could attack her with messages and phone calls. This is what Paul and Tony wanted. That she would be cut off from David. And they succeeded.