Lockdown Summer

XI. Not A Happy Story

Lockdown Day 70

I let out a loaded sigh after I hit the send button of the email I composed addressed to my boss. Though he won't be reading it until around nine in the morning.

I checked the time and stretched my arms above my head.

It's thirty minutes after four, and I needed a cup of coffee.

Rica was in the kitchen, a typical scene in this house since she and Pablo started that business thing. She's at one end of the dining table with the ingredients of the lasagna orders in front.

I set up the online order forms and had the cut-off in the afternoon. I collect them after I wake up in the early hours of the evening. Rica prepares and cooks them early in the morning. Pablo delivers them after, then he'd go for the quick market run when he's done.

Things were slow in the first week, but they changed after Pablo shared one of Rica's masterpiece plates with one of his friends who has a large number of online followers. Then it eventually blew up that I had to add a limit to the orders we're receiving.

"You owe me a story," Rica quietly said as I passed by her on my way to the cupboards for my coffee mug.

"About what?"

"That bike out there."

I started heating the kettle and poured instant coffee on the mug. "It's not a happy story," I said.

"I'm not always rainbows and butterflies here, Marco."

I hesitated for a second, but I maneuvered my reservations. That story felt and seemed like ages ago, and I've already gotten used to the fact that shit happened to me.

"It belonged to my ex-girlfriend. Well, the truth is...it's supposed to be hers. But we broke up, so...it's just there."

I've never even used it. I thought of getting rid of that thing countless times before, but something more important would always come up.

And I just realized the flaw in what I said. "Actually, no. She left me," I corrected myself.

I heard the water boiling and turned the stove off. There wasn't any use to wait for it to whistle.

"Let me guess," Rica said as I completed my coffee mix. "She met some hotter guy from the gym, her panties automatically dropped, and later she said you needed to talk. Then that's basically it." And she sounded like she achieved a eureka moment that instant. "You never heard from her again, but you still checked out her social profiles and kept track of where she was and how she's doing, wishing that she's deeply miserable with Mr. New Guy."

I stood frozen in that narrow kitchen hallway, in that space between the countertops and Pablo's room door.

Rica blinked a couple of times. "What?"

"That's...that's uh... That's nearly accurate to what happened." Except for the automatic falling of panties. They didn't fall off. She dropped them for Mr. New Guy on purpose.

I brought my hot drink to the table and sat far from Rica.

"How long ago was it?" she asked.

"Last year. Around October. Or maybe in November."

Those days were the darkest. I was like the typical mess of a person we thought we'd only see on TV and movie screens.

"How long have you been together?"

I sighed.

She must've sensed the slight unease I had that moment and apologized for the intrusive question.

"Close to two years," I answered.

"The worst part is she broke your little heart. The best part is that bike's very useful for us right now. Maybe this is why you never got rid of it. Lemonade out of lemons."

That ended the conversation. I drank my coffee. And we never said anything else for a while.

Rica set the chopping board aside, stood up from the chair, and reached for the clipboard.

Then I broke the silence. "I have to... I have to go back to work...upstairs...in my room."

I unlocked my laptop when I was in front of it again. But I stared at the ceiling for a minute instead of diving back to work.

I snapped out of it and grabbed my earphones. Then I put them on and shuffled the songs on my phone.