Chapter Four: "Countdown"

"So tell me, what did you think of Adam?" Sara breaks the silence in which the car was enveloped.

She looked away from the road for a moment and watched the nervousness of her body. This is new to her.

It isn't, Karla. You've been repeating these kinds of scenes for decades. Still not tired of playing?

"So... do you like him?"

I notice how she glares at me. She knows what I'm doing and the only thing that makes her feel more anxious.

I sigh and say the following in a way that doesn't hurt her.

"Sara, I thought you liked Ruben."

"And I like it." She looks down at her hands that play with each other nervously.

"Then?"

"It's just that Adam is someone important to me."

I frown as I think of his words and repeat them in my head.

"But you just met him!"

Silence is the protagonist again for the next few minutes and makes her words spin more and more. She had never told me about Adam before. I think I would remember it if that was the case.

"I see you restless" she broke the silence when she saw that her hands continue to try to kill the other. Is there something wrong that I should know?

Something involving the crazy brothers?

Every day I detest you, even more, Karla, I don't know how your friends put up with you. Luckily stupidity is not hereditary * rolls eyes *.

I notice how her entire body tightens even more next to me and she quickly shakes her head. She doesn't say anything; I don't either. The silence between us is starting to get on my nerves and I can't help thinking about what she's hiding from me. Everything is too weird and a part of me tells me to let it go, that it is better not to know anything. But curiosity killed the cat, right?

Yes, my dear, and in this case, you are the cat and I am the curiosity.

To improve the atmosphere, I decide to put on some music, the kind that I hate and she loves. It's the blacklist, that's how her nickname is, and it's the one I turn to when this kind of thing happens. I have friends who love to party, and at those parties, they play the songs that I have been collecting throughout the few that I have attended. Whenever I play the face of all my they do not take much seriously. It does not matter if they are angry, sad, stressed. I put this list for you and it is as if they teleported to one. The bad? They end up wanting to party and drink. So I try not to reproduce it too much not so much for the safety of my eardrums, but the safety of her livers.

As soon as the melody enters her ears he begins to relax and hums the song while she watches the street from the window. When the chorus arrives, she exaggerates her gestures in a very funny way and a little laugh escapes me.

"Are you laughing at the way I sing?" She says trying to sound offended.

"I don't consider that singing, but howling."

She exaggeratedly opens her mouth, pretending to be indignant at my words, but the music continues to do her job, so her expression does not hold up and she cannot prevent the corners of her lips from moving upwards, creating a small smile.

"We've arrived."

I lean over the wheel too, for the thousandth time that I have met Sara, look at her imposing home. You enter the others in her neighborhood, hers is the one with the most charm and the one that seems more welcoming than the others. Pristine white painted walls contrast beautifully with mahogany windows. The curtains can be seen from the street and are pretty and in pastel colors. Every month Sara's mother changes them, this month the color that she has touched is a soft and precious yellow.

Inside is no less. A wide staircase welcomes you when you open the door and hug the walls, decorating them, there are portraits of the most distant and important relatives in the O'Brian family. I remember that one day she came to class with a whole story about her family and how important they were in a remote town in Canada, now non-existent. If she hadn't told me anything, she would never have known of the existence of that village, neither I nor the rest of the world since that name does not appear anywhere; Old Crown.

My eyes travel to the freshly mowed grass and that distinctive smell fills my nostrils even though I'm not smelling it directly. A bright green and a couple of roses around the fence are the perfect decoration to frame this palace.

"Good."

She stares at the outside of her house, analyzing it, which makes me frown again.

"Hey ..." I put a hand on her arm to get her attention. "What's wrong?"

"Oh, nothing, it's okay," she says and she shows me her most fake smile.

Do you want me to believe you?

It's what she tries, you idiot.

"You're sure?"

"Yes."

Before she says anything else, she quickly gets out of the car and greets me from outside. I watch the silhouette of her walk away and when she opens the gate of the fence I start the car and turn in the opposite direction.

I'll get to the bottom of this.

Of course, it is only a matter of time.

But I didn't think I'd be better off without knowing what was going on around me. I couldn't hide for much longer and a small part of me knew it. The countdown had already started when I met those kinds of colored eyes and everything was about to change.