Water always sounds the same.

It doesn’t matter where you are, it doesn’t matter what you’ve just done. The stream falls with that transparent constancy — a sound that has no shape or intention, that simply exists because someone turned on a tap.

I stood watching the water turn pink between my fingers. Then clear. Then pink again.

There’s something hypnotic in that cycle. The color arriving, dissolving, disappearing as if it had never been there.

I scrubbed the spaces between my fingers with the same methodology I used to clean a pitcher: top to bottom, not skipping a single edge.

"The things that matter deserve that care," I whispered — his phrase.

Chapter 9: Purple Handkerchief IV

Before the water ran, there was the bush. And before the bush, there were their voices.

I pressed myself against the branches with my eyes closed, letting the noise in my head find its own rhythm among the sounds emanating from inside and our own thoughts.

"Be quiet," I whispered, hearing the moans coming from the window. "Please, stop."

I couldn’t cover my ears — my hands were busy with my eyes. So curious were they that I forced myself to cover them for my own good. And yet I listened until the end, until those final cries, where the two of them lay holding each other.

Not out of masochism. But because I needed to know exactly how far I had to go.

When they finished, the silence wanted to take that place, but their ragged breathing kept the same rhythm, continuing my torture a little while longer. I heard her climb off him — the mattress springs confirming it — until I finally allowed myself to look. The scene was exactly what I had imagined.

Nolan settled back on the bed, the springs protesting like Miss Bean. Then their voices, lower now, but still audible:

"You leave tomorrow?" asked Nolan, shaking off the sweat.

She glanced at the clock briefly. "Yes," she answered. "Flight’s at eight. I have to be at the airport at six." She sighed, settling into the pillow. "It’s going to be like ten hours of travel — what a drag."

"Aren’t you used to traveling?"

She shook her head, running a hand over her stomach. "This was my first trip. I never thought about leaving Paris for any reason," she admitted. "But a free trip — nobody says no to that."

A silence decorated her room while I watched them with a stalker’s attention.

"We’re not going to see each other again," said Nolan, as if it weren’t a question. "Even if you come back?"

She moved her head from side to side, touching her butterfly earring. "No," she confirmed without flinching. "That was the agreement from the beginning. Did you forget?"

Nolan didn’t answer — he just stared at a corner of the room, squeezing his knees. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

She got up and placed a hand on his back without much care. "Come on, big guy — remember," she sighed. "It was two excellent weeks breaking the bed like bulls, and after that we wouldn’t exchange a single word."

I watched him tighten his grip, pressing his knees together in silence with too much force.

"I know," said Nolan, grabbing her hand urgently. "It’s just that..."

"Don’t say it," she interrupted, pulling away. "I wouldn’t want to think about feelings or imagine myself breaking the agreement." From a drawer she took out a pack of cigarettes. "It was just sex, okay? Don’t try to be the good boy who now wants to make things right, okay?"

Nolan stayed quiet while she lit her cigarette.

"Hey," said Dilein with a somewhat sad look, rising from the bed. "I’ve never seen a twenty-five-year-old man cry over a nineteen-year-old girl." She sat on his legs, holding herself up by his neck. "Although honestly, you’re the first man more than a year older than me that I’ve been with." She smiled, taking a drag of her cigarette.

"What are you getting at?" he asked, raising his hand without doing anything.

She took it and placed it on her chest. "If this takes that horrible expression off your face..." she began, exhaling all the smoke into his face. "I come back in two years, and by then, if you have no girlfriend and no sexually transmitted disease, maybe I could consider something else with you." She leaned toward him. "I promise to take care of myself for you."

Her words produced the first movement in me, accidentally snapping the branch nearby.

Nolan turned toward the window, looking right in my direction. She noticed, touching his sharp jaw and turning him back toward her. "What are you looking at, fool?"

He turned his gaze back. "Nobody," he said. "It’s just that sometimes I feel Ryne watching us. I felt it when we got out of the car and now..." He tightened his hand. "She calls it witchcraft, but to me it feels more like a tingling in my back."

She stretched her arms, hanging carelessly from his neck, looking at her suitcase. Then she got up off his lap, moving her still-naked body toward the window. "You know how much it bothers me when you talk about her while we’re undressed," she answered.

"What are you doing, Dilein?" asked Nolan, adjusting himself.

She turned and looked directly at me — or at least at the bush. "It’s probably just some pervert — there are plenty of them around here," she answered. "It’s not the first time it’s happened; they’re a real nuisance."

"Dilein?"

She turned her back, bending carelessly and beginning to slap herself on the bottom shamelessly. "This is what you want, isn’t it, you little pervert. Here you go, you idiot." She turned back around, this time facing forward, raising her arms. "Go on — finish up and get lost!" She stopped. "Happy?"

I made no sound — I held back even breathing, biting my hand so hard that a tear slipped out.

"What are you doing, Dilein?!" Nolan shouted, running over with the blanket and covering her with the care that belonged to me. "You shouldn’t do that."

"It was to make you realize, you idiot," she answered, taking the blanket. "If Ryne were watching us, we’d have already heard her." She ran her hand over Nolan’s face. "Nobody is capable of watching their boyfriend sleep with someone else — especially not when they mock her like that; you can see it on her face."

"Dilein..."

"Dilein nothing, idiot," she pushed him, going back to the bed. "I don’t want to hear you talk about her anymore..." She bit her lip, groaning. "It was a mistake meeting her." She let out a sharp cry. "Now I feel terrible because of you. Why do you have to be such a terrible boyfriend?"

"I—"

"Don’t say anything!" she interrupted again. "I don’t want to hear the pathetic excuses of a pathetic cheater." She shook her head, looking at her suitcase with even more hatred. "Nolan, if you were my boyfriend and I caught you like this, I can’t imagine who wouldn’t kill you," she confessed, exhaling as much smoke as she could. "You’re the worst."

Nolan looked down, pressing his fists together and sitting beside her. "I know," he said, running his hand along her waist. "I know I’m the worst."

"Just shut up, idiot," she said, lying against his shoulder. "I’m not angry at who you are — I’m angry because you’re aware of it," she confessed, blowing out the little smoke she had left. "You’re not like those innocent boys in anime who don’t know what they’re doing. And that bothers me. It bothers me to think about what Ryne might suffer because of us when you bring her up. Because of me."

"Dilein..."

"Will you please be quiet!" she interrupted again, tears now in her eyes. "Is it really that hard for you to close your mouth for a moment?!" She wiped her tears with the same hand that had been touching his body moments before, dropping the cigarette on the floor. "I don’t even like the taste of cigarettes — they’re bland and gross; I don’t know why I even smoke them."

I was still not breathing, still biting my hand, but with less force now.

She got up, picking her shirt off the floor. "Here. Your shirt. It wasn’t my intention to put it on in front of your girlfriend — I didn’t realize until she asked about the print."

He took it, looking at it, feeling it, smelling it. "It doesn’t matter. I can buy another one."

"Yes it does." She looked down. "In these two years I don’t want anything that chains me to you or to these moments."

He hugged her, wrapping her in the arms he saved for me.

"Too late," he said, stroking her back down to her waist. "Because nobody, no matter what their rules, would forget what we felt."

She touched his chest, running her hand down to his abs with a smile. And with soft lips she told him: "Don’t say foolish things — you know very well you’re not the only one I’ve been with," she confessed with a small pause. "But the one I’ve enjoyed the most." She leaned toward his neck, hugging him one last time. "So if I cry on the flight, it’s your fault."

"Hey," said Nolan, a new discomfort in his voice. "About the stockings..."

"What about my stockings?" she asked. "I left them in your car — that day we left early."

Nolan scratched the back of his neck, careful not to catch his fingers. "Right. The problem is that I gave them to Ryne."

The silence that followed had its own temperature.

"You did what?"

"She showed up without stockings one day and I didn’t want anyone looking at her. And I didn’t have anything else on hand and—"

"Nolan." Dilein’s voice dropped an octave. "You gave your girlfriend — the girl you supposedly love the most — an intimate garment belonging to your lover." She let go, falling back onto the bed as laughter filled the room. "That is the most idiotic thing I have ever heard in my entire life."

Though she laughed, my fingers only searched for the black stockings beneath the fabric of my skirt. I touched them slowly, tracing the texture with my fingertips. The stockings Nolan had given me on a Tuesday in October — that I had kept folded with more care than any other piece of clothing because they felt like his, they felt like mine.

"Not anymore," I told myself. I began to pull them off. Slowly at first. Then with more force, feeling the fabric give way thread by thread — that small, satisfying sound of something breaking apart in an orderly way. Thread by thread. "They’re not mine anymore."

"When you say it like that, it sounds like—"

"It sounds like what it is." The dull slap of a hand against an arm. "You’re an idiot. A complete idiot." She sighed. "She’s too sweet and good to understand what I carry inside. You can tell she’s too much for you."

"I kn—"

"Don’t say anything," she said. "Or better yet, don’t say it to me." She turned toward the window. "Say it to her. Tomorrow. On your anniversary. Look at her, listen to her, make her laugh, make sure she feels like the most special woman on the entire planet." She stretched out, lying back on the bed. "It’s the least she deserves."

Tears began to splash from my face — I don’t understand why, they just slid down my cheeks with a smile. Something Clear would never allow.

Inside the room, Nolan was putting on his shoes.

"Take care of yourself," he told Dilein, not looking at her any more than necessary.

"You too, airhead," she answered, before pausing. "Nolan. Please listen to me — take care of her."

"I know," he answered.

"No, you don’t. But I hope you learn to." She looked back toward the window. "That girl is like the moon: white, beautiful, and pure, surrounded by the darkness of your life."

"If you call her a girl, it sounds like she’s younger than you," Nolan laughed. "Don’t forget she’s three years older than you."

"You’re impossible," she growled. "A person can’t be profound around you, idiot." She squeezed his chin. "Just follow through — at least this once."

"I will," he promised, closing the door. "I promise."