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Explain the Thoughts
Miyen found her with her arms folded on the table and her face hidden against them, crying like her heart was about to shatter in a thousand pieces. He sat down by her side and put his arm around her shoulders without a word, but she wouldn’t calm down.
He saw the tablet with the video still on screen and decided to see what he was dealing with. He put on the earphones and kept his arm around her shoulders to watch the clip. He took under a minute to start cursing under his breath, listening to the lyrics.
"I can’t explain the way I feel inside
When you’re not around
I can’t explain the thoughts that fill my head
When you’re not around.
"And all the while, I let you go.
"Take my heart, my name
Everything I’ve got I give to you
Our hearts are the same
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No Return Another Song
The fifth day Jim’s housekeeper called Sean to tell him Jim hadn’t let her in, the eldest Robinson decided it was time to step in. So he called his little brother. Jim picked up right away, only to tell him to fuck off and let him be. Okay, he was alive and well, sort of. At least he was still in shape to use his phone.Sean gave him another day, mostly to muster all his patience and keep from killing Jim if his suspicions turned out to be right.After convincing the band to arrange and record that new song—yet another one for Silvia—Jim had pretty much run to upload it to that frigging blog he insisted in keeping online, swearing she still checked it every time he posted something, ‘cause analytics didn’t lie.And then he’d sat to wait for an answer. Even though it’d been over five months since Silvia had last spoken to him, he was so frigging sure this time she would react and reply. The damn fool! The song would
No Return Night Flight
Jim turned off his light and reclined his seat further, stretching his legs. The flight attendants had offered to make his bed, but he’d declined. He wasn’t there for some funny pajamas and a good night sleep. His eyes darted out the window. A whole continent spread down there, thousands of feet below, invisible in the moonless night. And they had to go all the way to the other end of it.He dozed for a while, a shallow sleep that brought him no rest, and woke up to find an attendant had covered him with a light blanket. Just like Silvia had done every time she’d found him asleep.A sigh escaped his lips. What the frigging hell was he doing on that direct flight LA-Buenos Aires? He’d just let Sean drag him along, mostly because if he refused, their argument would’ve ended up in a fist fight.But that didn’t change that their trip was totally useless.He knew Silvia too damn well to harbor any hope. He could spend the re
No Return A Bleeding Nose
They arrived in Bariloche to a rainy, windy late-spring afternoon. As any Californian traveling to Patagonia, they hurried to wear their winter jackets, caps, scarves and gloves. To find all the locals in the airport were in short sleeves.The wind pushed them a couple of steps to the side when they walked out to take a taxi.“You couldn’t fall for somebody living in fucking Riviere, could you, bastard?” Sean snarled, holding the door for Jo to get into the car.The taxi took them down a road flanked by pine trees in the early nightfall, up to the freeway that led straight to the city. It ran parallel to the lake that opened on their right, huge, dark, choppy with foamy waves. The city lights spread ahead along the coast for many miles.They checked in at their hotel about seven. Jo stopped Jim before he got into his room.“Don’t take a nap. We only have time for a shower and a quick bite,” she said.Just
No Return Smoke in the Rain
Silvia and Claudia got off of the bus outside Jim’s hotel and leaned forward to fight the push of the wind as they walked up the narrow cobblestone street. According to the city’s most conservative traditions, the bus they had to catch hadn’t come, forcing them to wait another twenty minutes in that cruel Patagonian combo of cold-wind-rain until the next bus came, obviously crowded and in no hurry, so they were almost an hour late.Claudia stopped short halfway to the bar, the cake in precarious balance on her gloved hands.“The candle!” she cried. “We forgot the candle again! Why do we always forget it?”Silvia pointed her thumb over her shoulder. “I’ll get it. You go ahead, before the rain spoils the cake.”Claudia hurried on toward the bar while Silvia walked back the way they’d come, to the minimarket across the street from the hotel.A few minutes later, she was p
No Return Two Steps
“There she is!”“Finally!”“Man, you’re soaking wet!”“Here, have a drink to warm up.”Silvia spotted him right away. All the way across the bar with Miyen, hands in his pockets, his black cap down to his eyes, keeping his face in the shadows. She paused to say hi to those closer to her, giving her heart a chance to stop hammering her chest. As if. He was watching her, completely still, like a ghost of himself.Sean and Jo were sitting at a table with her cousin Leandro, Karim and some more. Jo jumped to her feet and threw her arms around Silvia’s neck with one of her bright grins. They hugged tightly. When Jo stepped back, Silvia nodded hi at Sean. He nodded back without the slightest trace of a smile, for a change.“Silvia! Listen!”It was AC/DC’s Back in Black. Some of her friends pushed her to the middle of the bar and she headbanged with them f
No Return Rockstar on the Loose
“Shall we?”Jim looked up and found Silvia wearing her jacket. Half a dozen of her friends were also gearing up to go out. He didn’t even think of asking anything. He just grabbed his stuff and went back to Jo and his brother, who faced him with a questioning nod.“Guess it’s good night, bro. I’ll keep you up.”“Don’t worry, we’re having dinner all together tomorrow,” said Jo with her bright smile.Sean bit his tongue. His brother had just met his woman again and his girlfriend was having a great time. What he thought didn’t matter at all. So he just nodded with a quick shrug and watched his brother leave all alone with that bunch of strangers.Jim didn’t have the slightest idea where he was going, but he’d rather chop his tongue off than say a word about it. If that still mattered, he would’ve better stayed home in LA.All of them where bundled up in t
No Return Welcome Home
The bus left them to a light snowfall that promised to get thicker, and Silvia tugged at Jim’s sleeve to make him cross the empty road with her and Claudia. He was about to ask why the hell all the streets on that place seemed to go uphill, but he got distracted, watching the snow swirl down in the subsiding wind. He just took Silvia’s hand and let her guide him, not paying attention to what she and her friend whispered in Spanish.“Are you making him pay, bringing him on the bus and making him walk all the way to the Black Rock?” Claudia asked, amused.“What? No! Look, the wind’s stopped and it’s so beautiful to walk. The park must already be all white.”“Are you hearing yourself? Is that what you’re really thinking about right now?”Silvia grinned and Claudia shook her head, chuckling.They walked her up to Beltane, waved goodnight at her as her dog barked as to wake the whole neig
No Return Drop the Poster
“Hurry up, you’re late!”“I can’t find one of my sneakers!”“What’re you doing? Jim’s sleeping!”“But I think it’s in your room!”“And what the hell are your sneakers doing in my room? Never mind, just don’t wake him up!”The curtains of the window by the bed were wide open to a dull gray sky and trees sprayed with snow. It didn’t look like the day had just broken, so it couldn’t be that early. However, Jim felt like he’d only slept a couple of hours. He rubbed his face, hearing the muffled voices from the dining room. Silvia’s side of the bed was already cold. She’d been gone for a while.A twenty-year-old boy, taller than him, stuck his head into Silvia’s bedroom. He saw Jim was awake and flashed an apologetic smile.“Hi, Jim, sorry,” the boy said in English. He looked down and grinned, crou
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