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It was easier to forget about his pain when he was intoxicated, roaming the lively streets of Palermo in search for a bar that could give him just the right combination of cheap and strong spirits, the correct fuel for his shameless self destruction.
Wallowing in his misery, the boiling dark core of his heart content to feel that amount of self-hatred and disdain he jealously enveloped himself in, he spent his nights roaming around, drinking in the worse possible places and fucking in the most depraved ways he could conceive.
After all, that was what a miserable creature like him deserved. He wasn’t allowed the luxury of love. He couldn’t love anyone and surely nobody could love him. His love had been declared invalid, unworthy and he had accepted it, for what could he fight, when his life didn’t even have a purpose anymore?
Yet Martín didn’t stop thinking about Andrés and their plan, how could he after so many years spent together? He even kept working at it, in moments when he was in such a drugs-induced lucidity which allowed him to work at the plan without feeling anything at all, only the mere greatness of the practical aspects of such structured work.
Days, weeks, even months ran away fast and bleak, each the same, blended together in a never-ending lace of viscous gloom.
Martín took pride and satisfaction in leaving his lovers without even asking for their names, one equal to the other to his eyes, twenty or thirty minutes spent alleviating each other’s tension only to never meet again. Some of them tried to be sweet, even caring, they wanted to get to know him, to talk and exchange stories.
‘Who the fuck do they think I am? A princess waiting for her Prince Charming?’
He was a majestic, dark creature, beautiful in his decadence as he accepted his own fate of being alone and promiscuous.
He embraced his pitiful faith as a distorted imitation of an hedonist embracing a luxurious life voted to Dionysus, his perverted interpretation of a life of extremes.
When the news of the attack at the Fabrica de Moneda y Timbre broke out worldwide, he started following the events morbidly, he tried to gather as many information as possible about the movements of Sergio’s gang. The bastard had gone all out and set up his little team of misfits, ill-fit together, so extraordinarily average, to reach a common goal.
Martín knew the plan, of course he did, even if he had tried forcedly to forget it, partly because nothing mattered to him outside their plan and partly because Andrés had left to follow his little brother in his unrefined endeavours.
And all Sergio did in the end was stay outside of the Mint, el cobarde, leaving the dirty job to him, to Andrés, whom the media had defamed is such a horrible way.
The dirty job which ultimately resulted in Andrés’ death.
Martín couldn’t process it, no it couldn’t be true, men like Andrés didn’t die. Men like Andrés lived forever, powerful and large, born-leaders who could charm even the more detached people into following them blindly.
But he was gone for real, Sergio had left him to die. He had presented his brother to the police on a silver plate, letting him die a stupidly heroic death. Martín punched the wall until his hands started bleeding and he screamed, so loud he lost his voice completely. The pain so strong it hurt him like his whole body was on fire, like he was being burnt alive and punctured by countless narrow blades. He kept hurting himself physically, hitting every limb against what he could find around, trying to induce his body to feel something yet he was completely numb, annihilated by the magnitude of the event that had just occurred.
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After an undefined number of confused days and many dark nights of total perdition, a crimson envelope that had been pushed under his door caught Martín’s attention as he lay helpless on the floor. Soaked in vodka, tears and blood, the cracked skin of his hands aching with every movement of the trembling fingers, he stared at the letter for a long time before he could convince his body to respond to his brain’s order.
’How pathetic would I look if he saw me now.’
Martín recognised the gracious handwriting immediately, his own name looking so much more elegant and real than he had felt in the past months.
“Queridísimo Martín,
if you have received this letter, it means I’m not around anymore. May it be that my illness has finally had the best over me, or something else entirely has provoked my departure from this marvellous world.
First of all, you’ll be wondering ‘What illness is he talking about?’ and well, I was diagnosed with my mother’s disease, around the time I met Tatiana. The sudden knowledge that my time was limited had a strange effect on me, it changed my perspective completely.
I had been so blind, Martín, I hadn’t realised how much I cared about you.
You’re probably cursing me, but I couldn’t tell you, I couldn’t trust myself to resist the impulse of allowing you to stay to take care of me, once I had told you. And I would have never wanted you to witness my slow decay towards death.
Yet I committed just one mistake, one sweet, intoxicating mistake which I cherished till my last day. I came in your bed that night, because I couldn’t possibly die without knowing what it would have felt like to have you. Selfish, I know but not uncharacteristic.
Tatiana, on the other hand, she was young, she loved me but wasn’t as invested as you and me were, mi amor, she could have forgotten me so easily. We broke up soon after our wedding, I bet she did forget me.
I want you to understand exactly why I left, I wasn’t a coward, no. I just wouldn’t have allowed the most meaningful person in my life to go down with me. Martín, I meant it when I told you we are soulmates.
I didn’t want to hurt you by slowly fading away in front of you like a ghost, so I did the most painful thing, I lied, told you I didn’t feel the same as you, told you to leave.
But Martín, I want you to remember us like we were all those years ago, living together and working at our beautiful creation, drinking and dancing together to the music I know so well you hated.
El tiempo es una puta mierda, mi alma.
Siempre tuyo,
Andrés
PS. malditas mitocondrias.