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“I thought I forgot about you, but then they put the song”.
“La canción”, J-Balvin and Bad Bunny.
Bogotá, Colombia
He is sitting on a barstool, with a beer between his hands.
Once upon a time, he promised himself that he wasn’t returning to this place, but well, shit happened, he guesses.
He is back.
But this time he is older, alone, and with a beer in his hand.
Why is he drinking?
Because he is nervous.
Because he is back to this place because he is going to meet her. And well, meeting her was always something that made him feel a little bit…uneasy.
He looks at his watch. There are still ten minutes left, so he takes another swing from his beer while his leg moves up and down, just as he does when he is nervous.
He sighs, trying to say to himself that he shouldn’t be so nervous about this. He is just going to meet her.
It's just his ex.
Well, one of his many exes, that’s it.
But who is counting?
Not him.
Nathan is getting lost in his thoughts again when a very known melody interrupts his thinking.
He freezes. But of course, they will play that song here. Nathan is not that lucky.
“Fuck my life”, he thinks, looking at his beer again.
From all the songs this Colombian bar can put on their speakers, it had to be their song.
That song he always skipped when he could, that song that remind him of her too much, that song that always made him stare at the nothing with a smile on his face like the total fool he is.
Yeah, that song. The one she always put, the one they danced in this same bar a long time ago, the one his head heard and automatically said: “oh listen, it’s our song”.
It wasn’t even their song, it wasn’t even a good song, it was just a stupid song.
But somehow it was their song and it hurtled.
He thought he forgot about her, but then they put that damn song, and now he has a film on his head. A film of the good old days, of their travels together, of their calm days, of their forevers.
It ended up bad, and he wanted to believe that he got over her.
But it takes just their song, and he suddenly realizes that he is not over anything. Even less her.
He chuckles because he is an idiot. Maybe that’s why his real marriage with Elena didn’t last long. Because she was always there, just as the rush of adventure.
In every corner, in every photo, in every damn song.
He gulps his beer, and he looks at the door.
Nathan doesn’t want for her to appear but wants to get over this already. Sitting there, listening to that stupid song while he remembers that night…he wants to get back to the States and act like he never came back.
But just before the song can end, and when he is still looking at the door of the bar, a figure appears, and his heart skips a few beats.
From all the timing Lara could have, she always had the worse.
She looks taken aback for a moment or two, maybe because she recognizes the song or maybe because she is looking at him in an empty bar.
It doesn’t matter, because she finds him a few seconds later and smiles at him a little bit tense. Yeah, she noticed. She is thinking the same thing.
She approaches a little bit nervous and shy. He knows because he knows her too well. Maybe too well for a couple of exes that break up a long time ago.
“Hi”.
She is still wearing that little smile, but he is simply looking at her.
Their song ends and he reacts. Snapping out of a reverie that wasn’t healthy for his heart or his body in general.
“Hi”, he answers back, and he offers her his empty hand. The one that is not holding the beer with white knuckles.
Lara looks at his hand a little bit confused, but she takes it and shakes it anyway.
“Thanks for meeting me here”, she gulps, and her usually stoic face is back.
She is hiding her feelings, he knows. He also knows that he should do the same.
“No problem”.
It was a problem, but Lara didn’t need to know that.
Lara sits on the barstool next to his and she asks for a beer from the bartender in Spanish. After he puts it in front of her, she takes a sip, and they stay in silence.
It's awkward even if their song is not playing anymore, even if they have been closer than this.
Lara suddenly sighs and Nathan would like to say that he didn’t care.
She asks about his life. He doesn’t know if it’s of politeness or because she wants to know. He answers anyway.
And they talk and they talk and for a moment or two, it feels like they are themselves again, like those times in this same bar, like every other time they came to Colombia.
It was their neutral space. Their hideout.
But then, when the beer ends and they don’t have any more excuses, tension falls again, and Nathan simply waits for the inevitable.
“Why did you want to meet here?” he suddenly asks. Lara sighs.
“Do you remember that Roman relic we were looking for when things…?”, she doesn’t have to end, he knows and so he nods. “Well, I found the research we had the other day”, she continues while she looks inside her bag. Lara puts a few files on the counter in front of themselves. “And it reminds me of a lot of things”.
Nathan looks at the file. It has the name of the Roman relic on the cover. He wrote it, a long time ago.
“But then it occurred to me that we never had closure, that we end things too fast and too easily and…”, she meets his gaze when he turns to her. “Maybe we should end something we started together. For old times’ sake”.
He stares at her; she stares back and suddenly everything is in the silence between them except the bar around and the city outside.
Lara guesses that a lot of things are running around in Nathan’s head suddenly and she doesn’t blame him. But if she is honest, she was just being selfish, because she only wanted a slight moment with him, once more, just one.
Missing someone can be hell, at least in a head like hers.
She believes that he will say no because she is asking too much of him. Their time together was good, yes, but she had no right to ask him something like that. Even less to do it together.
Hope was the last thing one loses, right?
“We never had closure, you’re right”, he suddenly says. “We end up things between us but that doesn’t mean we are enemies”, she nods.
He smiles then.
“You’re lucky I have a few days to kill”, she chuckles, liberating more than tension.
He offers her his hand to shake it again.
She takes it without hesitation.
This could end in two ways: worse than it was already or in a good way.
They both hope it was the latter.