Page 20 of Morena
I told myself I needed work, a roof, but the truth was uglier. I was a man losing himself, wearing a mask that put on a happy face while something inside crumbled. Thought consumed me, and I feared that if I let them all the way in, if that loneliness finally swallowed me, I would disappear. Not die exactly, only stop existing.
I tightened my jaw and pushed the thought down. For now, I would keep the room, the work, and the quiet. For now, that would have to be enough.
I worked until my hands became heavy. Back in the kitchen, I pulled apart the cabinets, scraped away rot, and tossed out the mold-stained remains clogging the sink. I repainted the cabinet doors white, a thin coat of false purity over the wood. I scrubbed the table, but some stains never lifted. They had sunk deep into the grain, scars the wood would never forget, memories of whatever nightmare had happened here. To cover the ghosts of those marks, I painted the table and chairs black.
Time slipped away. When I looked up again, the light outside was disappearing. It was already close to six.
The house was silent. Haunted or not, it felt lonelier without her. No trace of Morena, not even in the corners. As much as she made me afraid, her absence made the walls feel emptier. I told myself I would leave for now, waste time at the park, wander the streets until night came, then slip back in to go to sleep. Maybe she was calling me. Maybe she was only resting, waiting to return in my dreams.
Did ghosts even sleep?
She had stirred something I thought I buried.Fear.Fear of being awake and blind to what stayed in the dark. Fear of being asleep and seeing too much. Fear of waking one day not here, but somewhere else, perhaps in hell, chained to my own past.
And above all, the fear of what I had done in the Dominican Republic inMay of 1996.
No one knew about that day. Even for me, it blurred in places, fractured into pieces I could not hold together. I only knew I had done something, something I had been running from ever since.
The past hunts in silence.
I once read that you should never do anything you might regret, because regret is a ghost that will haunt you forever. I had done many things. But only one pressed its weight on my soul.
My thoughts slipped away when I noticed Carlos leaning against the kitchen wall, watching.
“I’m impressed,” he said. “This place already looks good.”
“Yeah.” I gave a short laugh. “House has potential.”
He chuckled, shaking his head.10“Esta casa tiene fantasmas. Así que…”
“Sí?”
“Any idea why Isabella wants you fired?”
I rolled my eyes.
“Nah.” I shook my head.
11“Isabella tiene los rasgos de su padre,” he said.12“No la hagas enfadar demasiado.”
“I’m just not the man for her,” I said. “She’ll find someone else.”
Carlos gave mea look. “13La mente no elige a quién amar. El corazón sí. Y el suyo te eligió a ti.”
I did not want to admit that it was her body that pulled me, so I only smiled. There was no love between us, only lust, a sick hunger, and her obsession with not letting me go. She wanted something she could not truly possess, and once she had it, she grew bored easily. She loved the game of cat and mouse, but she did not understand that I was not a mouse. I was more like a dog, either a stray or a loyal one that would stay for life. Everyone else saw me as a fuckboy,a Don Juan, but that was not the whole truth.
“My advice,” Carlos said, “find a nice girl to spend the rest of your life with.”
I nodded without arguing.
“I missed my chance,” he added. He smiled then, but his eyes were on the window. “I had someone once.”
I leaned on the edge of the table, curiosity sharpening me.Was that girl Morena?
“What happened?” I asked, lifting a brow.
“I lost her in the eighties,” he said, still watching the street.
“Did she die?” I asked.
