I arrive half an hour early, in order to repeat by heart the speech that I want to make. A homeless guy approaches to ask me for something, and I, feeling generous with the whole world because I am about to tell Silvia that I love her, give him a euro, actually two. He tells me, “May God bless you.”
I no sooner see her approach than I understand I’ve been blind for so long. She confesses to me that this is a marvelous spot and that everyone should have a spot like this to project their dreams and declare their own secrets. I make her sit down with all the regard that I would have for a queen, and while I am twisting my hands looking for the words, she very serenely stops me. “First I want to tell you something myself, Leo.”
I profoundly hope that it is the same thing so we can make the whole thing short and embrace each other.
“I don’t want to keep this secret that’s breaking my heart any longer.”
There we are. Yet again, Silvia saves me beforehand.
“Beatrice never answered your messages because I never gave you her number.”
I look at Silvia like someone who has just landed from Mars and sees a human being for the first time. Suddenly, all the beauty of her features seem rigid to me, made of papier-mâché, like an empty mask.
“I know, Leo, I’m sorry. It is my fault.”
I don’t understand.
“That time you asked me to get her number for you, I only pretended to do it.”
I remember noticing, when Beatrice dictated her number to me, that it didn’t coincide with the one that I had. The words of love that I prepared disappeared like the “I love you” writings in the sand at the beach. My tone of voice becomes hard, like ice.
“Why did you do it?”
Silvia doesn’t speak.
“Why did you do it, Silvia?”
“I was jealous. I wanted you to be sending those messages to me. But I didn’t have the courage to tell you that. I kept your letter to Beatrice for months imagining that it was for me. I was terrified of losing you. Forgive me.”
I am left in a white silence, similar to that from the moon. She is staring at the current of the river and doesn’t have the courage to lift her gaze. I get up and walk away, leaving her there, like a perfect stranger. Silvia is no longer anyone for me. Love cannot be born from betrayal.
“I want to forget you as soon as possible.”
I repeat it through my tears. And the thing that a few nights before had hidden itself in some small corner of my heart turns arid and becomes a grain of salt, which comes out in my tears, set free, lost, forever.
I am tired of being betrayed.