I wake up, and I’m in stoppage time. Starting now I ought to be returning. To be in transit, a passenger in transit. Here I am, someone with a life in the big city, and yet for some strange reason, or for many, I don’t want to return to it. To the city, to my life. I feel panicked. Now my life back in Buenos Aires makes me panic. Manuel, school, work, the apartment: I don’t see what any of it’s for. I can change the channel, I feel like I could do it and just leave everything, like a movie with no finale, on cable, that couldn’t quite hold your attention enough to make you want to stick it out and see how it ends. The problem is that there’s nothing really on the other channels either, but at least they’re running different things, there’s potential, there’s still the possibility that something will happen. Right? I’ve woken up in a foul mood, I realize. Today not even your cat wanted to sleep with me. Hardly a surprise.
When I get up it’s crazy late, your parents aren’t there anymore. On the little note your mom left me it says: Manuel called, call the store, when are you getting in. He wants to know when I’m getting in and not when I’m returning, meaning he’s taking it for granted that I am in fact returning, what enviable certainty. Return. I don’t even remotely feel like it right now, I wouldn’t even know what for. I suppose Ramiro would remind me that the same thing happens every time I take a trip, that then I don’t want to return, that I always get entranced with some other life, that I fall in love with all those other women I am when I’m away, in other places, that what’s hard for me is commitment, that the alternative is easy, that starting from nothing is always easy, and I know, I get all that, and I don’t feel like listening to it, and besides, this isn’t a trip. I don’t know, specifically the feeling I have now is that nobody needs me back there. They don’t need me here either, but something is broken, that’s the sense I have. Now I think I couldn’t leave without first having talked to Julián, a little bit, even if it’s just for a few hours, just to have him talk to me, have him talk to me about everything, tell me how he’s doing, I need to know, everything, maybe meet his kids? Maybe even meet his wife? His pregnant wife? Would it be wise to take that leap? Should I do that? Although no, because it would be a kind of deceit, because I want him too. And what would I even do there? I’m going to just chat with—what’s her name? Mariela? Or was it Marianela? I don’t know, I think my mind is clouded from being so upset, I had an unpleasant awakening, and I can’t think clearly. I’d really miss your cat too, if I left right now. And your parents. I’m a wreck, I need a family, I want a family, and in some way, to a certain extent I feel like I’m usurping yours, even though I’m not, even though I know it’s an exchange, and that I am obviously also giving something back, I must be, they’ve like adopted me. I feel like I can’t return like this, the way things are right now if I leave, I’d be returning broken. I realize, I already am, I’m a little bit broken, but it wasn’t the trip, I don’t think it was that this time, I think I was already broken from before, that I’d been breaking for a while, which is why I came, or why I was able to come, by myself, too, because I could have come with Manuel, that’s true, and I decided to come alone, which must be for some reason, there must have already been something that was broken. I can’t leave like this, I can’t, but I also can’t stay. What the fuck am I going to do here? What the fuck am I going to do?