I translate the story that I write named "Un café". English is not my maternal language. I have imagined the beginning of the Nancy/Mateo relationship. I hope you enjoy reading this story.
Nancy was in her car. She had enter in the GPS the address for the café that Mateo give her. She had found a place near the café. Before she goes out of the car, she looks at her in the mirror in the sun visor, and she arranges her hair, because a strand have escape her ponytail. Take by an impulse, she searches her cherry red lipstick in her bag. She stops her move, the stick in against her lip, thinking of what she was doing. Why want she put makeup, it's just a coffee with a colleague, he sees her every day in her uniform and without makeup. She finishes putting lipstick, store it in her bag and she goes out and lock her car.
She walks by the café. It was a calm and cozy place, without too much noise and with a sober decoration. She saw Mateo in the end of the room, wave his hand to make her a sign and she walks to him. She sits in the chair in front of him and a waiter take their order. No one know how to start the conversation without talk about the shooting who take place earlier that day.
"I…" They both have spoken in the same time. Their gaze at each over and they laugh because of their synchronicity. The waiter arrive with their order et they calm themselves to thank him.
"I don't want to talk about what happened today but in the same time I want to talk about it" said Nancy.
"I know. Me too, I feel the same way. I feel guilty because I don't see that coming sooner".
"That not your fault, no one could see it coming. This man has a serious problem with anger management he needs to solve."
"Like our Captain"
"Yes. I hope he solves is anger management problem before he shot one of us when we make a mistake" joke Nancy
They look at each over and laugh at the same time, the physique and emotional fatigue from the shift help. They attract the glance from the other costumer from the Café. An elderly couple look at them, the look tell them that they bother them in their date.
"Prevent me to become like them when I got their age" say Nancy.
"Only if you make the same for me" reply Mateo.
"Ok. We keep an eye on each other".
"Promise?"
"Promise" respond Nancy with a big smile.
They continue their conversation peacefully, talking about their work and coworkers. They leave the place after 3 hours. They go to their respective car.
oOo
"Nancy ! Watch out !" she hears the voice of Mateo, then a detonation, then the chilling silence who follow. She didn't feel the pain, but when she raises her hands, she saw blood on them. Her blood.
"Nancy. Oh my God. Cap, Nancy is hurt." She hears Mateo, but she doesn't see him yet.
Then she saw his face, "It's going to be okay. Hang on." Then the black.
She wakes up with a jolt in her bed. Her heart bet fast in her chest and she was breathless. She needs to clear her mind. She has a panic attack. She searches frenetically some anxiolytic in the drawer of her nightstand. After she finds paracetamol and ibuprofen, she finally funds prazepam. She let the tablet melt under her tong, and it calms her a bit. But the noise of the tailpipe from a starting motorcycle in the street take her back to the memories of the shooting and her nightmare. She restarts to panic. She took her phone and call Mateo. He answers some second later.
"Nancy ?" tell a steel asleep Mateo.
"I … The shooting… Nightmare. I think… I have… a panic attack".
"Stay calm. I arrive".
"Ok". She hung up.
I arrive. She needs to find the courage to get up from the bed and unlock the door.
She sits in the edge of her bed and stand up, with shaky leg. She needs to stop some time to hold the furniture of her apartment before she arrives to the door. Soon she unlocks the door, the door open in Mateo, wearing a sweatshirt and a jogging. She doesn't move and start to cry.
"Nancy…" say Mateo when he takes her in his arm. She hides her face in his neck, shaken by her tears. She feels her leg shaking and who don't support her. Suddenly, her feet wasn't anymore in the ground. Mateo have lifted her in her arm and carry her in her bedroom, sit her in her bed.
"Close your eyes and listen to my voice. Take a deep breath" she made what he says "and exhale. And again." They do that until she's more calm.
"Do you want to explain what's going on?"
"Hum hum" she nods positively her head. "I made this nightmare when I was on the ambulance and I have heard the gunshot. And the bullet hit me. And I hear you scream and tell that everything going to be alright…" she can't be gone further in her story. All along her explanation, the tears fall in her check and she was shaking by tears. Mateo took her in her arm, wipe her tears and place his hand on her back, to comfort her.
"I should have stopped him, I should have seen that coming" say Mateo "It's my fault if you make nightmare"
She raises her head, place her hand in each cheek of the man in front of her.
"It's not your fault, ok." She says, looking straight in his eye. "It's the fault of this man. It's because of him that I made nightmare. It's because of him that you feel guilty. We have lived a trauma, and we need to learn how to live with it. Ok?"
He shakes his head, "Ok."
The look in each other eyes for a moment in the silent bedroom. He still has his hand in her hips, and she still has her hands in his cheek. And slowly she tilts her head toward him. He doesn't move, closed his eyes and waiting for the lips from the woman in front of him to crush into his. And when their lips meet, he wrap his arm around her back, intimate her to get closer. Their kiss was shy at first, they more assured, the fear to be rejected disappear in each other mind.
When their break the kiss, they need a moment to recover their mind. Mateo was the first one to react when he moves away from Nancy and get up from the bed. He was stopped in his move by the hand off Nancy in his wrist.
"Stay, please. I think I can't sleep if I'm alone."
He nods his head for the only answer. She makes some space in her bed, and he lies down next to her. He gazes at the ceiling for a moment, wondering how he end up in this situation. He has kiss one of his coworker, in the middle of the night, in the bed of the said coworker, the same bed he lies down now. He saw her as a friend before that kiss, even if something buried deep inside him say she can be more than a friend. When he turns his head to see the woman next to him, she was peacefully asleep. It didn't take so long for he to fall asleep too.
oOo
Mateo wakes up alone in the bed the next morning. The smell of coffee comes from the other room made him get up from bed and walk to the living room.
"I made coffee, if you want some" greet Nancy. She was in pyjamas, hair untied and slightly entangle, but Mateo think she is more beautiful the ever.
He pours some coffee in a mug, thanks her and an awkward silence settle in the kitchen. He was the first to break the silence.
"What happened in the night…"
"It was a mistake on my part, more exactly a moment of weakness that I don't want to get over alone. I'm sorry. We can pretend anything happened, if you want." She interrupts him, lower her gaze in her coffee's cup
"And if I don't want to pretend anything happened" answer him spontaneously.
She raises her head. She doesn't know what to respond to his sentence, she didn't expect this answer from his part. He comes close to her, tiptoe and kiss her. She deepens the kiss, release a hand from her cup to put it on the cheek of the man in front of her. They break the kiss but stay close from each other.
"I don't want to be alone at this moment, too. And in don't want to be alone with you. So no, I don't want to pretend that anything happened earlier."
Nancy prefers the act instead of word to answer him. She put her cup on the kitchen's counter and kiss Mateo. This kiss was more passionate and intense than the first two. She places her hand under his sweatshirt, intimate him to get close to her. Her thumb caress the skin of the young man. She take off his sweatshirt and let it fall in the kitchen ground. He looks at her, smiling, take her hand and walk to the bedroom where they discover each other more intimately, letting the coffee turn cold.