The field was perfectly green and its only limit seemed to be the horizon. There were no clouds on the clear, velvet blue, starry sky and a light breeze moved the branches of the trees that were spread around the vast area of land, but the place was mostly empty.

Apart from them, of course.

The little girl seemed to be about five years old and she was wearing a red-dotted pajamas. She slept peacefully, hugging her teddy bear, curled up on a ball on the springy grass. Some of her light brown locks (which gleamed in the moonlight) fell on her tiny face, framing it, and she smiled every once in a while, as if they were tickling her, but she didn't wake up.

There were two identical women sitting on the grass too, one on each side of the girl.

One of them carefully examined the pleats of her filmy, red dress. The other one (who whore a half-white, half-black, strapless dress underneath a grey business jacket) silently contemplated their surroundings, and sighed every once in a while. Suddenly, the woman in red seemed to emerge from her abstraction and spoke.

"Well I hope you're happy. You just made her exhausted."She said, pointing towards the little girl with her head.

The woman in the black and white dress answered slowly and tiredly, not making eye contact. "Please don't start with this, Ophelia. "

"Start with what, Chloe?"The woman in red mimicked the exasperation in the other one's tone. "Why are you making this girl stay up all night proceeding with this ridiculous… 'cleansing ritual'? Why can't you leave her alone?"

"It was necessary. She needed to get this night out of her head. Every little trace that she was there and every little trace of what happened needed to be erased."

"You know that is absolutely impossible. I am the one in charge of that and I am not going to let you take away the most important night this girl's had in years. Besides, I believe she had a good time, excepting maybe some tiny bits-"

"Tiny bits?" Chloe interrupted, her voice filled with sarcasm. "Please, give me a break. She just learned her best friend's in love with her, and he kissed her- which was totally inappropriate, if I'm allowed to say it. Can you imagine how awkward things are going to be from now on?"

"Okay first off, I hate it when you use that tone. You make the word 'kiss' sound like 'murder' or something."Ophelia made a sound of disgust. "Secondly, you know that he wasn't trying to hurt her or confuse her. He would never do that."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because he's Jim!"

"That doesn't change the fact that he just ruined her life. She getting married in like what, a month?"

"I'm sure he refrained himself from telling her a thousand times and I'm sure he kept his feelings to himself for as long as he could. He's only human. Humans have trouble hiding what they feel, especially for long periods of time. You don't know any of this because of course, you've made her become a master at that. "The woman in red looked angrily at the other one. "You have no idea how hard it is to be in love with someone you know you've got no possibilities with. You have no idea how hard it is to admit that fact, to tell that person how you feel, even when you're afraid that love is unrequited. It takes guts."

"Yeah, whatever. "Chloe sounded half-bored, half-annoyed, as if she'd heard those lines a thousand times but it still made her upset knowing that the other woman was right. "That's not even the point. She's got to forget about him, for her own good."

"What are you talking about?"

"Something tells me Jim's not going to stick around after this. If what you just said is true, it must be awful to be rejected-"

"It is."

"Well, then I'm guessing he'll do something drastic in order to move on from this. Probably, he'll try to get away from her."

"Oh, God. You could actually be right."Ophelia covered her mouth with her hands, in awe. "That would be so, so sad. Poor girl."

"Life goes on."Chloe answered in resignation.

"How can you do that? It worries me that you can be so cold."Ophelia scowled at the other woman. "She's losing her best friend. At the very least. All you can say is 'life goes on'. Seriously, Chloe?"

"It's the truth. You know I can only speak with the facts."

"Well, I'm sick of that. Come on, we've got to do something about this."

"Absolutely not. I refuse to do anything. I'm not getting involved with one of your crazy plans again. "

"My plans aren't crazy and you never use them anyway! You can't be serious about not doing anything. This is a mess. Someone's got to fix it. "

"It is not a mess. You're completely making that up. Things are fine the way they are-"

Chloe's words were interrupted when Ophelia's hand came out of nowhere and slapped her on the cheek. For a moment they both stared at each other, exchanging looks of anger, confusion and amazement.

"Have you gone out of your freaking mind?! How can you dare slapping me-"

"Shut up. She's sleeping."Ophelia hissed in a whisper, pointing at the little girl again. "And I will slap you as many times as I need to in order for you to stop denying reality."Chloe looked at her furiously, but didn't say a word. Ophelia continued. "Things aren't fine, at all. Fact. She has feelings for him. Fact. She's having doubts about her engagement. Fact. There are some things you should fire-burn into your brain. And we should discuss what we're going to do about them. "

"Nothing. We aren't going to do anything because none of that is true."

"Are you trying to get slapped again?"The woman in red raised her voice. "You're really pissing me off today."

"Fine!"Chloe's eyes flashed with fury again. "Okay, let's assume those facts are true. Can you tell me what the use on that is? What's the point on admitting the truth if there's nothing we can do about it? Tell me, Ophelia, 'cause I really don't get it! It is too late, okay? She made a choice and she can't back out now. It is too late for regrets. He's not giving her a second chance. She lost him and there's nothing we can do. The sooner you accept that, the better for all of us. "

Ophelia's jaw dropped and it took her a couple of seconds to answer."It's never too late, Chloe. Never. Things can always change if you try hard enough. "

"Well, I'm sorry. She's not going to spend the rest of her life crying herself to sleep about him. I won't allow it. I don't want a scandal. She will move on, just as I'm sure he will."

"We don't know if he'll move on. I doubt he can. And I don't think she can either, especially if she doesn't have the time or the chance to think things over because she's supposed to marry another man in a month."

"Not my problem."

Ophelia felt the urge of slapping Chloe again, but she held it back, deep breathed, mentally counted to ten and spoke again, her tone soft and quiet. "Please, don't be so stubborn. I'm just saying she should have some time to think about all this. You can't just expect her to bottle up her feelings inside and act like nothing ever happened. That's not going to be good for anyone. "

Chloe took a couple of minutes before speaking again. "You think she needs time."

"Yes. Among other things."

"You want her to admit the way she feels and give herself some time to think about her future."

"Yes."Ophelia nodded.

"That's actually… not so crazy."Chloe admitted, biting her lower lip. "Having her keeping it all to herself could have negative consequences."

"Exactly. We can't let her marry Roy if she's having doubts about her feelings for him. We can't let her marry someone if there's a possibility she might be in love with someone else. I mean, she could run away during the wedding or something- "

"A total disaster…"Chloe mumbled pensively, interrupting.

"Yeah. But more important, if she marries Roy and then turns out she doesn't love him anymore, she'll be doomed to a life of unhappiness. I can't allow that to happen. You shouldn't allow it either."

"I know that."Chloe sighed and her gaze locked with Ophelia's."So we have to do something. What do we do? What can I do to help?"

"If you're right and Jim goes away, she's going to have to make it through the day without him. As much as I want her to face her feelings, I don't want her to fall apart. You have to help me with that."

"Okay. I'll do it. Can you help me too?"

"Sure."

"She has to try to make it work with Roy. Let her give him a shot, please."

"No problem. But honestly, I don't think it'll work. I can see something's changed deep within her. I think something changed within her a long time ago and I completely missed it. "Ophelia shook her head and bit her lip, frustrated.

"What do you suggest if that's true?"

"Well, obviously she'd have to end her relationship with Roy."

"Oh."The corners of Chloe's mouth dropped, but she remained calm.

"Look at the bright side. At least that'd give her the chance to decide what she wants to do about her future without Roy's impositions. She could go to art school, or get another job, anything she wants."

"That would be nice. She has a lot of projects and plans and I wouldn't like to give up on them."

"I know."Ophelia patted the other woman on the shoulder, understanding. "So we're clear here about our next moves?"

"Yeah. We are going to let her admit her feelings… "

"And then we'll deal with the consequences, together."

The two women smiled sadly at one another. "It's going to be hard."Chloe said.

"It's our duty."Ophelia answered. They shook hands.

"Good luck, Ophelia."

"Good luck, Chloe."

With this they both disappeared, as if they'd vanished in the air. The little girl, now alone, yawned and started to wake up. During the time she had been asleep, the sky above her head had changed its color from velvet blue to purple, and the stars had gone, replaced with the red glare of the daybreak sun, which was coming up from behind the horizon.

It was a beautiful sight.

Too bad she didn't want to watch it.