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#5:

Next morning, around ten o'clock, I went back to my room in the student’s building. Events of the previous night and subsequent early morning had not allowed me to fully internalize the serious and dangerous situation I was in, but arriving at my dorm’s door and finding it wide open, seeing the three bolts smashed and the padlocks missing…really dropped me from the cloud my mind was in.

The truth?

I was half sleepwalking. Between the scare and the operation I didn't sleep a wink, I came to realize that something was terribly wrong, when, despite the horror of the smashed door, I entered my room and found the bed unmade, the mattress had been flipped over and thrown to the floor, all the contents of my locker were scattered at my feet, my clothes, my shoes, everything.

However, they had not touched my books. That caught my attention, the bookcase remained perfectly organized, just as I had left it before leaving for duty.

I froze. At that exact moment my mind screamed in horror but my tired body remained mute, my eyes blinked five times a second and my throat went dry.

Someone had broken into my room! And I suspected who it was. It was obvious, the guy with the knife hadn't managed to stab me, but he smashed my door and turned my room upside down looking for something.

Lieutenant Jiménez, a woman in her forties with a very unfriendly scowl , came as soon as I called the police, took my statement and that of half a dozen girls. No one saw or heard anything during the night, apparently.

The hospital laboratory technician confirmed that I got to her on the verge of a heart attack, but that she had not seen the suspect at any time.

The experts took fingerprints of whatever surface they considered important, the lieutenant muttered something, about my room not being safe and she left.

There I stayed, staring at nothing. Sitting on the hunched over, badly placed mattress. Avoiding to think.

It was the end. If my mother found out what had happened, that's how far my studies would go. I had tried not to open my eyes to reality, but this was already too much. I was in danger.

Without a shadow of a doubt, Amalia had gotten into something ugly. Something big, something very serious. Something for which she was killed and now the killer…had his eyes fixed…on me.

“ Rosario, hey?

I have to think. What I do? Where I go? I can't stay here. What if the killer returns?

“ Rosy, it’s me!

I looked at him hatefully. There I was, trying to bring some order to the mess my life was, and there he was, yelling at me as if I were deaf.

"Are you okay?" he asked, standing at the entrance, staring wide-eyed at the disaster that surrounded me and pressing his lips together. I swear that for a moment I thought he was turning pale.

At that very moment, everything seemed so ironic to me, I have hated the Montalvos since I was in elementary school, our relationship has been one hundred percent hate/hate and then hate/indifference, however, one of them was there, in my door, asking the stupidest question in the world.

Of course I'm not okay, you asshole! I thought. And right then I burst into tears.

I was crying like a baby, moaning and sniffing back tears. There are people who cry beautifully. In the movies, the girl is always quiet and her little tears delicately run down her pink cheek while her little eyes twinkle, full of suffering... I'm not one of those. When I cry, my eyes get red, my eyelids swell, my face turns red and contorted, and to top it off I end up dripping tears from my nose.

After crying I always ended up in zombie mode. I was in a state where you just stare at nothing in particular and your mind goes blank.

I saw Matt grab my backpack and stuff some of the clothes he'd picked up off the floor into it. He grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the dormitory building. He was practically running me, until we got into his car.

"Calm down, I'll take you home," he whispered.

-“Can't go there. My mom will be hysterical if she finds out... - I shook my head, blowing my nose into a piece of tissue paper- the lieutenant won't tell her because I promised to, but my plan is not to tell her...

"Are you sure?" he asked, looking at me with his chocolate eyes. I turned my face away, looking through the glass of car door.

“I am, if I go back house...she won't let me finish.- I folded the paper between my fingers.- when that happened... I had a hard time to convince her to let me return.

I bite my tongue. I can feel tears welling up in my eyes again.

There is so very little left to do, barely two months of Surgery rotation and then it would only be left going through Internal Medicine. - I looked at him sideways. - If I leave now, I would have to finish the next course. I would be a year behind all of you . I don’t want that.

"Okay." He started the car and started driving through the streets of the city.

I frowned. I didn't want to think, reasoning caused me a headache and my eyes burned, from not sleeping the night before and crying Niagara Falls, but I couldn't escape the reality, unfortunately I'm not the kind of person who does that.

"Where are you taking me?" I whispered.

"While you decide what to do and where you're going, you can stay at my house. At least, you will be safe there.”

Desperate situations call for desperate measures…and my situation was the height of despair.

During the ten minute drive, I thought of a thousand excuses to tell Matt to change directions and take me somewhere else, but where? All my family lived in my hometown, which was fifty kilometers from the provincial capital, where I studied. And returning home to my mother was not an option, unfortunately.

The Montalvo house was not a mansion. Here in Cuba nobody lives in a mansion, however it was the closest thing to one.

It was a two-story tile-roofed house, with a very wide front, a well-trimmed garden with grass. The floor was large, glossy beige tiles. One expects what to find inside a house by looking at its façade, but it seemed to me as if I had suddenly gone to another country.

The small reception room was adorned with two vases and ornamental plants, a table, on which rested a bowl full of key rings, and a mirror. Then there was the living room, where there were two armchairs with soft cushions and a sofa, arranged in front of a television that seemed to occupy the entire wall, on the ceiling, the crystals of a chandelier sparkled very nice. Under the television were consoles and video game controllers. After the living room, there was a corridor, from which doors opened on each side, I imagined that they would be the rooms.

Matt walked past me, opened a door, and went inside. I stayed stiff under the lintel. The bed was covered by a pink duvet, in a shiny fabric. It had nightstands on both sides, there was a huge closet on the wall on one side, and on the other there was an air conditioner.

Near the door there was a hanger to hang bags, and a dresser with a mirror, a dresser and a small bench to sit calmly to apply makeup. I rolled my eyes.

"Don't you like it?" Matt asked me. He seemed nervous. “ If you prefer you can stay in another. There are two other…”

“No. It's okay.” I assured him. Dropping my backpack on the ground, I was wrecked, sleepy, tired.The last thing I wanted was a tour of all the available rooms at the Montalvos’ hotel”.

“Okay. I’llleave you so you can rest. If you need anything, the kitchen is at the end of the hall.

"Sure." I didn't want to sound rude or ungrateful, but the last events had left me grumpy.

Matt removed the duvet, opened the closet and took out a couple of pillows and another duvet more suitable for sleeping, quickly turned on the air conditioning, asked me again if I needed anything, explained that my room had a bathroom included, pointing to the bedroom door. that I hadn't noticed.

I kicked off my shoes, climbed into bed, and curled up in the duvet, hiding under the pillows. I was so tired that my body ached, as if I had been beaten up. I felt strange. My mind was sort of empty, and I felt slight internal tremors.

"Thank you." I yawned, closing my eyes, and smiling happily. I don't even know if he heard me. He turned off the light, closed the door, and I fell into a coma.

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