In a Flash
My camera’s flash danced across the Cuban performers’ revealing feathery costumes. Just because I was here to take pictures of the beautiful beaches of Havana didn’t mean I wasn’t allowed to take some personal photos, right?
“Seth! Hey, Seth!” I heard my roommate Rob’s voice coming closer to me from the sea of people surrounding the platform. I turned around, wiping the sweat off my forehead with my sleeve. I waved back with my other hand, letting the bulky black Canon PowerShot SX20 fall to the support of the thick woven strap around my neck.
“You ready? We’ve gotta go man! They’re about to leave without us!” He tugged on my arm, nudging his head in the exit’s direction. I picked up the camera and took one last shot of the dancers as he rushed me out of the crowded scene. We stumbled into the parking lot and Rob let go of me and jogged toward the car, “Let’s go!” he said, gesticulating toward the open car door.
“Hold on a second…” I replied, completely distracted by the stunning Latina walking toward me. I had never seen someone so beautiful in my life. She was stepping with such confidence as she tilted her head back in laughter at whatever her friend was saying to her. Her black hair swayed in thick coils meandering lower than her perfectly postured shoulders.
“I think you dropped this,” she handed me what was very plainly my wallet, “it was on the ground over there,” she pointed to a curb near the sidewalk I had just walked on. Her friend let out a high-pitched chortle and put her manicured hand over her mouth trying to stifle her childlike giggle. I winced as her alcohol intoxicated breath wafted past my nose. I turned back to face the radiant woman standing before me.
“Thanks,” I put out my hand, “and you are…?”
“Esperanza,” she blushed suddenly, shaking my hand.
“I’m Seth, nice to meet you Esperanza,” I smiled.
“Oh, and this is Maria,” she gestured to her stoned friend. She let out another high-pitched giggle, “sorry, she’s a little, uh, you know. Well it was nice meeting you, we should get together if you’re on a long vacation here, I think that’d be nice…” She nervously rambled on about them meeting at the beach by the Hotel Maria la Gorda shore resort, and I told her I would definitely be there.
After waving goodbye and exchanging shy smiles, I got into the car and sat next to Rob- he must have been at the zenith of his impatience. “Sorry man, I know I took a long time, but I think I just met the woman for me!” He looked at me in utter disbelief, and then stubbornly turned away, crossing his lanky arms in front of his chest.
Rob and I have known each other and been best friends since we were barely able to walk. For all the years that he’s known me, I’ve never been in a serious long-term relationship, so his reaction to my ‘absurdity’ was to be expected.
For the entire car ride back to the hotel I babbled on about how gorgeous she was and how much I really thought we were meant to be together. The only responses I got from Rob were things like, “Are you drunk, man?” and “Dude, you need to relax, she’s probably just some hoe like the rest of them here.” I ignored his comments, smirking as we stepped out of the cab and strode toward the hotel lobby. “You jealous?” I beamed. He shook his head and murmured something under his breath.
“You’re in way over your head, she probably won’t even remember to meet you at the resort tomorrow.”
He was wrong, though. At noon the next day, she met me at the shoreline, bathing in sunlight, making it a day almost as lovely as she in her white sundress.
It was the beginning of the most, well, my only, swoon-worthy relationship I had ever had. I knew it was only three weeks that I had known her at this point, and lord knows Rob wouldn’t let me forget it, but there was something about her that made me naïve enough to not even want to leave her to go back to the states!
It seemed everything was going great until I arrived at our designated meeting spot a few weeks later to find she wasn’t there. I waited hours and watched the sun set into the foamy sea until I decided to go look for her. I asked people on every street if they had seen her, nobody had. I arrived at the club I had first seen her at, frantic with worry as if she was my own child.
“Have you seen her? Esperanza?” I thrust a picture of her she had given me at the overweight bodyguard in front of the building. He nodded, his double chin bobbing above the collar of his very unflattering skin-tight shirt.
“Over there,” he pointed to a sketchy building behind a chain-link fence; “it’s where she usually goes at night, partyin’ it up. She’s a hot one with the pimps, ask anyone,” he snorted. I reeled my head back in disgust.
“Yeah, right,” I said, not wanting to believe it.
“Why do you even care where she at? Ah no, ah no man,” he guffawed, stepping back with a twisted smile on his face and covered his mouth with his hand. “Is that whore yours? She belongin’ to you now?” He started laughing as I stormed away in frustration. “She ain’t yours foo! She every other man on this islands’, but she ain’t yours!” he called back behind me.
A mad man now, I jogged toward the building, nearly convulsing in fright- I HAD to find her, I just had to. Just as I was about to give up and start up my search somewhere else, my peripheral vision caught sight of her. Shocked, I turned around. She was sitting down between the fence and unfinished white plastered wall, hunched over with her head in her hands. “Esperanza! Esperanza!!” I frantically stumbled over to her dark hiding place.
“Shh!!!!!! Don’t call my name! I owe him! I owe him so much… So much! He’ll find me! He’ll find me here, and then he’ll kill me, he’ll kill me Seth, he’ll kill me…” her eyes bulging with worry and distress as she went on mumbling hysterically to herself.
“It’s okay, it’s gonna be alright,” I made a sad attempt at comforting her as I picked her up and swiftly ran to my car with her frail body dangling in my arms as loosely and delicately as a newborn.
She was silent for the entire ride back to the hotel. Her stare transfixed straight ahead, she made absolutely no movement the entire time, that look of edginess and unease never leaving her eyes. I helped her out of the car, slowly lifting her and carrying her to my cleanly made bed. As she lay on the carefully spread white sheets, she finally closed her eyes and took a long, deep breath.
I sometimes wondered to myself why I loved her so much, and if she even loved me back. Four weeks could make a person fall in love, right? I wasn’t in over my head. She was the one…
“I need to go to the bathroom,” she blurted suddenly. I stood up as she rushed out the door and down the hall. I peered after her in surprise as she hastily paced down the hall toward the bathroom door. Instead of opening the door to the bathroom though, she furtively passed the door and took a sharp turn down the hall. I chased after her, barely in time to see her running out the hotel exit.
“Where are you going???” I shouted after her, “What are you doing?? Stop! Esperanza! Stop-” but before I could even finish my sentence, a deafening sound filled the air.
A heart-stopping explosion of a pistol’s bullet shooting through the air penetrated my eardrums, stopping me cold in front of the hotel. Regaining consciousness from my frozen state, I looked around for Esperanza. A horror struck look washed over my now pallid face. There she lay, limp on the cement. The air’s silence was broken by the screech of a car speeding away from the scene, clearly being driven by whoever shot the gun.
I knelt down next to her, but it was too late. She was gone…
Rob was right. I couldn’t believe it, but he was right. He told me I was in over my head, but I didn’t listen. He told me I was giving too much, making myself too available, that I wouldn’t have any of my now shattered heart left, and I didn’t listen. He told me to stop. I didn’t listen. I didn’t listen and I should have… I should have listened to him… But I didn’t.
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