Suspended in time, I stood there, bearing the harrowing gift it had given me, up until the last note was strung.
While the rest of the crowd stood and applauded, I stared, ramrod straight, still lost in my own painful oblivion.
I was torn.
Shredded to my very core.
Stripped bare, unguarded from the past.
Just when you believed that nothing could evoke such rooted emotions, that was when it would prove you wrong.
My eyes burned, my heart panged with immense ache, and my soul yearned for something to sooth it. Here I was, in the middle of a park at midnight, surrounded with strangers, shaken and unsure with myself. Why, of all nights, did it choose to resurface tonight?
"Cariña?" Juan softly asked as he pulled me close.
I couldn't see him. The only thing I saw were the callous flashes of my past. I could easily detect worry in his tone.
"Cara, I'm going to kiss you just to bring you back to earth," he gently threatened. It wasn't an empty one, either.
The man would use whatever he could to snap be back to reality, and I suppose the very thought of his lips on mine brought me back to present.
I blinked the unshed tears away. "Get me out of here."
Juan didn't need to utter another word. He swiftly guided me away from the crowd, retracing our steps back to the parked Porsche.
I felt like a hapless imbecile. My mind whirled as he unlocked the car and held the door open for while I unceremoniously slid into the seat with a blank expression, dazed and confused.
I didn't realize that Juan was already in the car with me until I heard him speak.
"Want to talk about it?" He inserted the key into the ignition and left it there before glancing back at me, concerned.
Lightly sniffing, I adamantly shook my head. "Definitely not. It was just a weird moment, that's all."
"You can talk to me. I won't tell your secrets," he pressed, as though confessing my past would ease the pain that heavily throbbed in my chest.
"I have nothing to say." All I needed was a moment to gather my bearings then I would be good as new.
"All right … " he conceded before adding, "We'll stay here a while, just for a moment, until you feel a better."
It was a sweet gesture that meant the world to me.
And so, we did just that. We sat in the car in comfortable silence while I took my time to get centered. I applied the same method that a nun had taught me once a upon a time: count to five backwards then release your breath, count another set to breath in. Practice with patience until the pulse began to normalize.
It took about ten minutes to accomplish feeling like I was back to my old form, more or less.
"I'm okay now," I sternly stated with a firm nod, ready to get out of there.
Worry etched his face, unconvinced. "We don't have to go, you know."
One thing Juan had to understand about me was that I rebounded fairly quickly. My past had taught me to toughen up, and I wasn't about to crumble due to some moving song. I was over it now.
"I'm not a delicate person; I'm fine. So please, start the engine. I need alcohol in my system."
"All right, cariña." He nodded and revved up the engine, ready to head to his friends' shindig.
The house party Luis was hosting was on a grand scale. It was a little outside of the city, a mansion sitting on a hill with an infinity pool overlooking the Mediterranean. Like most decorated homes here, there was a lot of Middle Eastern influences, partly due to Morocco being so close. The only lights used were the strobe lights in one open section of the house where the dancing took place. The rest of the house, garden, and pool were beautifully lit with candles. Tea lights in every bright colored glass known to mankind lined the pathways, illuminating a colorful glow like a color wonderland, beguiling and downright enchanting.
"This is so pretty," I murmured close to Juan's ear, then felt him tighten his hold on the back.
We just entered the open terrace where Luis and a few other men, along with their girlfriends were situated in rattan loungers and settees. There were easily over a hundred guests scattered about the grounds, drinking, dancing, and groping like no one's business.
Cigar, cigarettes, and marijuana wafted in the air. And booze, a mighty lot of them. This was the kind of distraction I needed to forget that bizarre episode at the park.
His friends were nice, but they weren't too keen to get to know me. The plausible reason could be that Juan had brought one too many women to parties that had never been seen hanging off his arm again. So, in his friend's defense, investing time to his one-timers just wasn't worth the effort. I found it peculiar that Juan never once mentioned I was his co-star. I wonder why. Oh well, I could grill him about that later.