Page - 34 - in In and Out & www.whatsyourname.you

5 10 15 20 25 30 35 36 Rosaria, as usual, sighed. But before starting the search through the contacts of Armelinda’s brother, she said she would want to make another lap in the area where he lived. She didn’t know why, but instinct was telling her that there was something that didn’t add up in these hypotheses that they had made up to now. “Be careful not to get arrested for stalking,” Armelinda told her while laughing. And now, completely covered up, she waited in the hall of that building where she had seen him enter for days. Rosaria had already figured out the apartment building where he lived. She had seen him enter it the first time she followed him. Later, though, she had noticed that after school, he went back home where he stayed for 15 minutes, or a half hour at most (the time for lunch, Rosaria imagined), then he went into the opposite apartment building and from there she didn’t see him go out again. She was full of curiosity. She absolutely wanted to know what he did in that apartment building. She had made several hypotheses, even that he could be going there for an afterschool program, but that wouldn’t be for more than one hour, like he usually did. So she rejected this hypothesis too. But today, today she was going to discover something. She had this feeling. So, she hid between the hallway and the stairs so that no one could see her, but so that she could keep an eye on both the stairs and the lift. She waited for a long time and in the end her sacrifice was rewarded. She saw him go out the lift, but he wasn’t alone. The girl who was with him looked very familiar. Rosaria almost cried. She recognized her. It was Vanessa, that simpering girl who was in her class. She hated her. The two guys stopped a moment before going out. She heard him speak to Vanessa. “Thanks for what you did for me earlier,” he was saying to her. “You don’t need to thank me. You know how I feel about you,” Vanessa replied. They hugged tightly for a time that seemed endless to Rosaria. She suppressed a shout that was angrier than before but couldn’t hold back her tears. Her sunglasses were irreparably foggy, just as her stupid mind had been foggy until now. The truth was revealed in all its cruelty, and she felt as if she had been thrown on