Part 153 · ~3 min read

The Mantis

The door was ajar, and when I entered, Flavio was just two steps behind me, and I heard an unnatural silence. My heart was pumping faster and faster. Flavio called me while I was in the kitchen as if he wanted to show me something. I just walked, and while going there, I opened the bedroom door to see if everything was in order. I never thought that Flavio had found Simona dead in the bathtub. Simona had taken her own life. The second person in a few months had suicide, and I was involved in both. I ran to her and tried to reanimate her, but she had slashed her wrists… I hugged her and cried. I loved her, I love her, I still do… I would not have cared about her gaiety; I would have loved her regardless, as I was still Flavio’s friend. That has changed, and not because I had sex with him but because he decided I was not his friend anymore, and I had never been. That die, that Christmas, will be unforgettable. I lost two people I loved. I felt so lonely and so impotent. I, the tough guy, suddenly was exposed to my weaknesses and had no way to show a different face. I was what I was: a better person but sadder and alone—completely isolated by everyone.

Out of the tub, one hand was pointing at Flavio’s diary. She loved Flavio and noted something: “The only man I loved is now gone. What should I do here, by myself, now that he is gone, killed by a man that I could never love, a man that was too similar to those who have taken my innocence and youth away from me? My only satisfaction is that he will pay for what he has done to Sonya and Flavio: jailed!” I was terrified by those words. I never thought she could hate me so much, but I still loved her, and a strong sense of pity replaced love. I realised that among the three, I was the best person. Flavio, the sweet guy, hated me and Simona. Simona, the nice and full-of-life girl, resents me just for being like someone who raped her when she was younger, at the point of pushing me to kill her love and rot in jail…

Flavio was standing behind me while I was reading his diary, actually the last words added by Simona, as if nothing had happened. He just said one thing: “I could have written the last sentence…” “Vendetta, sweet and only satisfaction in this world, now it’s mine.”

“The same writing is on the flowers of Sonya’s tomb. I thought you were sending them, but I must have overestimated you. I forgot you had no heart or feelings for anyone.”

I could hear a strong note of hate in his words. I am sure that deep inside, he knew that he was the worst of the three, the one who really hated both of us—he was the Mantis.

THE END