Dios Necesitó un Angel ~ Updated April 8th, 2012!

[blair]

as long as it'll be happy ending i can wait xD

[Lianita]

Hola beautiful people!! I know this update is a little late - I'm sorry!! This is only half the chapter, I will finish the rest hopefully by the end of this week/early next week, depending on how much free time I have. I don't have much time to leave a lengthy reply to your amazing comments but I hope this short post finds you all amazingly well and that you are all having wonderful Wednesdays! Enjoy this update! As always, your comments are all dearly loved, so let me know what you think!

love love Lia (loving these new smileys )


Chapter 59, Part I

“Time passes. Even when it seems impossible.
Even when each tick of the second hand aches like the pulse of blood behind a bruise.
It passes unevenly, in strange lurches and dragging lulls, but pass it does.
Even for me.”
Stephenie Meyer

Seven months later...


“El Greco was described as a rebellious and mystical man. From his native Greece, he travelled to Italy to learn about colour and composition from Venetian painters, and later arrived here in Spain, the source of his realism and sorrowful poses, and lived out the rest of his life. We see the darker, more sombre influence...”

Mariangela pauses in her speech, taking a few moments to collect herself and her thoughts. She looks around at the small group of people in her tour; they are mainly tourists, jotting down notes in their brochures, or staring behind her at the marvellous painting of the Annunciation. She slowly continues her tour, talking through the most significant paintings, letting herself get lost in the long, wide corridors of the Prado museum. She patiently answers questions, makes small jokes with the children, takes photos with the tourists who point enthusiastically to their cameras with broken Spanish.

Today, however, she is looking forward to her lunch break. Once her tour is over, she rips off the nametag pinned to her chest and walks briskly to the staff room. She collects her things, waves to her co-workers, and leaves the air-conditioned museo into the stale, hot summer air.

She squints into the bright sun as she walks through the bustling city.

This time, though, she has no one around her waiting on her to continue a speech or answer a question or help with a discussion, and when she is alone is when she is most vulnerable.

She sighs, squares her shoulders, and continues making her brisk way to the café where Nadya is waiting.

She greets her friend with a smile a few minutes later.

“Hola,” Mariangela smiles, falling gratefully into a chair and wiping an arm across her perspired forehead.

“How was work?” Nadya asks, sipping an iced coffee.

Mariangela shrugs noncommittally. “Same old,” she says. “Work is fine.”

But I am not fine, she thinks silently.

She smiles and nods as her friend tells her some story about a man she’s been seeing. Roberto? Rodrigo? She can’t remember. She swallows guiltily and tries to shake away thoughts she does not want to think about. Thoughts that dare to sneak up on her unsuspecting mind countless times each day, thoughts that unravel her defences and break her down and batter her. She tries focussing on her friend who is talking animatedly, but the June sun is beating against her back. Summer. Oh, summer, she thinks, and grits her teeth. Summer again. It’s been a whole year.

“Mari?” Nadya’s voice breaks through the noise in her head. “Are you even listening to me?”

Mariangela blinks, “Sorry, what was that?”

“I said,” her raven haired friend calmly continues, “Are you free tonight? I want you to meet Ricardo.”

Ricardo, she shamefully corrects herself.

“I can’t tonight,” Mariangela sighs. She fidgets with a napkin, distractedly. “Besides, how long has it been? Didn’t you meet him just last week?”

Nadya stares at her. “Yes,” she says pointedly. “Last week, two months ago.”

Mariangela flushes and bites her lip. “Surely not that long ago. Oh Nadya, I’m sorry.”

Her friend sighs impatiently. “Don’t worry about it. I get it, you’ve been busy. New job and all. This weekend though I’m having a cocktail party at my place and I expect you to be there, no excuses. You’re the only one who hasn’t met him yet! That’s just a disgrace!”

She tries stretching her lips into something resembling a smile. “I know. I’m sorry. I will definitely be there.”

“More importantly, what am I going to wear?”

She allows herself to be sucked into her friend’s superficial pleasures. The next fifteen minutes revolve around manicure and pedicure appointments, shopping trips and Nadya’s giddy happiness over her new man. She laughs at all the appropriate times, gives advice when she is asked and is honest in her opinions. She takes small bites out of her lunch and her heart feels light again.

That is, until the afternoon news updates blast from a television in the corner.

“...And Fernando Torres scored the winning goal in yesterday’s friendly against France, after a heated first half...”

Her insides clench tightly at the mention of his name, and Mariangela fights the urge to shut her eyes. She pretends she has heard nothing and continues to swallow her food, though it tastes like plastic as it goes down her parched throat.

She does not let the pity swimming in her friend’s eyes deter her. She steels her heart, blocks her eyes from the interview playing loudly on the TV, blocks her ears from the stream of Spanish and his voice.

Fernando was impossible to escape from.

He was there at every newsstand, plastered across every magazine. He was there in every television commercial, participating in an advertisement or talking in an interview or running down the field before shooting another marvellous goal, both for Liverpool and for the national team. He was there in the number 9 stitched across the jerseys of the boys kicking a football around in the late afternoons. He was there in the innocent news updates at every morning hour, lunch hour, night hour.

Her heart catches in her chest so painfully at every mention of his name she has to physically stop and recover.

His face, his voice, was everywhere.

Why was the world so cruel?

Then she mentally chastises herself.

She continued living and breathing – now in remission for the last three months! – having graduated, and now with a steady job at her beloved museo.

The first few months were hard; indescribably, brutally, unforgettably hard, yet at the same time they were much easier to get through than her days now.

She remained in hospital close to two months after her operation – while successful, there had been complications. Yet she battled on. She battled on, was given vicious doses of treatment, and after being bed ridden and sick for so long, against all hope, she broke through and recovered.

Remission had been a dream since her teenage years, and now here she was, healthy for the last three months.

She went back and took short courses at her university and graduated in record time; she volunteered at the museum on the days she had free and they loved her so much they offered her a part time job after a few weeks.

And yet, still, despite the pieces her life slowly being sewn back together, Mariangela still cannot get through her days without physically holding herself together. There is no comfort inside her; there is was nowhere she could turn to inside herself to leave the darkness that he has left.

There are no memories she can think of – they are all too painful. No gentle jokes – they are no longer humorous. No musical verses – the lovely sounds are lost on her ears. There is no part of her body she can touch without shuddering. There is nowhere she can look without seeing Fernando, without seeing Olalla.
 
Now she doesn’t have the pain and the medications to dull her sorrows.

She doesn’t have infected cells in her body anymore; no more poisons fighting her blood.

There is nothing for her newly-in-remission body to do but grit its teeth and lift itself out of bed and focus on putting one foot down before the other and face the minute, the hour, the day ahead.

She loves losing herself at work, loves the distraction of walking through countless paintings with their unseeing eyes and hearing the squeaking shiny marble floors; but when she is not at work, and not with her friends, when she is alone with no one but herself and her thoughts, he is always there.

Missing him is like a physical ache that grips her early in the morning and does not leave her, not even as she draws her last breath late at night.

What hurts even more than his absence is the fact that she has not heard from him, and has not heard from her sister. Though which was more painful to think about she can not tell.

She sees her parents once a week – every Sunday, before she drives the hour to Aranjuez to visit her grandmother’s grave – though their relationship has somewhat improved, the first thing she asks them every week is, “Have you heard from Olalla?”

And always the answer is, “No.”

And yet she has somehow survived the past seven months.

That’s all she has to comfort herself with: without Olalla, and without Fernando, in those seven months, in those two hundred and thirteen days (not that she had been counting or anything), she has survived.

She has survived.

And surely that must count for something.

[blair]

of course that must count for something!

thanks for posting ;*

i hope you'll find time to post soon again xD

[Tamara Bueno]

Woww big changes huh?!

I absolutely loved that she's in remission, thank God she's finally well!!
but it must be so hard for her to keep seeing Fernando everywhere, it's harder to let go!

and where the hell is Olalla???

I want Mari and Fer to meet again, soon!!

great update chica, can't wait for the next one
xoxo

[AmericanGirlME!]

thanks for the update chica...you know i always love you and your stories...continue to do your best and always...........!!!!!!!!!!!!

[nando_9]

Bloody fantastic is all I can say! She's healthy again but wants Fernando back. Please update again soon. I want them back together for a happy ending  - please??

[Ms.CR714]

Please Update Soon....I can't wait to see what happens next !!

[Molly_182]

YAY!!!!! An update! I love it! I can't wait to see what happens next!!

[cell]

Thank you so much for the update!!!!I was so happy.

About the chapter:
 I can`t believe that mari finally has started to live her life.

and of course her first real job is in an museum, that`s so typical for mari.
I`m so happy for her. she deserves it to be healthy and to have a life like a young woman should have.

but one big part is still not right...

FERNANDO- I can`t believe it that he never even once tried to contact her!!!!!!!hello,  she could be dead or still be in a hospital and he doens`t care....I`m so disappointed with him....

o.k he also started a new life in liverpool but mari ment everything to him. how can you have a heart and do something like this.
I want to find out what excuses he has for not contacting her!!I don`t understand it.


so, can`t wait for the next part!please don`t let us wait too long.
I need this update!!

[nando_9]

Update soon please *begs*

[Molly_182]

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE UPDATE SOON!!!!!!!

[nando_9]

^^^^what she said.  Uuuupppppdddaaattteeee pppllleeaasseee

[Margarita!]

YOU. YOU. YOU MEAN. cliffhanger. MEAN I SAY. MEAN.

[cell]

update please!!

[nando_9]

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE UPDATE - PLEASE!!!!!!