Ann greeted her ex, who she introduced as Judie to Marina, with a kiss on her face and shook hands with the man, who was introduced as Glenn. Ann introduced Marina as her girlfriend, and Marina shook hands with both of them.

Ann"s ex-girlfriend was a brunette with long black hair. Her skin was fairer than Marina and she was a little shorter. Glenn was a tall and skinny man with brown skin and curly hair. He gave a friendly smile at Ann as she sat across them with Marina at her side.

"How long had it been," Judie said. She looked nervous as she smiled. "Two years, right?"

"Three," Ann said. "And that was totally on you. This whole time and you never gave me a call."

"Well, yeah. Lots of things happened."

"Yeah, I can see," Ann placed her eyes on the baby on Judie"s arms. It was probably no more than one year old. "Yours?"

"Oh, yeah. He is."

The waiter came to get their orders. After he left, an uncomfortable silence fell over the table. Marina whispered in her girlfriend"s ear, in a tone that only Ann could hear:

"She"s afraid of your reaction because she married a man."

Ann gave a long sigh and threw a smile to Judie.

"I"m relieved," she said. "You look fine and happy. When you disappeared suddenly, you got me worried."

"Y-Yeah," she gave a tap on her husband"s arm. "After I met Glenn, we decided to build a family together. This little boy," she said, looking at the baby." But we got ahead of us. Having this baby now wasn"t in the plan yet, but well, I"m happy that he came anyway. I plan to get back to my studies after he"s older."

"Medicine yet?"

"Yeah. What about you?"

"I"m doing publicity. Well, it"s not something I"m doing because I love it like you. Just what I had."

"You"re smart. I know you"ll be fine," Judie threw a glance at Marina and, for some reason, Marina flinched. "You look happy, too. With such a beautiful girlfriend."

"Y-Yeah," Ann gave a nervous smile.

"You"re still prettier in her eyes," Marina said and Ann threw a startled look at her. After that, her eyes turned to Glenn.

Judie chuckled.

"He knows about our past, don"t worry. I told him I had girlfriends before."

"I know my wife is hard to resist," he said with a laugh. Ann breathed relieved.

She gave another glance at the baby. She realized Marina was staring, too.

"He"s cute," Ann said.

"Isn"t he? He has his mother"s face," Judie said with a big smile. "Want to hold him? You loved little kids, right?"

"I-I"m not sure I…"

"Come on, don"t worry."

Judie stood up and carefully pa.s.sed the baby to Ann"s arms. He was small and light. Ann was afraid to hurt him because of how frail he looked. Marina also didn"t take her eyes off him.

Babies are nice. It"s a shame I could never have one.

The thought crossed Ann"s mind and Marina looked at her. Ann didn"t seem to realize and just kept rocking the baby on her lap.

"There"s a reason why I called you today," Judie said. "But I hope you"ll understand. I want us to get in touch with each other again. I"m not trying to imply anything or…"

"Just say it," Ann said. "I can"t even judge you before you say it."

"Sorry," Judie said with a nervous smile. "It"s just, my husband here insist we should baptize the boy. He"s also a Catholic. Seems like I attract this kind of crazy people."

"Oh. And you"re okay with it?" Ann gave a mischievous smile.

"Yeah, well, not okay. But I"ll give in this one time. Marrying inside a church is out of question, though," she threw a glance at her husband. He just smiled. "But I said I would choose one of the G.o.dmothers, then. You came to mind. I was thinking about who the G.o.dfather would be, but I guess two G.o.dmothers would be fine, too," she looked at Marina. "If you"re okay with it."

"M-Me?" Marina said. "We hardly know each other. I"m not sure…"

"If Ann was dating a man, which I know it"s impossible, we would invite him. It"s actually pretty rude not to do it, even if we didn"t know him better. So I don"t see why we can"t do the same with you."

"But," Ann looked at Glenn"s direction.

"It"s fine," Judie said before he could say anything. He just nodded, showing that he agreed with his wife judgment. "He said I can handle it. You won"t do it in a church, anyway. The ones he"ll invite will. Not like it matters, it"s just a theater, anyway," she shrugged. "But if you"re going to be this boy"s G.o.dmother, you"ll be close to the family and we"ll keep being friends," she stopped for some seconds before adding: "I"m not being cruel by asking that, am I?"

Ann gave out a laugh and looked at Judie with a gentle smile.

"If I said you were being cruel, I would be cruel with my girlfriend. I love you, Judie, but as a friend. I have to say, though, I wanna keep being your friend anyway. You"re the one who disappeared," Ann glanced at Marina. "I wanna do it, anyway. Be his G.o.dmother. I would be happy to accept it. But I won"t say yes if my girlfriend doesn"t agree to do it with me."

"That"s unfair," Marina said with a smile. "Of course I"m forced to say yes now."

Ann turned to Marina.

"Thanks, love," she leaned towards her girlfriend. "Want to hold him a little?"

"I-I"m not sure if that"s…"

"Come on. I know you like kids."

Carefully, Ann put the baby on Marina"s arms. He just looked at her in silence, closing his eyes. Marina had a big smile on her face looking at the baby.

"He seems to like you," Judie said. Then she turned to Ann. "And by the way, you"re the one making me jealous now."

"W-What?"

""My girlfriend"," Judie mocked the tone Ann used. "I swear you never spoke about me like that. Not even on the bed."

"Don"t be stupid," Ann said with a grin. "And respect your husband."

"What? I told a lot of stories about us to him already."

Ann gave Judie a glare.

The waiter came and put their order in front of them. The whole moment, Marina was playing with the baby"s hand. Now he had her finger on his grasp.

"Well, with that out of the way," Judie said, leaning against the table. "How about we catch up on the news after all this time, sweetie."

***

Ann realized there was something wrong with Marina after her meeting with Judie. Sometimes she would ask weird questions. Some of their conversations were like she was trying to trigger some kind of though in Ann. Like asking about her past, her plans for the future, marriage. That became so frequent that Ann became uneasy. She started to control her thoughts and feelings around her girlfriend. Yet, she was sure Marina would realize the alteration in her mood.

Adding to that, she was getting fewer customers. The news about her kiss and her relationship with Marina made men start to avoid her and going to other attractive clerks while rumors about Marina"s aggressive reaction with a previous customer kept female customers away. Since part of her money was by sales commision, she was starting to get worried. That was stressing her out.

She had a headache. Probably because of the stress and the effort she was making to hide her thoughts. But because of that, the few sales she tried to do failed.

Burned out by the uneventful day at work, Ann went to the back to the store to drink a gla.s.s of water and rest for a moment. She knew Marina could still perceive her from where she was, so she tried not to think about it. She was sure Marina could see that she was holding herself up.

After some minutes, Marina went after her. At first, she stopped at the entrance of the room and gave Ann a worried look. Then she walked to her.

"Are you okay?" She asked.

Ann put her hand on her forehead.

"Please, stop. That"s annoying," she thought.

Marina stopped. She pressed her lips and just stared at her girlfriend.

"Fine," she said and turned away.

Ann realized she failed to stop her thoughts from leaking. She jumped from her chair to catch Marina"s wrist.

"Wait!" She said, giving a distressed look. "I didn"t…"

"Maybe you should go home and get some rest," Marina coldly answered her, pulling her hand off her grasp.

Ann watched as her girlfriend left the room alone.

Idiot, idiot, idiot, idiot! She thought, hitting her forehead.

Still, she agreed that a rest would be good. She asked for the rest of the day off, saying she wasn"t feeling good and went home.

After getting into her bedroom, she threw herself on the bed. Suddenly, all thoughts she was suppressing started to flow her head. It felt good to be free to think again. But the sharp pain in her head was hurting even more.

"I need money, what do I do?

Why she had to do that?

I love her.

She needs to give me some time.

I hate that she can read my mind without any warning.

It"s not her fault.

But I love her.

Hope she doesn"t hate me.

I wanna see her.

I don"t wanna see her.

I don"t get it.

I wanna read her mind.

She"s annoying.

I love her…"

It all came without Ann being able to control while she buried her throbbing head on the pillow.

"I hope I didn"t hurt her."

Ann didn"t realize how tired she was. She slept there as she was through at least two hours. When she opened her eyes, her mind was lighter. Her thoughts were clear and her headache stopped. Giving a sigh, she turned on the bed and looked at her floor. Her hair was disarranged, pasted on her face. She smiled.

She took her smartphone that was resting beside her bed. There was no call or messages wasted. Looking at the time, she knew Marina should be home already. She typed a message for her.

"I"m sorry for today, love.

I wasn"t feeling good. I didn"t mean that. "

No answer. She waited on the bed. The sign in the message showed that Marina had read it already. But no answer came back. Ann got worried.

"Love?

Can I call you?"

After some minutes the smartphone vibrated, alerting a new message. With her heart startled, Ann grabbed it in a flash.

"Sorry. I want to be alone right now."

Ann felt like her heart was stabbed. She buried her face on her pillow again, wishing she could turn back time.

The next day, Marina avoided her completely. The same happened the day after that. When Ann called her out at work, Marina said she had an appointment elsewhere and walked away. Next day was the weekend, a day off.

Ann didn"t want to leave home. She spent her day lying on her bed.

But she needed to talk to someone. Taking her phone, she dialed a number and waited for the call to complete.

"h.e.l.lo," she said when someone on the other side picked it up. "Judie? Can we talk?"

***

Ann and Judie made plans to meet in the same dinner as before. This time, when Ann arrived, Judie was the only one there. She complimented her ex-girlfriend with a kiss on her cheek.

"Your kisses used to go a little to the side before," Judie said, as the two sat down. "Sometimes way below."

"Judie, I"m not in the mood for jokes."

Ann"s expression was serious. Seeing that, Judie"s smile disappeared. Affable, she held Ann"s hands.

"Sorry. I"ll stop making jokes. What happened?"

A waiter came to get their orders. When he walked away, Ann sighed.

"Marina is avoiding me."

"What did you do?" Judie asked, bluntly.

"Why do you think I did something?"

Judie let out a grin.

"You"re a sweetie, Ann, but I know you can be a b.i.t.c.h sometimes. Remember when you said I was wearing a skirt too short so men would look at me instead of you?"

"Oh. S-Sorry…"

"It was our date and I wore it thinking of you, since you said it looked good on me the other day, remember that? That p.i.s.sed me off a lot. And of course, after that, you started to say I"ll never be as attractive as you, anyway."

"I was a teenager, Judie," Ann blurted. "I"m really sorry and I was a b.i.t.c.h. But I don"t say things like that anymore…"

She stopped. She looked pensive.

"Oh," Judie said. "You did say something, after all?"

"I didn"t!" Ann"s face became serious. "Hey, Judie. Do you think someone should be punished by something they think?"

"What? Of course not."

"But let"s say, what if I was thinking about having s.e.x with another girl while holding your hand when we were girlfriends. Do you think I would be in the wrong? Would you hate me?"

The waiter interrupted them to put their orders. The whole time, Judie was giving a confused look at Ann. When he walked away, Judie started to talk.

"I"m not sure what you"re going on about. If you cheat on me? Sure, I"ll be mad, even if you never tell me. But thoughts? I don"t really wanna hear them, but it"s not like you did anything wrong."

"What if you could hear them."

Judie threw her eyes to the french fries she had ordered in front of her. She took one and took it to her mouth.

"I don"t really know what to say. If I could hear them? No one can hear what other people are thinking. If I could, maybe it would bother me a little. But we"re human. I understand that this is natural."

Ann bit her lip and looked dispirited, not even touching the food in front of her. Judie let out a sigh.

"Okay, for our history, I"ll be honest with you," Judie said. "Your girlfriend is hot."

"W-What?" Ann rose her face surprised.

"Yeah. I am married to a man now, but that doesn"t mean my interest in women disappeared completely, you know. She"s like, totally my type."

"That"s weird."

"Weird?"

"Yeah. At first, I thought she looked like you. So saying she"s your type is weird."

"Ohhh," an impish smiled formed on Judie"s lips. "Is that why you were attracted to her?"

"T-That"s not it," Ann blushed. "Actually, stop flirting with me. You"re a married woman and a mother now."

"Sorry, sorry," Judie shrugged. "But like I was saying, she"s totally my type. So when we met, I couldn"t stop thinking about it while staring at her. Sure, I wasn"t being disrespectful to her or you, but in my mind, I couldn"t stop fantasizing with her."

"You have the courage to say that to her girlfriend"s face."

"I know you, darling. I don"t need to read your mind to know you"re thinking right now something like: "she would never have a chance against me.""

"Well, true."

"Right?" Judie"s face became serious, her smile fainting. "But you know, I love my husband. I love my son, too, and I would never do anything to hurt them. Thoughts are not a crime. It"s inside my mind. It"s my safe s.p.a.ce. I don"t know why you"re worried about that but don"t blame yourself if you thought something wrong. If I could hear the mind of people, I would understand that not everything they think is their true feelings. I must understand why they thought that first."

Ann took the cup of juice in front of her and gave a sip. Judie"s words were echoing inside her head. It was just a reaffirmation of something that deep down she knew already, but hearing from another person was rea.s.suring.

"I don"t get how thinking something can make your girlfriend avoid you, though," Judie said, picking another potato.

"Well, it"s complicated," Ann said and suddenly something on their conversation clicked with her. "Wait! You said you were fantasizing with Marina? You mean a s.e.xual fantasy? While she was with us?"

"Yeah. It was hard to take my eyes off her, but I made an effort."

"What kind of fantasies?"

"What kind? That"s not something you want to hear, sweetie. Let"s just say they would definitely get an adults-only rating."

Ann froze. She started to remember their meeting and if she could take anything from Marina"s reaction. Still, she couldn"t resist and started to laugh.

Judie gave her a confused look.

"What are you laughing about?"

"No… That"s just… wait… " Ann couldn"t stop laughing to articulate a full sentence. When she finally calmed down, she dried the tears coming out of her eyes with the back of her hand. "Judie, someday I"ll tell you a secret. I don"t think it"s something that you wanna hear now."