Brianna's living room, with its plush plum velvet sofas and the inexplicably unlit white marble fireplace in the middle of August, had metamorphosed into a silent battlefield, where words, whispered or spoken with false sweetness, were sharp weapons capable of inflicting invisible but deep wounds. The summer, which in its youthful promises should have been an oasis of carefree laughter under the bright sun and shared adventures, had insidiously transformed into an arid desert of piercing uncertainty, where the long and persistent shadow of Josephine's inexplicable absence darkened every encounter, tingeing even the most trivial moments with melancholy.
Anna, with her penetrating dark eyes and a venomous smile that curved on her thin lips like a razor's edge, had managed, with cold and calculated cunning, to turn every meeting in this familiar room into a veiled interrogation about her friend's sudden disappearance, a painful scrutiny that Louie endured with increasing difficulty. "It's no coincidence, Louie," she insisted with relentless tenacity, her voice, though soft, resonating with a disturbing intensity in the oppressive silence of the room, like the constant buzzing of an annoying insect. "One week. Exactly one week after you two decided to formalize what was between you, and she just leaves? Disappears without a trace? Really, deep down in your heart, do you believe it's just an unfortunate coincidence?"
Louie, his jaw clenched until the muscles in his face tightened painfully and his green eyes, usually full of youthful warmth, now clouded with confusion and growing anguish, looked away, unable to hold Anna's penetrating and accusatory gaze. Brianna, sitting uncomfortably beside him on the velvet sofa, shot Anna a silent warning glance, a tacit plea for her to stop her relentless drip of poison, to cease her verbal torture. But Anna's smile widened slightly, revealing the almost sadistic gleam of someone who enjoys the pain of others.
"Come on, Louie," Anna continued, her voice now even sweeter, almost honeyed, but with an acidic undertone that made it an even more insidious poison. "Let's be realistic for a moment, let's strip away all vain hope. If Josephine really loved you, if she loved us, this group that was once so close, she would have looked for any possible way to communicate. A simple text message, a brief phone call, a smoke signal, anything. But nothing. Absolutely nothing. A sepulchral silence that screams abandonment."
Anna's words floated in the room, dense and charged with a palpable tension, filling the air with a suffocating atmosphere, like a thick and cold fog that stifled any attempt at rationality, any glimmer of hope that might still cling to Louie's heart. He ran a trembling hand through his brown hair, his frustration and confusion growing with each malicious insinuation. "She... she must have her reasons," he murmured in a barely audible voice, but doubt, insidious and elusive as a worm, had already begun to gnaw at the foundations of his trust, slowly eroding his faith in Josephine.
"Reasons?" Anna scoffed, her short, dry laugh laden with a sarcasm as sharp as broken glass. "Reasons like going to Paris, to live the high life amidst luxury, while we stay here, suffering from her inexplicable disappearance, wondering what the hell we did wrong? Surely she has already made new sophisticated friends, new wealthy suitors. Who knows? Maybe she has even found a new boyfriend, someone of her 'class'."
Brianna, her brow furrowed and her green eyes darkened by a growing rage, tried to intervene, searching for the words to counter Anna's venom, but the latter interrupted her with a disdainful gesture of her hand adorned with thin rings, as if Brianna's words had no value whatsoever, as if her feelings were irrelevant. "Don't fool yourself, Brianna. Josephine has always been different from us, let's be honest. With her inexhaustible money, her influential family... do you really think she saw us as equals? Maybe she just felt a pang of condescending pity for us, the poor mortals."
Anna's words, sharp and precise as small poisoned daggers, sank deeply into Louie's heart, opening old insecurities and sowing new, corrosive doubts. The sudden distance, the deafening silence, the complete lack of explanations... everything began to fit in a perverse way into the twisted puzzle that Anna was so meticulously building. At first, Louie had vehemently rejected her malicious insinuations, defending Josephine tooth and nail, desperately clinging to the memories of their connection. But relentless time, and the agonizing absence of any news, had weakened his resistance, making him an easy target for Anna's subtle but persistent poison.
Throughout the stifling summer, under the relentless sun that seemed to mock his sadness, Anna had repeated the same venomous discourse over and over again, varying the superficial details but keeping the cruel essence intact: Josephine had abandoned them without remorse, had completely forgotten them upon crossing the Atlantic, had used them as a mere fleeting distraction in her privileged life. And, little by little, doubt had settled in Louie's mind like an unwanted tenant, a poisonous seed that slowly germinated in the darkness of his loneliness and his growing confusion, feeding on his longing and his uncertainty.
Louie, his gaze lost in the void, vaguely remembering the fleeting moments of happiness he had shared with Josephine: their spontaneous laughter, their whispered confidences in his ear under the moonlight, their promises of a future together that now seemed to vanish like smoke. Had it all been an elaborate farce? A simple momentary distraction for someone who lived in a parallel universe to his, a world where money and privileges were everything, where genuine feelings were a fleeting luxury? The question, bitter and piercing, floated in the air between them, unanswered, fueling the growing darkness in Louie's heart.
"And if she really never comes back..." Anna's voice echoed in the room, laden with a thick venom and a palpable resentment that seemed to condense in the air. "The rich people's vacations are ending, and not even a miserable call, a simple text message, absolutely nothing. Are you really going to keep clinging to a spoiled millionaire who clearly doesn't think of any of us?"
Louie, his heart feeling like a cold and heavy stone in his chest, kept a bitter silence, unable to articulate a convincing defense against the stark reality that Anna exposed with such cruelty. Brianna, although still resisting believing Anna's malicious insinuations, couldn't help but feel an icy shiver run down her spine at the cutting coldness of her words.
"How much longer are we going to keep living in this paralyzing uncertainty?" Anna continued, her voice now tinged with a false compassion that was even more repulsive. "While we slowly consume ourselves in the anguish of not knowing anything, she is over there, in her Parisian paradise, living life without worrying about anyone, completely forgetting our existence. Really, deep down, do you think she cares about us even a little?"
"Enough, Anna!" Brianna exclaimed, her voice breaking with frustration and her green eyes sparkling with contained anger. "Every time we meet in this room, you start all over again with the same obsessive topic. What the hell are you supposed to achieve with all this?"
"I'm just telling the truth, the raw and painful truth that you refuse to see," Anna replied, with a cynical smile curving her thin lips, shrugging with calculated indifference. "Josephine abandoned us without looking back, and you keep pathetically clinging to an illusory hope that simply doesn't exist."
"Leave Josephine alone once and for all!" Brianna shouted, tears of rage and impotence clouding her eyes. "And leave Louie alone too. You're always insinuating horrible things that aren't true, brazenly encouraging him to go out with other girls, not caring at all what Josephine might feel if she ever finds out about your manipulations."
"I'm not trying to hurt anyone," Anna defended herself, her voice softening slightly, adopting a tone of false innocence, but her dark eyes gleaming with a barely concealed malice. "I just want you to open your eyes once and for all and face reality. We can't keep living anchored in the past, desperately clinging to a friendship that may have already faded forever."
"Don't talk nonsense!" Brianna retorted, her heart heavy with sadness and disbelief. "Josephine is our friend, one of the best we've had, and we're going to wait for her as long as it takes. Her silence doesn't mean she's forgotten us."
"And if she never comes back?" Anna asked, her voice now laden with biting sarcasm. "What are you going to do then? Consume your young lives waiting for her eternally?"
A heavy and oppressive silence seized the room, an uncomfortable void charged with resentment and disillusionment. Louie, his gaze lost on an invisible point on the Persian rug, sank further into the sofa, feeling how insidious doubt and bitter disillusionment slowly consumed him from within. Suddenly, he stood up with a brusque movement, his jaw clenched to the point of aching and his green eyes now darkened by a growing rage. "I'm not coming back to these meetings," he announced in a voice trembling with contained anger. "I need time to think things through in solitude. I need to know, once and for all, if it's really worth continuing to wait for someone who may have already completely forgotten us."
And without uttering another word, Louie left the room with a firm step, leaving Brianna and Anna immersed in an uncomfortable and tense silence, where the echo of his words resonated in the air like a somber sentence. The poisonous seed of doubt, planted so carefully and persistently by Anna, had finally taken deep root in Louie's heart, threatening to destroy the bonds of friendship that had once united them.
Brianna looked at Anna with a cold fury that chilled her blood. "Do you see what you've achieved with your poison?!" she exclaimed, her voice trembling with rage and disbelief. "For God's sake, Anna, realize what you've done! You've deeply hurt Louie, and me too. Why have you become such a mean and cruel person? You're a very bad friend. How dare you talk about our friend like that, knowing perfectly well that her parents took her to Paris almost by force?! Knowing that she didn't want to go, that she wanted to stay with us! Her housekeeper told us everything, and I believe her."
Anna, far from showing the slightest remorse for her hurtful words, replied with a triumphant smile that grated on Brianna's nerves, as if she had won a cruel battle. "I'm just putting things back in their place, Brianna," she said in a voice laden with biting sarcasm. "If Louie really loved her with the intensity he claims, he wouldn't be doubting his 'dear Josephine' for a second."
"Don't talk nonsense!" Brianna retorted, tears of frustration running down her cheeks. "Louie is confused and hurt by her silence, and you have taken advantage of his vulnerability to manipulate him, Anna. You have put horrible ideas in his head, you have filled him with unfounded doubts. You are a ruthless manipulator!"
"I'm just telling the stark reality, Brianna," Anna defended herself in a tone of false innocence that fooled no one. "Josephine is a rich and spoiled girl, and she has your father's phone number. Do you really naively believe that she couldn't make a simple call, even from the phone in that enormous Parisian mansion? Ha! Of course she could if she really wanted to. She just hasn't bothered. Open your eyes once and for all, Brianna. That spoiled brat only talked to us out of pity, or to do a charitable deed for the poor mortals, or simply to have some fun with us for a while. That's how those millionaires are: they play frivolously with the feelings of the people around them, they get distracted by them for a while and then disappear without a trace, they throw us away as if we were disposable garbage. Open your eyes once and for all, Brianna!"
Anna's words, like corrosive acid, burned Brianna's sensitive skin, leaving a sensation of burning and deep disillusionment. Doubt, which had been latent in a dark corner of her mind, began to grow rapidly, fueled by Anna's persistent poison.
The idealized image of Josephine, the loyal and caring friend that Brianna kept in her heart, began to blur, replaced by a distant and cold figure, just as Anna had described her with such conviction.
"No... it's not true," Brianna murmured in a trembling voice, refusing to accept the somber image that Anna painted. "Josephine isn't like that. She would never do something like that."
"Oh, no?" Anna scoffed with a triumphant smile that revealed her cruel satisfaction. "Then why hasn't she called us? Why hasn't she bothered to give us a simple explanation for her sudden departure? Why has she left us consuming ourselves in this agonizing uncertainty?"
"Anna, I think it's time for you to leave my house," Brianna said in a voice that trembled dangerously, a mixture of seething rage and deep disappointment. "And don't come back. I don't want to see you again. You've already made Louie not want to return, because you've ruined everything with your malicious comments and your constant negativity towards Josephine. I'm tired of listening to your poisonous insinuations too. Please, just go."
Anna, with a cynical smile etched on her face, stood up from the velvet sofa, showing not a shred of remorse for the damage she had caused. "As you wish, Brianna," she said in a voice laden with biting sarcasm. "But remember my words. Time, as always, will prove me right."
"Get out of my house," Brianna snapped, tears of frustration running down her cheeks. "I never want to see you again."
Anna, with a final disdainful look that swept across the room, left with a chilling calmness, leaving Brianna completely alone with her pain and her growing confusion. Silence seized the room, a heavy and oppressive silence, charged with bitter resentment and a profound disillusionment.
Brianna sank heavily onto the sofa, her heart feeling inexplicably empty and heavy. The friendship she had cherished for so long, the bonds she believed unbreakable, had crumbled before her eyes, shattered by Anna's poisonous words and malicious insinuations. Doubt, like an insidious monster, had finally managed to infiltrate her mind, threatening to destroy the warm and loyal image she had always had of Josephine.
"What have you done, Anna?" Brianna murmured, her voice breaking with pain. "You've shattered us all."