closing her eyes.
– We arrived – Sandro whispered, waking her from her thoughts. She looked at him, nodded and was about to get out of the car when she saw their motion to follow her and stopped them.
– No. I want to be alone. – She saw Renata open her mouth to speak but shook her head. – Please, go home. It's late. We'll talk tomorrow…
She turned around and entered the building. She said good evening to the janitor, who was cleaning his hands with gel alcohol. She frowned. The building employees were never that careful. She got in the elevator and pressed the button for the 11th floor, thinking about the strangeness of it all. She couldn't fully understand what was going on… how that could be happening. Everything seemed surreal.
She entered the apartment and the first thing she did was take off the clothes and shoes she was wearing. Still in her underwear, she turned on the TV on the news channel and headed for the shower. She rubbed herself thoroughly and washed her hair. She knew what she had to do. She watched more series and documentaries about doctors and diseases than anyone should, but she couldn't stop herself. Since childhood, when she heard her mother mention to a neighbor that her father had died after contracting a terrible bacterium, she developed an uncontrollable fear of diseases. This led her to do things that an ordinary person didn't normally do, such as washing her hands countless times during a day.
When her mother realized that she was easily alarmed into feeling something out of the ordinary in her body, she took her to a doctor who diagnosed her with illness anxiety disorder, also known as hypochondria. Therapy and medication helped her get better, but from time to time, she felt that anxiety caused by the fear of getting sick extending its claws.
After the bath, she sat on her bed with a towel wrapped around her hair and dressing a bathrobe in front of the TV and was zapping between news channels that incessantly repeated the same information about the virus that was taking over the world. What if she contracts that? What if she was already sick?
– My God, there were thousands of people in that arena today, – she murmured, distressed.
On TV, a doctor was being interviewed.
– The infected patient may experience shortness of breath, coughing, fever… – She placed her hand on her forehead. It didn't seem to be hot. She wasn't coughing, but… definitely was short of breath. She saw her chest go up and down with difficulty and became even more nervous. Her hands sweated and she started shaking. Until a little speck of clarity whispered inside her head: calm down, that's just anxiety trying to control you. You are not sick. You will not die. Calm down.
She turned the TV off. Listening to so many experts and journalists talking about that wouldn't do her any good. In other circumstances, that would be the time for her to open her social media and make videos, talking about the concert and the people she met, post photos on her feed and watch the repercussion. But now, all she wanted to do was to curl up like a ball and go to sleep.
The following days, all the talk in the country was about the terrible pandemic. The number of the infected increased, as did deaths. She was isolated indoors as the health agencies recommended, but she felt more and more alone. Contrary to what she imagined; she had signed more advertisement contracts. She had decided to fire Renata for what she had done, but Sandro convinced her to reconsider. She was a person of trust and, at that moment, she was trying to protect her. Even if it was by wrong means.
And that fear she felt that people said was unfounded, seemed to have taken everyone judging by what she saw on TV and on the internet. On social media, the hashtag #stayhome went viral. Everyone asked for those who didn't need to go out to avoid crowds.
Obviously, Babi wouldn't come out for anything. The fridge was full and, for now, she didn't need anything. Alone in the flat, she spent her days watching TV programs about the coronavirus. She couldn't stop consuming everything that was said about it. The only posts she made on her social media were those related to work. Renata had made her a schedule of videos to record and she reserved an entire afternoon just to do that. She left everything ready and the posts programmed so she wouldn’t have to do it every day.
Until she began to feel back pains and an intense headache. Then, the shortness of breath began. The difficulty to breath became such that she had to call Dr. Luiz and ask for help.
They had a video conference appointment and he recommended that she tested to know if she was infected. She didn't tell anyone. She knew if she talked about it with someone on the team, the information would be leaked to the press and she wasn't ready to see the news that she was sick on the papers. She scheduled a home visit with the lab recommended by the doctor and got examined.
Those were the two worst days of her life. When she received the result and saw it was negative, that she was not sick, it was as if someone had lifted a gigantic weight off her back. But the symptoms were still there. Increasingly intense.
Anxiety crisis, the doctor diagnosed. Again.
She couldn't handle everything. The disease. People suffering. Deaths. The loss of freedom. Loneliness. She knew how privileged she was in many ways, but that pain she felt in her soul was too much to bear.
That night, she talked to her mother and brother before going to bed. They were well and healthy. Her mother was temporarily living with her eldest son in Belo Horizonte so she wouldn't be alone. After hanging up, Babi let out the tears she'd been holding back since it all started. She was trying to be strong, keep up a schedule and deal with isolation, but all at the expense of her broken heart. She couldn't understand how that could be happening. It was 2020, after all. Something like that was unimaginable.
Sitting in the living room, she looked around at the well-decorated room. It was as if everything was as it always was. As if her world – and probably that of millions of people – hadn't changed. As if it continued exactly as it should be.
But everything had changed.
Looking around the room again, she felt as if the walls were closing in little by little. It was then that the memory of one of the recurring dreams of her almost sleepless nights came to her mind. Closing her eyes, she remembered clearly, the small house in the outskirts of the city where she was born, in the countryside of Minas Gerais. Where she, her mother and older brother used to spend New Year evenings.
An idea started to take form. Should I…?
With her eyes closed, she could almost smell the flowers in the house's backyard, which were cared by Mr. Antonio, the caretaker who would go there once a week. She loved that place. Every time she went there, it was like recharging her batteries and renewing himself.
– That's it – she told herself. She got off the couch and went straight to the closet to pack her bags. She was alone in that flat, at least she'd be alone in her favorite place in the world. She needed some time for herself, away from everything. From that world she was living in.
She picked her cell phone and pressed the speed dial. When her call was picked up, she went straight to the point.
– Suspend all activities. Except for what is already scheduled to be posted on social media, I don't want to make any more posts for now.
–But Babi… – Renata protested, but the girl did not let her finish.
– Tell the accountant to keep paying the team normally and let him know that we're going to keep everyone's job, but we're taking a break.
She had invested much of what
