But this was one of the few good moments we'd share in that early stage. Things started to go south with the landlady as well - when we moved to the house, she included us on a cleaning rota that all the tenants had to adhere to, and with which we had no problems with keeping up our side of the thing. But evidently, some of the other tenants had trouble with keeping up their end of the bargain, and the psycho landlady started taking it out on us, demanding that we should be responsible for what the others dind't do. I said that what she was asking wasn't fair - especially to us, who always did our bits without fail. But she was insistent on it, and more than once at that, and it eventually started to get too much for us to comfortably bear. As months wore on, maybe a couple of months into our stay, I was actually the first one to get a job - out of the countless I'd applied to, and less than a handful that I'd really been selected for an interview at least - after a very successful interview, I was offered a job at the Carphone Warehouse. The pay was decent enough, we still got some nice commissions on top - at least for a whille, that would soon change - and it was like half an hour by tube from where we lived, so it was too good an opportunity to pass up. And though at first I felt completely lost there - everything was so different, so new, so alien to me - I soon fell into the groove and learned how business got done. I didn't like everyone I worked with, in fact some I outright despised - they were naught but amoral scammers, but most I got along with well. It was a good enough job, with good enough pay, so I really didn't complain. Meanwhile Silvia was still looking for a job, which she'd find like a month or so after I did. But what did she do in the meantime? Well, she'd made a 'special' friendship with some guy online. I only found out about this because I ended up doing to her what she'd done to me - one day while she was away, I went through her laptop, and read the litany of emails she'd been exchanging with this guy. And they weren't even vaguely sexual - no, it was far worse. She was opening herself up to this guy - someone she'd never met - and telling him stuff that not even I knew. I'd have understoood it well enough if she'd been looking for sex - I'd deserve that outcome. But this was more. This was deeper. This was meaningful. And so, a wedge that was already there between us got absolutely pounded into the ground. We lapsed into a painful silence between us, punctuated by some small, curt words here and there. This would go on for weeks; every night I fell asleep with a multitude of words I so wanted to utter trapped inside me, but I just couldn't speak.
"Sylvia, can't you see what you are doing?
Can't you see I'm scared to speak, and I hate my voice 'cause it only makes you angry.
Sylvia, I only talk when you are sleeping.
That's when I tell you everything, and I imagine that somehow you're going to hear me..."
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