Lizards, feature, author Neda Radić

“Lizards” is a story about two young people from two different countries, who meet by chance.
Isa, a young woman from Spain works at a marketing company. Isa is depressed and cures her depression with alcohol, drugs and affairs with men who don’t mean anything to her. Her parents are divorced and her father is focused on his new family and his baby. Isa never had a good relationship with her mother so none of her parents is able to or desires to give her any support. Isa is alone and unable to handle her mental state any more. At that moment Maja, a girl from Zagreb she went to university with, contacts her over Skype. After realizing how badly Isa is feeling, Maja invites her to come and visit her in Zagreb, to escape from the environment and her problems by going to another country. Isa doesn’t see any way out of her situation, so she accepts the invitation and escapes as far away from her family as she can, to Croatia, a country she has never been to, a country she doesn’t know.
In the meantime, in Zagreb, we meet Lovro, Maja’s best friend, a young introverted chef working at an expensive restaurant. Lovro’s father is slowly dying from cancer, he has given up on any hope and is just waiting for his body to give up as well. Lovro’s mother is just as incapable of helping her husband. Lovro’s family is falling apart, and he can’t do anything about it, he is powerless, scared and confronted with his father’s death he cannot fight.
At that moment Isa comes in to Lovro’s life. The two of them meet at a dinner Maja has organized so Isa could meet Maja’s friends, and Lovro happens to be one of those friends. Chemistry and recognition develops between them right away. They recognize the pain in each other and subconsciously feel close to each other.
A friend calls Lovro to let him know someone has broken into his father’s house on the island of Hvar, so Lovro has to go to Hvar to find out what happened. After finding this out, Lovro’s father asks him to bring him his grandfather’s watch from the house. Lovro agrees reluctantly, only to find out Maja and Isa were going to Hvar for vacation the next day. Lovro and Isa set out together to a journey into the world of Dalmatian islands and pine woods not being aware of the adventure they are engaging in. As they open up to each other, they learn human pain is the same in every part of the world and impossible to escape from. While getting to know each other’s sufferings they learn the new dimension of their own problems. But their relationship is soon going to be put to test.
Isa and Lovro are hiding under the rocks, in the dark, they run, just like lizards. But they need warmth of the sun; they have to come out to the warmth, the one they eventually find in each other.