Isabela Part 2
I didn’t take any steps to go back to my dorm. I’m not even dizzy or nauseous anymore. But I still want to hear everything he has to say. I want to hear something different from the sentences I carved into my mind yesterday, which made me believe he had been with another woman and didn’t like me at all.
“Do you remember I said yesterday that I didn’t hook up with anyone?” he asks, exhaling deeply while I nod. A gust of wind enters through the open window next to the bathroom door, tousling his hair. “I was drinking with Ian at the Bosque. I know it’ll sound like I’m making up some dumb excuse, but Fabi showed up super drunk and sat on my lap. The idiot recorded that shit, and it looked like I was hooking up with her, but I pushed her off me.”
I roll my eyes. I’m angry. Just remembering that video makes me really irritated, but the truth is I believe him. Fabi once invited me to join a wild hookup with Vitor in the bathroom. It’s pretty easy to imagine her sitting on Nate, especially since he probably used to enjoy that.
“When was the last time you hung out with her?” I see the jealous inquiry escaping my lips, and my right eyebrow raises uncontrollably.
“I don’t know... before I went into your room, after you ran over the graffiti of my dog,” he explains, looking uncomfortable with my questions. “I haven’t been with anyone since Pretinha was with me.”
“Who was the last woman you slept with?” I don’t even know why I’m asking these things, but my heart is on fire. I’m... crazy with jealousy. “And when was it?”
“You, duh...”
“Before me, smartass!”
“I don’t know her name. It was at a party at the Bosque, the day before we threw paint on each other, but my dick went soft. Honestly, I couldn’t get hard even with the one who came before her.”
But why do you want to know that?
Serves you right!
I have to control myself not to jump on him like a lunatic and tell him I’ll punch him in the face if he ever thinks about another woman. I can’t control this rage that makes my teeth grind when I remember the day I saw him flirting with Fabiana right when I started studying here.
“Just curiosity...” I lie, trying to prevent an absurd and irrational explosion because we’re nothing. He hasn’t asked me to be his girlfriend. Still, Isabela, you’re burning with jealousy!
I feel like ants are biting my skin from how much this wild heartache makes me feel “bitten.”
“Don’t worry, Little Sun! There’s only one woman who’s the target of my desire...” His confession is reassuring, but jealousy continues lurking, its poison creeping beneath my skin. “When did that start?” he asks, nodding toward my wrists.
I’m sitting on his bed, close to the edge. Since I’m not wearing any underwear under my shirt, I covered myself with a blanket because I know that if I move a little, Nate will end up seeing more than I want to show.
There’s a lump in my throat because I’m not fifteen anymore. He asked about the cuts, and now I don’t have to lie; I can tell the truth. And I want to share with him all the torture I’ve lived since I was ten.
“The day you left...” My confession makes his expression change completely, turning sad. My heart begins to squeeze as memories resurface, displaying themselves in dull hues before my eyes. They bring to light the day I became someone else, completely transforming into a person who was tired of being hurt. “I wanted to cut myself even before I met you. I told you my stepdad and my mom used to hit me, right? That started a little after he moved in with us when I was ten. I just didn’t mention that Marcos was a pedophile. He used to sneak into the bathroom when I was showering to watch me. And when I asked my mom for help, she called me a whore and told me to shower at school...”
With every new word that brings forth the heaviest face of my adolescence, new tears stream down my face. It’s so liberating to be able to tell him what I’ve always been afraid to share. I know Nate is suffering as he hears this, because his hand covers his mouth, and his face is as wet as mine.
After I’ve shared everything I hid about the abuse and my life after he left, I see how sad and angry Nate is. He bites the back of his right hand, and his face is as red as a tomato. His teeth only part from his skin when he inhales, then he finally speaks:
“I suspected,” Nate whispers, wiping his tears, looking both very angry and completely defeated. “I’m so sorry, My Sun! For not hearing you, for leaving you completely, for not insisting on saving you somehow.”
I don’t have time to protest before he shoves himself into the bed behind me, then pulls us onto the softest pillows I’ve ever seen, guiding me to rest my head on his chest. Nate holds me so tightly in his arms that I can feel how much he’s trembling. His heart beats out of rhythm.
“You were a teenager dealing with your own traumas. There was no way for you to save me, Nate. We were adrift in a sea without life jackets. Complicit in the same misery, but completely tied up to save each other. We drowned, each in our own way,” I comfort, leaving a kiss I can’t hold back on his jaw.
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