Isabela

**Today**


It’s amazing how my room now feels like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, shining, almost like a treasure. I’m happy, something I haven’t felt since Bernardo left. And after Nate returned to my life, I thought I’d never feel this way again, radiant, but here I am, with my cheeks hurting from laughing so much.
— And you, Harry? Have you fallen in love yet?
When he hears the question, my friend yields to Belladonna, who’s purring and rubbing against his legs, picking the little diva up into his arms. My cat rubs her soft, dark fur against his skin, seemingly unfazed by the silver piercings all over his handsome face. He must have succumbed to his easy, bright smile. After all, Harry is always smiling or making jokes about something.
I raise my eyebrows at him, up and down, with my lips spread into an amused grin. Ana’s eyes widen as she sits on the floor of my room, with her daughter Júlia between her legs, also staring at him.
— You think I look like someone who sleeps with women? — he replies, putting Belladonna back on the floor.
My dorm feels smaller now, with three adults inside, plus a child and a cat... It couldn’t be any other way, right? It’s clear how much I’ve been living in a cubicle, and if it weren’t for that son of a bitch who owns the college, I’d dare to say it’s the most incredible place I’ve ever lived.
— Since when does falling in love mean “sleeping around”? — Ana counters, handing a different colored chalk to Júlia while she scribbles on a crumpled white sheet.
I grew worried, but then Ana said it was chalk that kids her age could use, but always with supervision. Her wavy brown hair is tied up in a bun high on her head, with a few loose strands framing her round face. She laughs at the huff Harry lets out, making dimples appear in her rosy cheeks. Ana is a very beautiful woman, with fair skin and a body full of curves.
I fold my knees, leaning back against the headboard of my bed, taking another forkful of the lemon pie Ana brought from her house. I nearly fell over when I saw the three of them at my dorm door when I returned from class a few hours ago. My friend pretended she wanted to enroll in college to bypass security and get in, since visitors aren’t allowed in the dorms. So instead of going to the secretary’s office, she came straight here. I don’t even know how I didn’t foresee this... I told her I was going to a sex initiation event and lose my virginity. Ana is one of the people who knows me best in the world, and when I called her the next morning and tried to backtrack, saying I’d given up on participating in the initiation and just spent the Night of the Big Bad Wolf sleeping, it was obvious she wouldn’t fall for it. I’d been avoiding her for days, making silly excuses, giving monosyllabic replies in most of our conversations. I should’ve realized she’d do this, that she’d come to check on me.
It was a pain having to hold the two of them back from hunting down whoever wrote “here sleeps a bitch” around campus. I’ve never seen Harry so nervous; he’s usually such an upbeat guy, always happy with life. He got furious when he saw Nate’s offense. He repeated a thousand times, “no one calls my redhead a bitch and gets away with it.” He stopped several girls in the hallway to ask who had done that, so I pushed him inside my room and said we’d first catch up, and then I’d tell them everything. Ana looked at me with so much disappointment on her face.
My friend knew I had been hiding something because I couldn’t bring myself to tell her I’d slept with Nate. I still didn’t feel ready. But now there’s no hiding this; she won’t leave here without answers. And when she looked at the graffiti on my door, she was absolutely sure that a lot of shit was happening without her knowing.
And Harry... We’re really close friends. We were inseparable when I worked at Ravina. Although it took him a while to adapt to my issues with touch, and I couldn’t share anything about my past with him, we managed to build an amazing, fun friendship that’s lasted for a few years now.

" And what does “crazy little thing” mean, then? Because Josiah lets you walk all over his heart — he retorts, making me cover my mouth to stifle a laugh since I agree with him. Ana glares at him with her honey-colored eyes, momentarily blushing. — What would I want that for?
They hated each other. Harry and I used to tease Ana when she was apart from Josiah, and we were both fighting too. One time, there was a huge scene in a bar, and from that day on, when Ana said she was going to punch him, Harry started calling her “Crazy.” But now that Ana and Josiah are back together and living together, they seem to get along well, yet Harry, who loves to tease, will never call her anything else.
Ana has to see him every day, and I’m sad to be missing these interactions because Harry is the Body Piercer at Ravina. He’s the one who does piercings, and since the studio is right above my friend and her fiancé’s house, she has to put up with Harry daily. Once, she called me and said that every day he comes down from the studio and invites himself to lunch at her place, and the only reason he doesn’t get a pan to the head is that our friend worships everything she cooks. And that makes her “like” him a little bit. In other words, Harry drives her crazy with his teasing while winning her over with his cheap compliments. Not that they’re false flattery; Ana’s cooking is truly amazing, especially her pies.
" Falling in love isn’t that, Harry. It’s not submission. It’s liking someone so much that you can’t stop thinking about them, desiring them in such a strong and insane way that it feels like your body is thirsty, and the only thing that could quench that thirst is them. And you like feeding that desire. You like to be thirsty and get drunk being with your crush — Ana explains, smoothing her daughter’s golden hair, who is a little over a year and a half old. Her gaze drifts far away, miles from my room, and it’s clear she’s thinking about Jow. — It’s almost like feeling your body addicted to another person.
"No way am I going to fall in love. I’d rather my body just crave weed, women, and beer. Not to mention, I’m “crazy,” I can’t tie myself down to just one, no way.
"Yeah, what would you want all that in your body for? It’s almost like being a hostage to another person — I agree, suddenly catching a glimpse of those damn light eyes.
I get up, walk around my friend on the rug, glancing at how well the navy blue onesie looks on her. I place the dessert plate on my dresser and grab one of the beer cans Harry brought in a navy blue cooler, tucked behind my bedroom door.
When I look at the empty space where the mirror was, I almost feel the remnants of that memory shattering against my skin, bringing things to the surface. However, since I kicked Nate out of my room like that, something has changed in me. I’ve suffered what I needed to suffer, I felt guilty, I put myself down, but I swam, swam, and swam until I surfaced. I thought a lot, to the point of feeling like I was suffocating in my own emotions, but I realized he chose that. He opted for that Isabela, the one capable of hurting deeply when he decided to drag us into a fight, when he took my virginity just to mock me.