Isabela

**Before**



I know he swore he would never bring me here again, and I also realize I called this place a "Den for Vandals." But this is the coolest place I’ve ever seen in my life.
The first day Nate brought me here, I was horrified to see it was a crumbling building, creepy, full of spider webs, and seemed like the perfect spot to dump a body. A girl my age would probably run away with all the red flags screaming that there was danger ahead. But my trust in my favorite delinquent was so strong that I didn’t even consider backing out. I was scared, yes, but I sought the touch of our intertwined hands to find the courage to enter Nate’s secret hideout. And maybe I was a bad girl for giving him the cold shoulder by ignoring his phone calls for two straight days, just so I could come back to the Den, draw hearts with paint on the walls, and have a moment where it would just be the two of us, existing, away from the chaos that is the rest of my life, silencing the torment that eats away at my mind.
It’s been a week since we shared our first hug. Seven days in which I can’t go a second without thinking of him or a night without writing about this cutie in my diary. Yes, Nate is my cutie! Mine! And I don’t want to share him with anyone. Ever! Every time I see girls smiling at him at school, I feel angry, and it’s impossible to control the jealous pout that takes over my lips. Nate always notices my jealousy and laughs. He usually takes my hand to try to comfort me when some girl is flirting with him.
My heart hurts in a very strange way when my mind creates theories that Nate might take an interest in one of those girls and leave me behind. Grandma says I’m lost over him, and I know she’s right: I’ve fallen so hard for him. My life was just a nightmare filled with monsters and shadows, and now that he’s appeared, everything is full of color, as if the monsters in my mind retreat because Nate is near. I feel beautiful and interesting. Because he always calls me pretty, and wow, this boy loves to hear me sing and insists on talking to me even after school, just to listen to me more and more.
Of course, I can’t answer his calls when my mom or Marcos is home. But since they both work late into the night, I can always be alone and talk to my cutie until I fall asleep. According to Nate, most of the school thinks we’re dating, and that’s so exciting. There are even more people striking up conversations with me now. I know it’s just because of him, but it’s amazing to feel a bit more “normal.”
That idiot Caique doesn’t even look in my direction after the beatdown he took. Bianca is the only problem, as she insists on picking on me when she sees me. Nate usually defends me against her, but it doesn’t help. That horrible girl is so jealous of her brother. However, if the price of having the most beautiful, wonderful, and adorable guy in the world with me is her annoying me, then I’ll gladly pay it with my eyes closed.
We’re sitting on the couch in the Den, and the foam escaping from the holes in the leather pokes at my thighs. It’s a really hot day, but the damp, stinky walls of the place still disguise the heat a bit.
Today it’s just the two of us, since he only wanted to bring me if no one else was here. He made it clear he doesn’t want me in the middle of his friends. I mentally thanked him for that. Ian and Marcel are pretty cool, but I don’t like seeing them high. It scares me. Even though Nate also does those things, I like him, and I feel safe in his presence, whether he’s high or not. But that’s not the case with his friends. I was horrified to see them using drugs, looking like they burned dozens of neurons with the smoke from the weed.

“What's your favorite song?” Nate asks, still holding a lock of my hair and playing with it between his fingers.
He now asks to touch my hair every day, but he never tries to do it without my consent. That makes me like him even more. Not even in my beautiful, childlike dreams did I imagine I would find the most handsome boy in the world who would understand everything about me. Because that’s what I see in Nate: he sees me. He truly sees me, in a way that’s sometimes even irritating. How can someone see through the layer of skin and blood of my body, reaching the deepest parts and observing things I can’t even understand myself?
“Video Games,” I reply immediately. “And yes, Lana is my favorite singer.”
“Your voice sounds a bit like hers, My Sun. And the coolest thing is that this is the second song you’ve mentioned, and I know the entire translation,” he says, smoking a cigarette and exhaling the smoke through his nose. Nate is super protective. When I wanted to see what nicotine tasted like, he firmly and rudely refused. He then warned me that if I insisted, he would be angry with me. I never asked for anything like that again. “Mine is ‘Demons’ by Imagine Dragons.”
“Are you hiding a demon inside that cute body of yours?” I joke, but I see him swallow hard, and I notice how his gaze drifts away for a few moments. I don’t understand why my chest tightens at the sight of him looking sad like that. But when he looks back at me, he gives a shy smile.
“Do you know what’s funny?” he whispers, extinguishing the cigarette in a brown resin ashtray before discarding the butt in it.
“This?” I say, sticking my fingers in the sides of my mouth, pulling them wide open, and sticking out my tongue in a silly face.
“No. It’s just really cute!” he praises, letting go of my hair and asking me to place my hand on top of his. When I comply, Nate rewards me with a lazy smile. “Today I can only imagine a paradise on Earth where you are.”
I recognize the reference to the song I just confessed is my favorite, while my heart starts racing. He has this power over every part of my being, completely unsettling me with just a few gestures or words.
“I think I’m already in paradise here with you. Everything in my life became more beautiful when you arrived and contaminated it all with your way of being.”
The words slip from my lips so naturally that I only now realize the meaning of what we’re saying to each other. My heart is frantic, racing, seeming to want to put me on the edge of a heart attack. Nate's eyes are devouring me, burning with desire. And I’m not naïve. I can see what he wants. He always stares at my lips for long moments, and I know he longs to kiss me. The truth is that I want that too; I’m just scared. I still haven’t managed to take that step, but I’ve been thinking about it more and more each day.
“I’m in love with you, Isabela.”