Ana Oliveira Part 2

" What? — I screamed, making her eyes widen and fill with tears. — He's not a pedophile, and I already told you that! Lucah is a good man!
" He's a pedophile, for fuck's sake! — she retaliated, turning red and clenching her fists at her sides. — Josiah filmed the things he found in that folder with his phone, and copied them to the flash drive. Ber told me he wanted proof. They were dirty, dirty, perverse photos involving children! I hate pedophiles, I hate those bastards, because it was one of them who ended my life, who destroyed me, and you know that, damn it! — Isabela was in front of my face, red, seeming to have doubled in size as she screamed until she was out of breath. Her eyes were bulging and tears were streaming down her face. — If you saw what Bernardo showed me, you wouldn't be defending that monster! — she spat the words out in disgust.
“I already told you to stop calling him that!” I yelled, pushing her shoulders. “You like to insult people. After all, what can you expect from someone who bullies, right?” I yelled, but when I realized what I had said, it was too late.
I felt a huge crack on my right cheek and my eyes started to water. It was as if someone had thrown fire at the place where Isabela had hit. She got very close to my face, grabbed my shoulders and shook them, screaming, roaring, seeming out of her mind:
“I trusted you!” she whimpered, when she finally stopped screaming, still shaking me. “I told you about something that destroyed me, I asked you to never bring that up again, and here you are, throwing that shit in my face.”
“I…” I tried to whisper.
“Fuck you!” she yelled, grabbing my right arm, digging her long, red nails into it. — You chose to defend that asshole, you chose to throw my secrets in my face because of him. You choose to close your eyes to what everyone saw about Lucah's crimes, you choose to be against me and Josiah, all because of someone you just met. So get out of my house and forget I exist! I never want to see you again, you bitch! Never again!
And I knew that what I said had crossed a threshold, I had touched a wound in my friend that would not come back. I used her trauma from school to hurt her, I threw at her the unfair label that they accused her of in her second year of high school. The label that made her get beaten by her stepfather and leave her bedridden for weeks, the label that made her lose the boy she loved, the only one who let me touch her...
I had been a bitch. And when Isa dragged me out of her house and slammed the door in my face, I knew she would never forgive me. I had destroyed the relationship with someone else I loved. I had just lost another person.
I was so devastated and embarrassed that I sat for hours in the white wooden kiosk in front of Isabela's house. I was slumped over a light wooden chair, and probably everyone who passed by on the boardwalk thought about how ruined I was. A woman in pajamas, disheveled, with a slap on her cheek, getting drunk, lonely and crying...
I saw in the bathroom mirror that there was a bruise turning purple on my cheek. Isa had a hell of a strong hand...
I drank one beer after another, staring at the waves and feeling dirty, inadequate, toxic... Everything was falling apart. How could I have been so impulsive? I didn't even feel the words coming out of my mouth, but they slipped out and hit the woman I considered a sister.
I took my phone out of my bag with my eyes blurred from the drink, and, still turning the bottle of Corona over my mouth, I saw ten missed calls from Marta, five from Luana and two from Lucah. I opened my WhatsApp, which displayed a bunch of unread messages:

Marta: “Dear, I’m worried! Please come home!”
Marta: “Isabela slammed the phone in my face, but not before calling her all sorts of names. What happened?”
Marta: “Ana, for God’s sake! My blood pressure is rising! Where have you been????”
Luana: “Ana, my aunt and I are anxious with no news from you. Where are you, friend? Do you want me to come pick you up?”
Lucah: “Ana, dear, did something happen between you and Isabela? Luana called me, and my mom is desperate because you’ve been out all day without any news. She told me that Isabela hinted that you had a fight and left her house early in the morning. Let me know where you are so I can pick you up.”
My love: “How could you? I loved you...”
The message from Josiah had just been sent. My heart raced as I noticed that his profile picture, a selfie with a black cigarette hanging from his lips, had disappeared. Suddenly, the image was back, but when I prepared to type something, I was blocked again. I shook my head in disappointment. I took a deep breath. I could call him and leave my version on his voicemail, but all I managed to do was delete his contact. I didn’t block him because I was foolish and hoped he might say something again, anything, even if it was just to break my heart.
I exhaled deeply, signaling the waiter for another beer. And now? Where do I go? What to do with this miserable existence that’s left? I looked at Isabela’s building balcony, thinking I saw a red shadow passing by the glass balcony. But I was far away, drunk, and my vision was blurred by alcohol and tears.
How could I have done this? Why did I ruin everything with Isabela? I pulled out my phone and called her number, anxious, wishing for a damn button that would give me a chance to go back and fix everything. But the call went straight to voicemail.
I decided to wait... because she was a temperamental person and I made a mistake. Maybe... maybe if she cooled down, she could forgive me.
The waiter barely left the new bottle when I had already devoured its contents. My body was starting to show signs of alcohol intoxication, and I began to hiccup. I was startled by the phone vibrating between my fingers. I had a glimmer of hope that it might be Josiah or Isabela, but I wilted when I saw Lucah’s name dancing on the screen. Sighing, I decided to answer:
“Hi…”
“Hi! Where are you?”
“I’m heading home...” I informed, waving to the waiter.
“Okay! Do you want me to go to my mom’s then? Do you want to talk?” he asked with a concerned tone.
I spent a good while thinking about what to do, and Lucah remained silent on the other end of the call. I wasn’t ready to vent to him about what I was feeling.
“No! I’m going to my house,” I explained, emphasizing that the house was mine, not Marta’s. “I need to be alone for a while. Tell your mom that I’m okay and that I’ll talk to her later. See you later, Lucah!”
I hung up the phone without waiting for a response. After failing to enter my card PIN twice and managing to pay the exorbitant bill, I took a taxi that dropped me off at the condo entrance. As I passed the security booth, I heard a joke being whispered between the condo security guard and the doorman, something about “cheating on the mayor’s son.” I was so sad, feeling so heavy, that I didn’t even have the strength to retort. I already knew it would be that kind of gossip about me. In the end, I’d be labeled as the “whore” who was caught with her brother-in-law.
Maybe it was the drink, maybe the pain, but I just wanted to be in a place that felt like mine. Something that wouldn’t be taken from me. So, when I entered the yellow house and saw the overgrown grass, the thick layer of dust on the porch railing, the cobwebs at the top of the door, all I could think was that this house was mine, and at least I wouldn’t lose that.
I walked through the house smelling of mold and dust, sneezing, depressed by how my footsteps echoed through the house. I tried not to relive the scenes of my aunt’s abandonment, but it was impossible. I almost heard my screams being whispered through the walls, my desperation at being abandoned crawling under my skin.
I walked down the hallway to my old room on the ground floor before reaching the kitchen. With a heavy heart, I opened the door and looked around. My bed was still there. The only thing that that bitch Marina didn’t take. When I threw myself onto the single white mattress, a huge cloud of dust rose, but I didn’t care about the sneezes it caused.
I spent hours there, crying and thinking about what my life would be like from that moment on. I stared at the cobwebs dancing in the corners of the walls, the swollen laminate wood floor, probably from the rain that had come through the unlucky window that had been left open, and thought about how the house was dilapidated and neglected. I laughed when I realized that I was exactly like that...