#23:

“I think Matt is using me to get over you, you know?
I was having lunch with Lizet, because Yunior was nowhere to be found, he had called in sick.
I swallowed thickly, trying not to get indigestion from the papaya fruit candy.
"Why do you say that?" I whispered, more out of masochism than out of true curiosity.
"I'm not stupid. Yes, he takes me by the hand and we have gone out at night, but he feels distant, cold, and when we talk he keeps asking me things about you.´´
I made such an ugly face that Lizet looked at me with concern.
"Are you constipated?" she asked.
´´Not. He asks you…what kind of things does he ask you?
´´Things like, if I know who you like, if you ever told me something about him or his brother…things like that.´´
Horror!
I'm not an expert in relationships…but that didn't sound good at all.
"Ah, sexy, here you're.
Oh no.
OH NO!
Matt Montalvo was having the nerve to sit at my table!
Right next to Lizet, who looked at him with a terrified face. He smiled at her though, completely ignoring me.
´´What do you think if this afternoon after we go out we go together? Would you like to go eat at my house?´´
Poor Lizet gave me a panicked look, and I was about to get up when everything went to hell.
"Hello, hummingbird. How is my precious girlfriend?´´
I swear that I had never wanted so much to be a cartoon, to go fufufufuiiiiiii and disappear from that place, because without even needing the excuse of a lunch to accompany us, Mark sat next to me and put his arm around my shoulders without even bring a tray.
If I was puzzled, Matt and Lizet looked as if they were about to have a simultaneous stroke.
"Girlfriend?" Lizet asked, opening her eyes wide.
"Girlfriend!" Matt exclaimed, looking at me as if I were a filthy cockroach.
Mark giggled, leaning over and giving me a kiss on the cheek.
“Yeah, we were texting for months. She didn't want to announce it because everyone thought she was going out with you since you were studying together, but now that we've passed the surgery rotation and you're with the beautiful Lizet, there's no reason to hide our relationship.´´
Matt jumped up, grabbed his tray, and ran off.
Lizet looked at me with an expression of horror that made me terribly sad, also getting up, leaving.
I looked at Mark who was leaning back in his chair, smiling, like he just won the lottery or something.
"You are…" I mumbled between my teeth. "… an absolutely hellish and despicable fucking psychopath!"
His smile widened even more, snatching a small piece of my candy and popping it into his mouth.
´´You are welcome.´´
I pushed my tray and faced him.
´´Look, I don't know what twisted little game you and your brother are up to, but you´d better get me out of the way. Okay? And also, why do you call me hummingbird?´´
Mark licked his lower lip, giving me a knowing look.
´´Well, because I'm a fan of your mole, haven't I told you?
***
My mole.
Yeah well, I was born with it. It a small humingbird shaped patch of dark skin in my pelvis, almost reaching the pubis, above my right hip and I was sure that I had never, EVER, uploaded photos of that to my Facebook. That is why I waited until I left the hospital to question the only person who could answer my questions, or at least I hoped so.
"The truth is…I think Mark started to like you long before Matt did."
My stomach began to burn.
´´When? How did that happen?´´
Ramses looked at me sadly, walking next to me on the sidewalk.
"Well, in the middle of third year, I think."
What's?!
´´That is not possible.´´
´´ It all started when he began seeing Amalia.´´
´´But, Amalia and he didn't start dating until the beginning of this course.´´
"Eeee! Error. They became “a thimg” at the beginning of this course, but they went out to discos and…ah…groped each other since the third year.´´
In the third year I used to go to sleep in my underwear! And not exactly in granny panties. Maybe, I don't know, from tossing and turning so much, Mark Montalvo has seen much more than my mole.
I swallowed hard.
´´Thank you Ramses.´´
´´There is more. Do you remember the third-year end-of-year party?´´
´´Ah, nope.- my boyfriend, with whom I lost my virginity, had dumped me that same day, and well, I got a bit drunk. I don't know exactly how I didn't drown because that party was held on the beach and since we were all of legal age, there were no parents present.
´´Exacty. Well, I'll tell you, that at that party you took off the shorts you were wearing and stayed in a bikini in front of my brothers, don't ask me why. The point is that since then both my brothers want you.´´
For a silly mole?
How far would the perversity of the twins go?
"To be honest, I'm relieved to be able to tell you all this. Living with that pair of madmen has not been easy. They kept fighting because neither of them wanted you to get to be with the other. They swore to each other to leave you alone, and they did, until Matt broke his promise and started hanging around you a few months ago.
Oh!
´´Excuse me for asking, but… what do you know about a bet?
Ramses looked at me scared.
´´How do you know that?
I pursed my lips, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. My hand was shaking.
“I heard them talking about it, a few days ago.
Ramses' jaw dropped.
´´Damn! Is that why you cut Matt?´´
´´I didn´t ... . We were never something to begin with.´´
Ramses compressed his lips.
´´That wasn´t what he thought, I think he was already buying the ring to propose to you and everything.´´
I bit my tongue, luckily his words were sarcastic, I don't think Matt was really that excited about us…it's just that there was never an“us”.
´´Anyway, Matt has been very depressed, he keeps locking himself in his room and Mark doesn't stop pestering him, calling him names.´´
´´Really? Well, he doesn't look like it, I mean, he's hooked up with Lizet at supersonic speed.
“She's just a distraction. He doesn´t really like her.
He's a jerk!´´
A jerk who only knows how to use girls!
´´You know I understand, I've liked a girl for a long time and I can't have anything with her because she's underage, we're just friends, and it makes me sick to think of her with another, however, I've had mine with others girls in attempts to forget her and it is always in vain.´´
´´Let me guess, Lucia's daughter?´´
Ramses ran his hand through his hair, ruffling it, and beginning to blush.
´´ When did you realize?´´
"At your birthday party."
"Was I so obvious?"
´´Very.´´
We arrived at the entrance of the uni, and Ramses
“We men are not a difficult species to understand. If we like a girl and we can't have her, we don't want her to be with someone else either. The bet was made by Mark, about two weeks ago. He bet he could get between you two and make you his girlfriend before you and Matt got…you know, more physical. And Matt told him that it was impossible, because you're in love with him but then you disappeared for a whole weekend and you didn't return his calls, and when you came back you seemed more interested in smiling at that Yunior guy than in continuing with Matt, and Mark was unbearable; anyway. I swear, sometimes it's hell living in my house. Those two fight constantly. Are you sure you haven't given them underwear water to drink?
I laughed.
´´Of course not.
´´Well, then the hummingbird has mystical powers, because believe me. My brothers are no longer simply desiring you, I think they are beginning to border on obsession.´´