Female Friends

I’d spent twelve years pretending that what happened in her apartment that afternoon meant nothing. My own wedding’s open bar proved otherwise.

The fourth round of daiquiris lowered everyone’s defenses, but nobody expected Daniela’s confession to end with all of us tangled up on the living-room rug.

We had spent our whole lives doing the right thing. Then suddenly it was three in the morning, and the three strangers were still in the house.

When the two of us knelt on the rug, it was no longer about the bet. That was the first time I knew what I wanted to do with my body.

Daniela’s voice narrated the locker-room encounter while, around her, her friends’ bodies tangled shamelessly and without limits.

When Bruno put the cards on the coffee table, I had no idea that game would end with the four of us sprawled across the living room rug.

She walked into the classroom slowly, her face pale and a flash of pain on her face when she sat down that she couldn’t hide. It took me days to get the truth out of her.

She arrived looking at the floor, buttoned to the neck. It was she who gave the instructions as soon as they closed the door to room six.

When Sofía lowered herself into the chair and I saw her face twist in pain, I knew the flu was a lie and that what had happened was far worse than I imagined.

We had gone to that apartment telling ourselves we were just going to have a drink. By the time the poker deck came out, it was already too late to be honest with myself.

The first time I was fifteen. I got home early and found the two of them in the bedroom. Sandra face down on the bed, Mom massaging her back. They were both laughing softly.

He was my best friend’s boyfriend: hot, shy, religious. Too perfect for me not to do something about it.

I was fifteen when I caught them the first time. Now, at twenty-two, I can’t look at those memories the same way.

I’d been fantasizing about her for months. When she came down from the stage and put her mouth on mine, I understood that fantasy was never going to disappear.

That afternoon everything seemed normal, just a get-together with friends. Until she opened my bedroom door and looked me over without asking permission.

Valeria was twenty-five, my father’s wife, and she looked at me as if she didn’t know whether to hate me or devour me. I didn’t know either.

They had spent their whole lives being the responsible mothers. That night, in a house smelling of salt and wine, they decided to stop.

I closed the fridge slowly, a syringe in my hand. Only I knew what I was about to do in that kitchen.

When the stage lights hit her, I stopped seeing her as my friend. I only saw the woman I’d wanted for years without daring to tell her.

Fifty-four years old, suitcase packed, and a week on the coast. She wasn’t looking for anything. But a blue-eyed waiter had a way of looking at her that changed everything.