Forbidden

My uncle was driving in a rage, lost for the umpteenth time, and she used every bump and sharp turn to drive me crazy without him noticing a thing.

I heard the lock click behind me. When I turned, she was smiling with the calm of someone who had planned every step from the first look at the table.

A little too much to drink and an empty apartment were enough for my sister-in-law’s daughter to stop being the little girl I remembered. What happened that night should not be told.

For six months we had the house to ourselves, and the contract binding us became a routine neither of us wanted to escape.

I waited at the bus stop with my heart racing, knowing that the moment his car appeared we’d stop being mother and son and become something else.

I thought the worst part of the trip would be sharing a room with my parents like they were on a honeymoon. I had no idea that in the dark, I’d be the one who couldn’t keep still.

I knew him when he was shy and fragile, when his name was Tomás. Ten years later he came back through the door in a miniskirt, with a smile that promised to ruin my summer.

I thought it would be a fifteen-minute scolding. I didn’t count on the bag Bárbara brought, or on the woman that furious mother would become.

When I saw her face on the entrance camera, I knew the prey had followed the trail back to the den. All that was left was deciding whether I’d let her cross the line.

She came downstairs expecting a cake and a chorus of congratulations. Instead she found twelve candles, two silent men, and a long-planned revenge.

She leaned over the railing to watch my uncle’s car disappear, and I came up barefoot behind her. I’d been looking at her like that for years. That morning I stopped just looking.

I closed my eyes to imagine him watching me. When hands grabbed my waist from behind, I thought I knew whose they were. I was completely wrong.

That afternoon in the hospital, my mother took my hand and whispered a favor I never imagined hearing from her lips.

Her mother saw us playing around in bed and, instead of yelling, smiled at me. That same night I understood that nothing in that house was innocent—and I didn’t want to be innocent either.

The moment the elevator closes, my sister kisses me like she’s been waiting all week for it. And the truth is, we both have.

When I went into the bathroom I had no idea her mother was waiting for me, or that my niece would appear in the doorway with a smile that would change everything.

She wore a tiny black bikini, two triangles tied with strings, and looked at me over her shoulder as if she already knew what was about to happen between us.

We had always been the closest in the family. What I never imagined was that one weekend of wine would change everything between us.

I opened the door thinking the house was empty. The noise was coming from Marina’s room, and what I saw when I peeked in froze me in the doorway.

I cornered her against the oak door without imagining that, through the crack in the drawing room, a pair of green eyes could no longer look away from us.