Memories

I made two pigtails, wore a tiny dress with nothing underneath, and put on my favorite sneakers. I played at being an innocent girl and ended up discovering something about myself I didn’t expect.

I shut the bathroom door, let the uniform fall to the floor, and knew I wouldn’t be able to think about anything else that afternoon but his hands.

I was bored, stressed, and horny when a lavender-haired girl appeared in my private room and asked whether I wanted more than simple game chat.

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 turned off the light, and as I settled in, I felt a lump under the sheets: it was the shorts I had lent her. I brought them to my face without thinking, and my body understood before my mind did.

I grew up hearing her through the wall, hating every man who passed through her bed. That dawn, with the house silent and the national team on TV, she was the one who closed the distance.

When she twisted her ankle, my aunt didn’t look for another chair: she sat right on my lap, in front of the whole family, and started moving slowly.

At ten, my mother understood who I was before I did. Twenty years later, I finally recognize the woman I’ve always been.

For weeks I chose the dress, the perfume, the lingerie. That night he would walk through the door and finally see me the way I’d always dreamed he would.

I live naked in this apartment where no one knows us, waiting for my son to come back each night. After him there will be no other man, and I knew it from day one.

The first thing I remember from that summer is the counselor’s cracked hands and the girl with the fringe’s eyes. The last, what I saw among the trees before dawn.

At eighteen, I had never been with a woman. The last thing I expected was for my first time to come with the housekeeper who walked into my room to clean.

I thought it was just dinner with old friends. I had no idea the secret my husband had kept since school would end with the three of us in the same bed.

I opened my eyes in the middle of the dark living room, and she was standing in the doorway, biting her lip and looking at exactly what I couldn’t hide.

I saw him again in the wine aisle and my stomach flipped. Thirty years without hearing from him, and suddenly an invitation to the bar changed everything.

The other side of the bed was untouched and, on the fruit bowl, an envelope with my name and my husband’s square handwriting.

They thought they had everything under control until something broke. I was there, watching and taking part, learning where the line was that I wasn’t going to cross.

I was married and alone at the town fair when my two exes showed up the same night. They hated each other at first. Then they decided to share me until dawn.

Five minutes trapped between a wall and a throne bearer who smelled of rosemary and wood. I didn’t know his name, but I knew I’d look for him again that night.

Every night I stayed until closing just to watch him move behind the bar. I had no idea the shy boy held the woman who would change my life.