Memories

No one had ever taught me to desire myself. That morning, with the house empty and the light coming in through the window, I taught myself.

She got up angry because he was watching soccer and didn’t even notice her. She had no idea that bumping the table would ignite the whole afternoon.

The first night he slept at home, my mom’s moans came through the wall. At nineteen, I knew nothing would ever be the same.

The suitcases still unpacked and, under one of the beds, a stack of old magazines that none of the three siblings could stop staring at that hot afternoon.

Two years had passed. He came in holding his nephew’s hand, sat three tables from mine, and without saying a word started reminding me of everything we were.

Each mark the ropes leave on my skin brings me a little closer to the abyss. But it’s the only thing that silences his voice... the voice of the man I let die.

The first time I entered his office I did it with my head down and a borrowed dress; I left feeling, at last, like myself.

Every time we went back to Grandma’s old house, the same game started all over again: one hand brushing another and nobody watching.

I'm twenty-seven with an ordinary life, a loving family, and a secret I've finally dared to write down.

I had never gone down more than three steps dressed as Lía. That afternoon, with the white lace brushing my thighs, I decided I would make it to the street.

I only wanted to sleep, but the crack in the bedroom door let the light through, and my mother’s low laugh stopped me dead before I reached my room.

I was fifteen, had a free period, and my boyfriend’s house was empty. What happened that afternoon I still remember in every detail.

She came out of the water slowly, knowing the sheer fabric no longer hid a thing, and wrung the hair from her face in front of us as if she had all the time in the world.

I met her on a reading app. Black-haired, tall, intimidating. I agreed to be her submissive because I never believed a woman like her would look at me twice.

I went back to the reunion for one unfinished high-school kiss. I never imagined that night, with the bottle spinning, would end with three of us in the same bed.

She woke in a bed that wasn’t hers, with Renata’s fingers around her wrist and sweat sticking her hair to her forehead. Renata asked nothing—she only kissed her temple.

As a teenager I used to lock myself away and imagine her breasts and jet-black hair. Thirty years later, her voice on the phone lit me up just like before.

Two beeps, a lit screen, and his wife’s voice filling the garden: “Everything that’s happening to me… everyone needs to know this.”

When the thunder started shaking the building, I knew she’d be pounding on my door. What I never imagined was that she’d end up in my bed that night.

You blocked me everywhere, so I’m writing by hand. I need you to know why I did it before I leave this city forever.