Memories

I pushed the door open, holding my breath. He was asleep on his side, the sheet fallen to his waist. If I left then, nothing had happened. I didn’t leave.

We’d barely had two beers when Valeria took off her sandals and told me it was time to fix the fact that I hadn’t stepped on sand in years. That night I learned a lot of things.

He came to help me with the new TV, with his marked arms and that look that kept avoiding mine. He was twenty, and I already knew what was going to happen.

I went down to the restaurant with the red lingerie safely hidden under my dress and one decision: if he didn’t get to see it that night, what we had would never leave the screen.

I was looking for something temporary while I studied. But that night, when he left the avatar and called me with the camera on, I knew I could never go back.

I left it on the table, next to the keys, and sat down on the living-room sofa to wait. I wanted to see how long it took him to realize his life had just split in two.

A hole no bigger than a pea was enough to watch her pass naked on the white horse. Roderic opened that hole, and from then on he could never close his eyes in peace.

When Valeria slipped on the gold sandals and looked at me that way, I knew I wasn’t leaving with just a watch.

When he showed up at my door thinking he was coming to help me, I already had everything planned. He was twenty and as naive as someone who doesn’t know what’s waiting for him.

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.

Six years ago, I went into my older brother’s room one August night. I didn’t go to talk. I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

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.

Four years in the same office without knowing who we were to each other. The day we found out, everything changed.

No one had ever touched my body like that. When his hands closed around my waist, the textbook ceased to exist and something entirely different began.

When they stopped us in the dark, all I could think about was getting away. I never imagined that hours later I’d be hoping it wouldn’t end.

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 went into the game to make friends. I stayed because there were men there who wanted the same thing I did: something real, nameless, and without a future.

I woke up in his room with no memory of how I got there. He was in the kitchen, half-naked and calm, like everything was perfectly normal.