Memories

Lucía and Marcos started fucking in front of us as if it were the most natural thing in the world. And I couldn’t even move.

After weeks of silence, she called to ask if I was alone. Half an hour later, she was at my door in a floral dress, with something to give me.

I had been watching her in silence for years, telling myself it was only an obsession that would pass. That morning, with what I had recorded in my hand, I knew everything was about to change.

I had never thought about it until my new friends mentioned it. That night, alone in my room, curiosity won out over fear.

The first time I put on someone else’s heels, I knew the image in the mirror was the most honest version of myself. It took me years to accept it.

The girls from the team had gone out to see the city. I was alone in the room when someone knocked. It was him, with the smile that had made me nervous since the first Wednesday.

It was one in the morning and your hand was on my thigh as if the taxi driver didn’t exist. What happened next still keeps me awake.

When she came up to the pool that afternoon and asked if I had ever been with a woman, I knew that summer was going to be different.

They were cousins, they rarely saw each other, and that night they were alone in the living room while everyone slept. Nothing should have happened. Almost nothing did.

I finished my shift, the platform was brutally cold, and the driver told me I could stay in his bus to warm up. I had no idea what was coming.

I spent two hours in her sitting room answering questions as if it were a job interview. In a way, it was.

He ran a stone down my back, murmured something I couldn’t understand, and suddenly I wanted only one thing: for that man to take me. I don’t know if it was witchcraft. I know I didn’t resist.

The house was empty and I had all the time in the world. I never imagined that looking for a charger would lead me to my father’s and stepmother’s secret life.

I asked him to meet me outside the clinic as if we were going to have a quiet talk. I didn’t tell him I wouldn’t be alone—or that the sidewalk was perfectly visible from the second floor.

When the storm cut the lights and thunder shook the walls, she curled up against me. It had been years since she’d felt anyone’s heat. That changed everything.

When my son-in-law walked in that afternoon and saw who I was with, I knew my life would change. I had no idea he would come back three weeks later to collect my silence in my own bed.

When the power went out, her foot was still in my lap. I felt her move it slowly, pretending it was an accident, knowing damn well it wasn’t.

I went up to see the new apartment and toast with cava. I didn’t come down until the next morning, with her perfume still on my skin and a secret no one should know.

I found her underwear on top of the laundry basket when I went into the bathroom. She hadn’t put it away properly. And from that instant, I could never see her the same way again.

At midnight, someone stopped outside my cell. I was still wearing my habit, and the candle was still burning on the altar.