Young

She was twenty-five and, on paper, his stepmother. Dinner began with seafood and white wine, and neither of them planned to end it at his place.

It was our first sleepover without her parents home. When she turned off the light, her hand found mine under the sheets, and I understood she’d been waiting for that gesture for years.

When I reached the clearing, Iker was already waiting, leaning against the rock, with that nervous smile he only ever gave me when we were alone.

When Diego closed the van door and disappeared toward the supermarket lights, I knew I had half an hour to do everything I’d been imagining for months.

I thought we were only going up to the pine grove to eat omelet and drink red wine. I never imagined my cousin would ask me to touch her among the trees that afternoon.

When she pointed me out in the sea of people, I knew that night was going to break something I’d spent years trying to keep intact.

It was seven in the morning, I’d just broken up with my girlfriend by text, and my neighbor was still face down in my bed. I wasn’t about to waste the morning.

I turned the living-room light down so she wouldn’t see me, but when the sheet started moving beneath her hips, I knew I wouldn’t be sleeping that night.

Mateo tipped his head at me and went up the stairs. I followed him without thinking, knowing his girlfriend was my best friend and that nothing could stop us now.

That night I went downstairs for a glass of water and never made it to the kitchen. What I saw in the shadows of the corner left me frozen for an hour.

I had forty-seven messages from her when I came back to the game, and they all ended with the same screenshot: her avatar on the empty bench, waiting for me at different hours.

When I saw them come out of the elevator together, I knew that afternoon was going to be very different from all the others I’d had with him.

When I started drifting off on the couch, I felt her hand climbing up my thigh. I looked up and Camila was staring at me with a smile I didn’t know yet.

When I opened the door at ten in the morning, I had no idea a favor with an iPhone would end with him moaning on his back in my bed.

I told myself it was just curiosity. I uploaded four photos, used my fake name, and waited to see if anyone still looked at me. That same week, Matías appeared.

I went upstairs thinking I knew the fifteen-year-old girl who no longer existed. The box under her bed made it clear: my daughter was someone else—and so was I.

She was 20 and had never had a real orgasm. That sticky January night, with half a bottle of rosé, my French cousin decided it was time.

Tomorrow marks eight years since that last night with him, and I still wonder whether I was brave or just selfish to ask him for that.

When we got there that night, my wife was already wearing the plug. What we didn’t expect was to run into a nineteen-year-old who would change the routine.

I swear that when I got on that plane all I could think about was closing the deal. I never imagined that night would be the one where I lost myself and us.