Young

I went down for coffee in mid-afternoon. The half-open door, the gasps from the room beyond, and the decision I should never have made: pushing the wood a few inches farther.

It was three in the morning when I peeked into my parents’ room and saw my father in front of the television. I didn’t leave. I kept watching.

We’d been alone at home for a month when she offered to examine me after the hit. I never imagined my mother would kneel between my legs.

Nineteen years old, a 100-degree afternoon, and my aunt by marriage mopping my room in tight jeans. That afternoon I couldn’t hold back anymore.

When I came back from the bathroom with her garment tucked in my pocket, I had no idea she’d be waiting that same afternoon with a deal that would change everything.

When I saw him get off the train, he was no longer the boy I remembered. In that moment I thought my husband would have to learn to share, even if he never knew how.

I knew I shouldn’t lift the sheet, shouldn’t look, but the rain beat against the window and my sister was breathing deeply. I looked down and knew there was no going back.

When she clung to me in the water and I felt her breathing change, I knew the summer we turned eighteen would be unlike any other.

That night at the neighborhood fair I discovered something I shouldn’t have felt for my girlfriend’s younger sister, and the sight of her smile under the lights never let me sleep the same again.

When I pulled back the curtain to look in the mirror, she was there, leaning against the wall, looking at me like she already knew what would happen next.

We got home from the airport at eleven at night, with the house to ourselves and fifteen days ahead of us. Then she told me she hated sleeping alone.

I hugged him to comfort him and then felt his erection against my hip. In that instant I knew neither of us would ever be the same again.

When I woke on the wet stone and saw her slipping off her swimsuit, I knew that blow to the head had taken me somewhere I’d never come back from the same.

I came home early with the image of my freshly showered sister-in-law Renata stuck in my head. An hour later, she knocked on my door wrapped in a robe.

I thought I was home alone. The key in the lock came too late, and when I lifted my head from the sofa, she’d already seen me.

When Lucía came out of the water and looked at them from the shore, they both knew that afternoon wasn’t going to end in their sun loungers.

Nine months of failed independence sent her back to her father’s house, to Carmen’s rules and Marcos’s gaze, which from day one made her feel things she shouldn’t.

I’d only gone to say hello, but Matías couldn’t take his eyes off me. When his father left, the boy proved he had more initiative than he appeared to.

He had the kind of arms you notice even when you try not to. He said goodbye in thirty seconds and went back upstairs. I couldn’t stop thinking about him.

He was the quietest guy in class, wore glasses, and never talked about anything but studying. I had spent weeks thinking about what I’d accidentally seen.