Not enough (Fermín López)

Chapter 15

The girl Fermín had been seen with was having breakfast with him and his family when she saw the article written about them.

"Fer, you better call your girl to tell her this is bullshit".

"What are you talking about?"

Fermín stopped eating to get up and go stand next to Lucía. His cousin Lucía.

"Someone took photos of us when you picked me up from the train station and wrote this article saying you're cheating on your girlfriend with me", she told him but it served to inform the rest of the family too. "Gross".

Fermín wanted to play it cool. The explanation was easy but how many people would have seen this already? How much could this hurt Lorena?

He gave the phone back to Lucía and ran upstairs to go to his room. His brother called his name but Fermín didn't care. He just needed to be alone. Why was this happening now?

He was going to tell Lorena how he felt. He was going to ask her out...so they could really date. No more faking. He had it all planned. Gavi was probably bored of him already because they texted for hours planning how Fermín was going to talk to Lorena. How he was going to confess his feelings for her, hoping she felt the same. And now this happened? He thought the worst thing that could happen would be her saying she didn't feel the same way. But he was wrong. This was way worse. 

"This is what she feared when I first proposed we faked", he said to himself. "She'll hate me".

And he confirmed his bad feeling when Lorena didn't pick up the phone. He called her three times before she turned her phone off. Fermín still texted her begging her to please listen to him but wasn't hopeful she would listen.

A knock on the door made Fermín look up from where he was sitting on the floor and when he saw it was Lucía, he sighed.

"I don't know her but I can talk to her. Explain who I am".

"It doesn't matter. She'll never forgive me", he said and noticed he was starting to cry.

"But Fer, you didn't do anything wrong. Why wouldn't she forgive you? It doesn't make sense. There is nothing to forgive".

"It makes sense to me. To us. You don't know her".

"Well, my offer to talk to her is still there, ok?"

Fermín nodded and Lucía left him alone. And he stayed on the floor crying until it was time to go to train.

Luckily, he could stay in the gym and the team understood why he didn't want to be photographed that day. They could all see how red his eyes were. But probably thought he cried because he was caught cheating and had been dumped by his girlfriend. They didn't get it. Only Gavi did but he felt like he didn't know how to help his friend. And the rest of his teammates were too scared to ask what happened. Lamine almost did but realised he didn't want to make his friend cry again by saying the wrong thing without meaning to.

Lorena's eyes were red too and it was also from crying. She couldn't stop. It hurt too much. But also, she felt stupid. Yes, people thought she had been cheated on but she hadn't. Fermín had done nothing wrong. But then...why did she hate him so much?

Because she loved him and he clearly didn't love her back. She didn't actually hate him, she hated herself for falling for him when she shouldn't have. She just made her life even more complicated.

**

Lorena went to her dorm but couldn't bring herself to leave the bed to go to class. She couldn't deal with the looks and the comments. And she couldn't sit next to Fermín after what had happened.

What was she supposed to do for the rest of the classes? What a mess this all was.

Fermín was standing by Lorena's locker, waiting for her but she didn't show up. He tried texting, calling, ...but her phone was still off. And the looks he was getting...everyone had seen the article. And they could see Lorena wasn't there when she had never missed a class. Not even the week she was ill. So it didn't take a genius to guess why she was hiding.

For the first time since the uni year started, Fermín took notes of everything the professors said. They weren't just for him. They were for Lorena. He couldn't let her fail her exams because of this. They had been hurt enough.

On Tuesday, he hoped to see Lorena back but she wasn't there. He even told Gavi to call her to see if she would listen to him but she rejected the call and turned her phone off again.

"This is killing me, Pablo. I can't go on like this, I swear".

"There has to be a way to get her to see what really happened. You did nothing wrong".

"It doesn't matter. No one cares about true or false. They just care about hurting others and with us, they managed to hurt us the most".

On Wednesday morning, Lorena almost got ready to go to class. But when she opened her door, she saw a magazine on the floor. The photos of Fermín and that girl were on page 5 and that was the page they had left the magazine opened on so she could see it.

Lorena let the magazine fall on the floor again and locked herself in her room. She didn't even make it to the bed. She just sat down on the floor and started to cry again wondering if it would ever stop hurting. Or if she would ever be able to face Fermín again. Because she was going to have to do it at some point.

For Fermín, seeing Lorena missing classes for a third day in a row was like a kick to the stomach. He had to do something. He had to talk to her whether she wanted to or not. He would stop attending classes if that was what it'd take for her not to ruin her chances at finishing the uni year like she was supposed to.

But first, he had to deal with someone else.

"You're scum, López", spit Adrián when he walked past him. "What are you doing standing by her locker this whole time? She's not coming back because of you, because of what you did to her".

Fermín didn't realise all the people that were surrounding them, smelling a potential fight.

"You don't know what you're talking about".

"Oh, I know all about it", said Adrián, pushing Fermín. "You're just another player who uses the women around him. You saw Lorena and couldn't resist her. But got bored quickly because you lot can't appreciate something good. You have to have every girl even when the perfect one is at home waiting for you. You never deserved her".

It was then that Fermín truly understood how in love Adrián was. He loved Lorena to the point of not being able to let go. It didn't make what he did to her ok, at all. But it helped Fermín understand him a bit better. Still, his words were pissing him off.

"Like you appreciated her? Like you deserved her?"

"I didn't cheat on her!", screamed Adrián and that was the final straw for Fermín, who pushed him back.

"Neither did I! That was my fucking cousin, ok? I was hugging my cousin in the middle of the street and all of you think you get to say what I did and didn't do to try and ruin our relationship. But I didn't cheat! I would never do that to Lorena, you hear me? Never".

Adrián moved back, noticing how mad Fermín was. A few professors showed up to tell them to go to class but they didn't stop things before several students filmed what was happening. And it also didn't take them long to post it online. Or for those posts to go viral.