"Becka, it's your turn!" A girl called from the henna table.
I jumped out of my chair and Victor was staring up at me, confused. "I'm coming! Let's turn these back in!"
I was dragging Victor to the drama table like a lunatic, my heart pounding, sweat collecting down my back.
"Here, we're done with these!" I shoved the shackles at Keith's face and he raised a brow staring at the both of us.
"You untangled them," Keith said.
"Yeah," Victor said.
Keith looked at me. "Didn't you say –"
"I said nothing!" I snarled and Keith stumbled back, petrified.
Victor was staring at me in utter confusion and I admitted to myself that I was completely nonsensical.
"I'm getting my henna done, thank you so much for bringing all the props to the event," I said and looked to Victor but not his eyes, never his eyes. He would know if I met his eyes. My irises were heart-shaped and a blind person could see I was in love with him.
"I'll see you later," I said.
Victor did not leave.
My back was stiff, and my eyes were connected like a life-line to Adia who was making the most beautiful patterns on my hands. Victor had planted himself next to me, slid down on the chair, his legs spread open, casual about the whole thing. Despite clearly listening to his stomach rumble loudly, demanding food.
"Just go get something to eat," I said.
"I'm fine, I'll wait."
Why did he have to be so wonderful? Why? Why were his eyes so beautiful? All soft brown, vulnerable and warm? Oh god, I was getting poetic. This had to be controlled. I had to get a hold of myself. My hands started shaking.
"I'm almost done," Adia said thinking I shook because of keeping my hand still. Little did she know I had just realized the most monumental truth of my life and I was falling the heck apart.
"How long is this supposed to last?" Victor asked, leaning forward and looking at my hand over my shoulder. His breath fleshed goosebumps on my neck and I sucked in a breath, willing myself not to move.
"It begins fading after a week," Adia looked up at us.
Victor made a noncommittal grunt and his stomach sounded again.
"Please go get some food, I'm afraid you'll eat me if you wait too long." Crap that sounded sexual.
He chuckled and looked at me and I refused to stare at him because his face was by my face and if I turned to look at him, we would be an inch from kissing and I clearly could not be trusted. My neck flushed and I shifted in my chair. Shifted away from him. An inch. I could breathe better.
"You OK?" he asked and his breath sounded in my ear.
"Yup."
Liar. Such a fucking liar. I was four minutes from climbing on his lap, assaulting his mouth and confessing all my love and devotion for all of time. Adia looked up at us with a raised brow and I blinked away from her eyes.
"How long have you been doing this?" I asked. Change the subject or I would vomit.
I listened with rapt attention as Adia explained how she'd learned henna from her mother and aunts and Victor sat back allowing me to breathe easier. Then his foot landed on the back of my chair, pushing at my butt each time he thought something Adia said was funny. How long had we been like this? Touching each other in a nonchalant manner? How many people had noticed? Was everyone aware of it but us? Was Victor aware of it? I could not breathe and finally, Adia finished.
"Do not touch anything for at least two hours, longer if possible but at least an hour," she said.
I stood up, shaking myself to ensure my dress did not ride up behind me and thanked her. Victor also stood, stuck by me like a leach, I could not get away from. I could not even go to the bathroom because he knew I could touch nothing. My mind was running out of ideas to ditch him when he opened the door back into the building for us to sit in the Atrium. I almost let out a sigh of relief when we spotted Jon walking back with a Subway bag at hand.
"Got you guys goodies!"
I could have kissed him but I really needed to stop kissing my friends.
Victor was next to him in four strides, snatching the bag with a sigh.
"Turkey and bacon, just like you like it," Jon said with a proud smirk.
"Becka can't eat right now," he pointed at my hands.
"Oh cool!" Jon studied the patterns on my hands.
"You can have chips," Victor sat down on our preferred couch and I took a seat across from him. I watched as he opened a bag of chips and popped one in his mouth. He looked at me and pulled a chip out. "Here."
I loved him. I was so screwed. He would break my heart, I knew it.
I opened my mouth like a baby bird and he placed a chip in my mouth, he did it so casually, as if we had always fed one another. I could not remember; our moments had been too many. Too many days spent in the company of one another. I suddenly became afraid I would forget little moments like this in the future when my tits were sagging, and I recalled my great love for Victor that I would forget little bits about it. That I would wonder if I had imagined it all.
Yet at this moment, the chip tasted salty and crunchy in my mouth. That had been real. The soft warmth of his finger had brushed my lip. That had been real. The way he had the most beautiful brown eyes, downturned in the corners, creasing with mirth. That had been real. The fine black hairs on his veiny arm, stark against the pallor of his skin. That had been real. The smell of his cologne intermixed with his soap musky and woodsy. That had been real.
He was kind, he was kind and warm and caring and that took me with such a surprise that I had to look away. The thought went right into my belly and wormed itself in there and I was hit with the desire that he would be mine. That those kind eyes would look at me the way he looked at Crystal and Helene and any of the countless girls who had captured his attention.
"Thanks," I said.
I watched as he unwrapped his sandwich and took a massive bite out of it, lettuce falling on his lap.
I was ever grateful for Jon who sat next to Victor and before I knew it, he had started an entire conversation about a guy they had met in Daytona who was in town and wanted to hang out this weekend. I willed myself invisible and allowed myself coveted glances at Victor. Just to look at him because I would not be able to stare at him in Chicago and I wanted to always have a perfect picture of him in my mind.
×××
Poor Yara was startled to death when I pounded the door of her sister's house that afternoon.
"Is she pregnant?" Yara's sister asked from the kitchen where she was bleaching a customer's hair.
Yara stared at me.
"It's worse. I'm in love."
Yara's eyes widened and she bristled, rushing me in. She pulled me into her small cramped room, closing the door behind us and sitting me on the bed.
"What am I going to do?" I cried, hands over my face.
"I assume you've finally realized you're in love with Victor," she sat with a pillow over her midsection, but she didn't look smug, she looked rather sad.
"How long? How long has this been going on?"
"You're asking me?" She let out a small laugh.
"I don't know! I just realized it! Who else knows?" I was on the very edge of hysteria.
Yara shook her head. "I only realized when he showed up to get me from the clinic. Even then I didn't think much about it until after our fight."
"Yara, I can't be in love with Victor," I clutched at her hands.
She looked down at our hands and then back at me. "May I ask why not? You two are already friends, sexual tension is causing well, tension, he's crazy about you -"
"He is not!" I said. "Just today he was talking to me about some twins that were up for a good time!"
Yara gave me a knowing look. "Have you thought that maybe he's just gauging your reaction? Seeing if you care? Didn't you say once he's shy?"
"He's very shy, most people don't know this," I nodded, allowing a small butterfly of hope to flutter in my stomach.
"See? Now that he realizes he loves you, he doesn't know if you feel the same. If you only see him as a brother," she smirked. "Do you want me to ask him?"
"No!"
She laughed. "So, you tell him!"
"I'd rather vomit."
"Then vomit and then tell him," she said, squeezing my hand. "But wash your mouth first."
The image of me telling Victor that I loved him sent cold shivers through my whole body. I couldn't. Death would be preferable. I was not that brave. Not with this, not when he meant so much. Not when he could say 'I just see you as a sister, Becky-girl'. Bile rose in the back of my throat.
"What's the worst that can happen?"
"That he doesn't feel the same. I couldn't handle it, Yara. This is the worst feeling I've ever had." I stared at her and took a sharp breath. "It hurts right here."
I pressed against my heart and a tear dropped on my hand. Yara stared at me solemnly and nodded.
"That's what it means to love to death," she said softly. "It feels like you'll die without them. It hurts. Even worse if they don't feel it back. You bleed out."
I let out a cry. "I have to sever all ties with him, catheterize the wound."
She shook her head. "No. You need to tell him it's what you need to do."
"Yara, I -"
I felt the bile at the back of my throat pushing up. Scrambling, I grabbed her trash can and vomited, repeatedly until only thin green lines of liquid came out. I was sobbing by then, Yara pressed a wet cloth to my mouth, and I laid on her small bed sobbing. This was the worse feeling I'd ever had. All those years of preserving myself in useless crushes had been a façade. I hadn't loved any of them. Alvin was nothing, Clem even less. I had no emotional attachment to Case and he'd seen my coochie!
Yara softly combed my hair back just as I had done for her. "You're so brave, Becka. You're so brave for so much but this will be the hardest."
"I'm not brave enough," I said, my voice muffled against the wet cloth. "I can't bear it."
"You have to," Yara said. "Or you'll spend the rest of your life wondering if he felt the same. If he felt anything towards you."
I could see the years ahead of me. Long, easy years, never having to confront someone I loved. Protecting myself from pain by not placing myself on the path of the possibility of heartbreak. Not placing myself in the storm, in the Hurricane. I think I'd prefer that. Then again, the question would haunt me, a massive question mark wherever I went. No matter who I was with, I'd always compare them to Victor. I'd always want to replicate what Victor and I had but would never be able to because what we had created had been born out of circumstance.
"I'll be with you if you want," Yara said. "I'll hold your hand. We can do it together, you won't be alone."
I swallowed thickly. "But I'm leaving for Chicago."
"You have to tell him before you leave, Becka," Yara's voice was desperate. "You can't just leave. Plus, you wouldn't be leaving; you'd be running away."
"Even if he felt the same, we won't be together. I'd be in Chicago and he'll be here."
"Let him make that choice."
I sat up and stared at her. "No. I can't ask him to come with me to Chicago. That's what Helene did. I can't ask him that, it wouldn't be fair to him to put him in that position."
Yara smiled a little. "That's very selfless of you."
"I want him happy," I cried. "Even if it's not with me, I want him happy. I want someone to love him for all that he is, all his little quirks, laugh at all his stupid jokes. He makes the lamest jokes. Someone to take care of him and worry about him. Someone who appreciates his obsessive need to be neat and clean, who doesn't mind he spends half his time in the gym and appreciates his little handkerchief."
She stared at me quite longingly. "Someone already loves him like that."
I looked down and tugged at my dress, watching the henna on my hand.
"He cares about you. He wouldn't hurt you," Yara hugged me and I leaned into her embrace. "You know that, don't tell me you don't. He'd never purposively break your heart."
I knew Victor would not be mean or embarrass me. I knew this. But facing him, facing what I felt, facing what I'd run away from was terrifying.
"I can do this," I whispered.
"You can do this."
Recommended Year 2000 Playlist (will grow with each chapter)
1. If You're Gone - Matchbox Twenty
2. Absolutely (Story of a Girl) - Nine Days
3. Hanging by a Moment - LifeHouse
4. Yellow - Coldplay
AUTHORS NOTE: If you enjoyed this story please follow me on Tiktok (isabelleolmo) or Instagram (isabelleolmobooks) to follow my journey as I publish my first novel!