Love, in English

I had Claudia on one side of me and Mateo on the other. Mateo had his arm around me as if we were a couple. I felt my cheeks flame red for that picture and I was sure my smile was ridiculously huge. It wasn’t until the camera stopped clicking that I realized that Mateo also had his arm around Ed on the other side, to make things less suspicious, I guess.

It didn’t matter. We’d all been captured in a moment for the rest of time. That was the picture that I wanted on my wall, so I could stare at it whenever I felt lonely. I could look at it and remember that for one month out of my life, I had a family, I had friends, and I had love at my side. The exalted look on my face would say it all. Apparently it would be emailed to us all in a few days, and I was already anticipating the joy and pain it would bring.

The final business sessions were all cancelled and Jerry told us all we had free time to do whatever we wanted, as long as we were back for di

I felt it should have been the other way around—I wanted to do something for the Spaniards for teaching me about love and life.

But, I could always start with Mateo. As soon as Jerry a

So, we ended up going back down the road and to the dining hall. Mateo grabbed a few cushions off the chairs and waved them at me. “For old time’s sake,” he said. He took them over to the tree and threw them on the ground.

We may have not had enough privacy to do what we really wanted, but we at least had some.

We lay down, this time as close together as possible. With him on his back staring up at the sky, I rolled onto my side and propped my head up with my hand. I just wanted to stare at him for as long as I could, drinking in the features most people missed: How dark and long his eyelashes were, how they curled up at the ends, the silky shine of his black eyebrows, a tiny white fleck of a scar gracing his bronze cheekbones, the salt and pepper hair at his temples.

“Do you like what you see?” he asked me, rolling his head to the side to gaze at me.

I gri

A soft moment passed between us. It was becoming dangerously sad again.

I cleared my throat, forcing myself to perk up. “Remember when you said you were going to ask me a question every day? And you said I could have my question at the end?”

He pursed his lips in mock contemplation. “I seem to recall something like that, yes.”

“Well, I have twenty questions for you. Right now.”

“No siesta for us?”

My smile was sly. “We can siesta tonight. In between…other things.”

He nodded. “That is fair. Ask away.”

And so I got my twenty questions and I got twenty answers. I asked him sexual questions like when he lost his virginity (fourteen, to Barbara Lopez, after school, behind the gym), if he’d ever had a threesome (twice, in his twenties, after football matches), the kinkiest thing he ever did (jack off while watching a teammate do a girl up the ass…apparently this was normal, back in the day), and the weirdest place he’d ever had sex (the Tibidabo Amusement Park in Barcelona).When I got too horny for the questions to continue, I switched to personal ones: his first pet was a golden lab called Pedro, his best subjects in high school were gym (of course) and history (very interesting), his favorite childhood memory was fishing off of Gibraltar with his father. Noting that he didn’t mention his mom, I asked him what her name was. It was Sandra, and she died of cancer when he was only three. His father eventually remarried, and his sister Lucia is only a half-sister.

“And your favorite memory?” I asked him, the questions winding down.

“My first favorite memory is the day Chloe A

There was a despondent strain in his voice, his eyes gazing off into the distance. I watched him for a few beats, not wanting to say anything.

Finally he turned to me and said, “Do you want to know my second favorite memory?”

I nodded.

“This,” he said, gesturing to me. “All of this, all of you. Here.”

“I’m not a memory yet,” I whispered.

“But you will be. After tomorrow, all of this will be a memory.” His eyes held such soft sadness. “You and I, we were always a memory in the making.”

That gutted me. Hard. And it hurt because it was true. Suddenly I wanted nothing more than for him to whisper hopeful things in my ear, that somehow this could all still work. I could see the appeal in kidding ourselves.

“I wish I could kiss you right now,” I said softly, my hand itching to touch him.

“You could,” he said, his face serious. “And if there are any consequences, I will gladly suffer them.”

But I couldn’t. To carry on in private was one thing. To flaunt it in public was another, especially when he was someone who frequently appeared in Spanish gossip rags.

So I just stared at him and he stared at me, and we lay there on the grass for one last siesta at Las Palabras.

Chapter Seventeen

I don’t know how anyone got through the rest of the night. It was a shitshow of emotional carnage, just pure tear-soaked chaos worse than any Grey’s Anatomy episode.

It all started with the performances after di

There wasn’t a dry eye in the house after that, though there were some laughs after Angel distributed a tiny bronze pig figurine, with the words Acantilado carved on it, to each Anglo. He shook my hand, shook everyone’s hand, telling us all individually—and with tears in his eyes—that every Spaniard thanked us for our hard work and that we would be missed terribly.

I held the cold metal of the pig in my hands and looked up at Mateo sitting beside me, about to totally lose it.

He smiled down at me. “Something to remember us by.”

My lower lip trembled. I looked across the table at Claudia and Ricardo who were smiling at me with tears welling in their eyes as well.

As I said, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. It only got worse as the night fell and sangria started to flow. Everyone was drunk. I saw Lauren and Tyler making out and crying at the same time (which was really disturbing), big Antonio was hiding in the bathroom and drying his tears on Froggy Carlos’s sweater, Angel was wasted and publicly declared his love for Sammy—thank goodness she reciprocated with a very big, albeit sloppy, kiss.

I had people coming up to me, telling me that they were sorry they didn’t get to know me better, and I had others telling me they’d never forget me. The more sangria and beer I drank, the more I started saying the same shit. It was just one big red-nosed, mascara ru