So it goes [Breakable Heaven #1]

1. Harry is an idiot

I still remember my very first encounter with the Harry Potter world. I have to admit, I was a little late to jump on the bandwagon, as I'd always thought it was a saga for children, and I definitely wasn't one. I was sixteen back then, and I was browsing the children's section of a small bookstore to find something for my foster sister's birthday. My eyes fell on a book titled "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban". For some reason, that weird name caught my attention, so much that I picked the book up and opened it on the first page. From that first few sentences, I learnt that Harry was a strange boy, because he hated the summer holidays. "Harry is an idiot," I thought, put the book down, and got my foster sister something else.

Now, almost seventeen years later, I have to admit that poor Harry wasn't all that dumb after all, as today is the first day back to work and I couldn't be happier that my summer vacation is over.

It's still incredibly hot in Seville, almost sweltering in its 33 degrees; I get out of my car and take my time before I get inside the school, sitting down on one of the chairs in the patio to smoke a cigarette and enjoy the feeling of the sun caressing my skin.

I don't mind the heat - I've spent my entire life in Southern California, and now I've been living in Seville, Andalusia, for the past two years, so I'm kind of accustomed to it. I actually love it when it feels like the entire world is about to go on fire. My co-workers think I'm insane.

As I inhale and exhale the smoke of my cigarette, I mentally review my schedule for the day: it's not too heavy, just four lessons, with a gap after the second one. It's still the end of summer, so people don't exactly make studying English their priority. Now that I think about it, four hours are quite a lot at this time of the year.

I wonder who else is going to be there today. My roommate and best friend, Jean, is still visiting her family in Virginia, which kind of sucks for me, as I'm not exactly happy to be left alone with my own thoughts these days.

I spent my entire month-long break with my childhood friend Rachel, driving all around the United States, finding a way to heal a broken heart. It didn't work that well, as my heart is still broken, but at least I didn't have to immediately come back to Seville and to an empty apartment, with way too much time to analyze every single detail of how my seven-year relationship went wrong. However, traveling and driving, even though it was with a good company, wasn't enough to fully distract me, so I'm happy to be back at work. Starting today, I'll be surrounded by all kinds of people and I'll have to focus on teaching them English in the best possible way, spending hours and hours to prepare the lessons, so my mind won't have time to dwell on my catastrophic break-up.

I have to say, I've been sitting in the school's parking lot - slash - backyard for only five minutes, and I am definitely not doing a good job at keeping my mind off my love life. I keep staring at the time on the lock screen of my phone - lock screen that right now shows a picture of a random sunset I took while I was in Arizona instead of my and Lilian's selfie of the moment - mentally calculating what time it is now in Los Angeles, wondering what Lilian is doing. It's a force of habit, that's what I used to do before: I used to sit there during a break, having a cigarette and wait for Lil to wake up and reply to my good morning text. Only this time there's no good morning text to reply to, and even if there were, there would be no reply.

Luckily, my not so happy thoughts get interrupted by a voice coming from behind me, before they can get too far.

"Sasha? You're back!"

I don't have to turn around to know who I have to thank for stopping the pity party I was about to throw to myself. I would recognize that accent everywhere. When somebody has a Spanish father, an Italian mother, and has spent most of her life in England, well, they're bound to have a very peculiar accent. That somebody is, specifically, Aurora Davila, also known as the Trybrid Bitch. The first time I heard her talking, I cringed so hard that Jean had to elbow me to get a grip, but now it has almost grown on me. I would never tell Jean, though, as Rory's accent is one of her favorite things to make fun of.

"Hey, Rory!" I greet her as she comes sitting next to me and lights up a cigarette. "Wow, you're... tanned!"

She giggles and shows off her long legs, moving the tear of her floral dress. Her normally already olive skin is even darker, probably thanks to her stay in the Canary Islands, and it contrasts so violently with the paleness of my body. Next to her, I almost look like a corpse. My gaze can't help but linger a little too long on those long legs, and it isn't something new, but for the first time since the day I met Rory, I don't feel guilty about it, because now I'm single and I don't have to answer to anyone for what I do or think, or for whom I ogle. The thought makes me incredibly bitter, but certainly not enough to stop staring at Rory's legs. It's almost like I'm taking a stance against Lilian and her decision to end our relationship.

"Yeah, well, two weeks in Tenerife can do that to you. Anyway, I'd ask how you are, but I'm pretty sure the selection of songs that you posted on Facebook is quite the giveaway. I'm sorry, by the way. I really thought Lilian would come around."

Rory and I aren't exactly friends. We're co-workers who spend a little too much time in the school backyard to smoke in between lessons, so we chat and we know things about each other. However, we probably wouldn't hang out outside of work. Most of the time, I believe Rory doesn't particularly like me, and I can positively say that the feeling is mutual.

Still, when my relationship with Lilian was still hanging by a thread, right before the holidays, Rory had been quite nice and supportive to me, leaving some encouraging comments on my posts on Facebook - mostly depressing songs - and in general letting me know that I could talk to her if I wanted to. I didn't, but it wasn't so much about her as it was about me: I honestly didn't feel like talking to anyone about that particular situation. I still don't.

"Thanks. I'm ok, though, but I'm glad to be back at work, so I can get my mind off it. What about you? How are you?"

She sighs. "I'm good, I had a good time, but I had to dump that wanker I was seeing because he was lowering my IQ every single time he opened his mouth. It's ok, I'm so much better off being alone at this point."

"That's what happens when you go out with men... you should come to the dark side, we have cookies!" I only half-joke.

"Well, you know I'm on a constant diet, so no cookies for me."
"You don't know what you're missing on," I shrug. "So what happened with this dude?"

"Long story. Next time we have a gap hour at the same time, I'll tell you all about it," she says, taking a long drag from her cigarette.

"Speaking of," I sigh as I take a look at the time and realize my lessons are about to begin, and probably so are Rory's. "It's time to go back to work."

She sighs, too, and we both stand up, get rid of our cigarette but, and walk inside.

"Hey, Sash?" she stops me before parting ways. "If you ever need to talk, call me, ok? Even if it might be faster to just wave at me, since we're both always stuck here and our classrooms are right in front of one another."

I smile and thank her, then we take our places at our desks. I've always liked the concept of this school, the fact that the classrooms have no doors and the walls are transparent. I like the look of shock that a new student gets every time they see us writing on the plexiglass for the first time, but what I enjoy even more is the fact that we are able to see all the other classrooms all the time. When I'm having a bad day, or a particularly terrible student, I just have to look up and catch the eyes of one of my co-workers, who is probably feeling just as fed up as I do, to immediately find my motivation again. It's nice to get some encouragement from the people I work with, who really understand how incredibly frustrating this job can get from time to time.

So a little later, when I'm sitting in my classroom with a couple of students struggling to get the present perfect right, I raise my head and sneak a glance at my colleague in the room in front of mine, but not because I need some sympathy from her. This lesson isn't too terrible, after all. I just find myself thinking that I might take Rory up on her offer to talk, which is totally crazy, since the Trybrid Bitch should be the last person I want to lean on in this difficult time. Yet, somehow, I feel like I could just do that.

Broken hearts make a person do the craziest things.