So it goes [Breakable Heaven #1]

7. Are you trying to hit on me?

The train ride to Madrid is long. Actually, it's not that long, just a little less than three hours, but after half a day at work, it feels like an eternity.

Rory isn't a bad travel companion, though. During the trip, we chat about work and other unimportant topics about our personal life, and the time goes by pleasantly, much like that day we spent together at the Jardines de Chapina.

It's once again quite surprising to me, as I am not usually that comfortable around people who aren't close friends. I am quite sociable, I talk to everyone, but it just rarely happens that I truly enjoy spending a whole day with someone rather than Jean, Rachel, or well, Lilian, at the time. That's why I am so positively surprised that in the whole three hours we spend on the train I don't feel the need to isolate myself from my travel companion with loud music blasting in my ears or a good book.

The hotel the school has booked for us isn't exactly central, but it's nice and easily reachable by subway. The rooms are quite small, but clean, and I am quite impressed that Violeta had the tact to book two separate rooms. I mean, I wouldn't have minded sharing it with Rory, but it's nice that they didn't force us to sleep in the same room just because we're two girls on a trip together. I like having my space and I've never been a fan of sharing my sleeping quarters with someone else, even though I had to get used to it, being in the foster system and all.

After we put our things down we decide to take a walk and find somewhere nice to eat. We end up at a hamburger place after skipping a number of so-called Italian restaurants that make Rory cringe hard. The Italian in her cannot conceive the thought of eating there. I wanted to point out that I should have said the same for the hamburger place, me being American and all, but I don't. First of all, making hamburgers isn't rocket science, so I highly doubt these people in Madrid are going to screw up that much. And it's also the first time since I met Rory that I see her truly enjoying something she's eating - it's also probably one of the few times that I've seen her eating something that isn't green - and that for some reason makes me smile.

"Can I ask you something that might be a little personal?" I blurt out before my brain can stop me from doing so. I know I shouldn't pry, I know that the question I have in mind is way too intimate for the stage we are in our relationship, that so far we've just been making small talk, but I can't help it. Somehow I am too curious, I need to know.

"Should I be scared?" she replies, sounding almost amused.

"You don't have to answer if you don't want to, obviously. And I hope you won't think that I'm being indelicate... I just... you really seem to enjoy eating... like, food in general. And you are... I mean, your body... you know... is..." I blabber, feeling like a complete idiot for putting myself in such a situation.

"Sasha Brennan, are you getting all awkward on me? Are you trying to hit on me, by any chance? Like, you know, you buy a girl dinner, she puts out... just remember that I'm not that easy," she makes fun of me. She has every right to, since I'm really being extremely awkward, for some reason.

I blush a little but shake my head. "No, it was just my terrible way of saying that you look great, so I was wondering... why are you always on a diet? Like, why do you deny yourself something that you enjoy so much? I get trying to be as healthy as possible and keeping an eye on the weight, but... I don't know, I guess I was wondering why you don't let yourself enjoy something you like. Am I being too nosy?"

"No, you aren't," she sighs. I can tell that it is a topic that makes her uncomfortable, so I mentally kick myself for speaking it. Yet, she replies, and I don't really understand why, since we're not exactly friends, and she doesn't owe me anything. "You see... when I was younger - a teenager - I was fat. And I'm not talking about a little extra padding; no, I was definitely fat. I hated it and I hated myself for it. Nobody liked me, obviously: I was the obese girl with a weird accent and a foreign last name. It was a really terrible time for me. One day my dad found me crying on the bathroom floor and we had this conversation about it, he explained to me that I was a very beautiful girl but I did need to lose some weight, not because only thin girls can appeal to others, but for my own health. He also told me that, if I didn't feel good with myself, I had to do something to change it. And so I did. I got on a strict diet, started exercising, and finally lost all that extra weight. But the thing is, the moment I relax too much and stop paying too much attention to what I eat, I start gaining weight again. I don't want to go back to the way I was, Sash... never. That's why I'm on a constant diet, even if I enjoy food very much and I think that eating is one of the biggest pleasures in life."