Big Dreams

Chapter 11: New Beginning

I didn't know how my life had turned out that away. For a split second, I wished I could go back to the beginning of my first year of college; full of dreams and focused on my plan. But I guessed this was the way of life showing me I shouldn't make plans, after all, when did any of them work before? I didn't want a boyfriend so I could get out of Portugal in peace without someone that made me want to stay there and, however, there I was, taking care of the boy I loved. And the weirdest thing for me was that I wanted him as much as I wanted Canada.

When we got to my house, we put Miguel on the couch, he was shaking.

- "Can you go to his place and bring some clothes?", I asked Mateo in the hallway.

- "Yes, sure. I don't really know what we can do...", he sounded hopeless.

- "We'll take care of him...What about his sister? Can you check on her once you're there?"

- "What I know is that people there think she's stronger than him, that she will conquer great things and he will be a sad boy forever, I can't hear them say those things anymore."

- "Hey, we will help him, okay? Now go take care of that and I'll go clean his wounds." Mateo gave me a soft smile before he left and I could feel how worried he was too.

The first two days were extremely difficult; Miguel woke up in the middle of the night crying so I had to calm him down and put him back to sleep, he almost didn't eat or talk, and when he did was to say it was his fault..

I stopped having dinner with my grandma with the excuse that I was sick and needed to stay a few days at home just resting, which she didn't like but I didn't care. Mateo kept showing up at the house too so we could both help Miguel while the other one was studying. Trina used to send us her notes of classes so we wouldn't miss any of them.

One day, I woke up in the middle of night and went to the kitchen to grab a glass of water because I was thirsty but a yell made me break the glass and run to the bedroom.

- "What's going on Miguel?" I said when I entered the room.

- "Where the hell were you?" he was whining "I woke up and you weren't here, please don't disappear that way, I can't lose you too" now he was really crying.

- "Miguel calm down I was just in the kitchen" I sat in the bed and hugged him "I'm here, you're not gonna lose me, I'm here"

Mateo and I used to talk to each other every day, telling the situations that happened and discussing what else we could do. Fortunately, he started getting better little by little.

A week and a half after, he couldn't stay there anymore because my father and Beni would come back the next day. As he was much better, the idea was for him to go to Mateo's. We were discussing that in the hallway as we usually did when Miguel showed up.

- "Guys...I appreciate everything you have both been doing for me but I'm okay now, I mean I'm better, I can decide for myself what I wanna do." We respected his decision of going back home, even though neither of us agreed. After Mateo left that day, Miguel started treating me very well and, for the first time in weeks, he kissed me.

- "I'm really sorry for not telling you anything, I should have said something", he said.

- "It's okay, I'm just glad you're better now." I was obviously not fine with the situation, I still didn't understand why he had pushed me away, however, I decided not to say anything.

Everything went almost back to normal in the next few days, Miguel got back to college and we made a group study- me, Trina, Miguel, Mateo, and whoever else wanted to join us.