Fermín and Clara have known each other since the day they were born.
He is her twin brother's best friend and has come back home to Andalusia after the 2022/23 season.
They meet again... and what will happen?
After laying in bed all of Sunday and watching Netlix to keep my boiling anger at bay, I dragged myself up on Monday for the last full week of uni before Christmas was finally coming around. Usually, I would have looked forward to the holidays but we always celebrated the 25th with Fermin and Fati's families - a gathering that I was certainly not looking forward to this year. And ignoring him would be hard as I had to act like nothing happened - I was in absolutely no mood of confessing everything that happened to my parents, my brother, his parents and... everyone else in the village. How humiliated I felt was no one's business.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
📍 UIC Barcelona clara_1106 New week 💪🏼
agnes_brieux Cuuuute 😘 carlos_1106 You look so girly haha aleroldan1_ That look on your face makes me feel a bit afraid tbh
I had blocked Fermín from every social media platform I had and thought to get him out of my head, until he just had to find a way to sneak back in. Agnes approached me on Wednesday after class with a weird look on her face. "Ok... I really need you to not freak out now" she said and took a hold of my arm. "What?" I asked annoyedly. "Ok, so my brother got me an invite to the Raya dating app for like 'famous' people and..." she said and turned her phone towards me, showing me Fermin's dating profile. I grabbed the device and looked at it.
"Four days! Four days have passed since the thing in the club and he's already looking for new hoes!" I exclaimed. "No offence" I added, remembering that she was on that dating app too. "None taken, I'm obviously not adding him or whatever but I thought you should know..." she said and hugged me from the side. "Do you think he ever really loved me? Or was it just some teenage infatuation that burst when we realised we lived in today's real world?" I sniffled. "I think he loves you very much and is just hurt. Let the dust settle and try talking it out on Christmas... And if he still acts like an asshole leave his sorry ass behind and send an e-mail every day to Barca to send him out on loan to the North Pole" she chuckled and I had to crack a smile too. She was right, I'd try and talk with him at Christmas, after all it was a festive season and we could use the spark of it.
On my last weekend in Barcelona, I shopped all Saturday for Christmas presents. Unfortunately, I was the worst at stuff like this and ended up buying jumpers for Mum, Dad, Carlito, Isa and Fati. They were still all different ones at least, so I could act like I made an effort, but really, I was clueless. The only Christmas present I had already planned was Fermin's and now, I didn't even know if I would give it to him. I had ordered a photo album and put together each and every single photo of us that existed, starting from 2003 up until now - two decades of Fermín and Clara. The thought of there being no more pictures of us together, like ever, hurt like hell.
There was only Monday to Wednesday to go at uni now and Agnes, El and I decided to go out for a sort of Christmas dinner on Tuesday evening as we would all be flying back home after classes on Wednesday. "Are you ready for your confrontation with Fermín?" El asked as she chewed on her pizza. "As ready as I can be. Our hometown's mayor now also asked me to prepare a speech for his football school naming ceremony and I'm so nervous" I sighed. "Why didn't they ask Carlito? I mean... no offence, but he's like his best friend?" Agnes said. "Because Carlito is a nervous wreck when speaking in front of a crowd, he's had this problem since he was a kid. We're a small town, everyone knows everything and since it's common knowledge our families are best friends, I've got the honours" I muttered.
"You could make it a love declaration and then you fall into each other's arms and he kisses you on the football pitch and you'll be together forever" El swooned and I looked at her with a weirded out face. "I'm not kissing him in front of all of our hometown, including teachers, ex-classmates and our families" I replied and took a sip of my Espresso Martini. "Come on, El is right, this is the perfect time for a grand romantic declaration!" Agnes agreed. "Did you girls forget that he treated me like a piece of trash a few nights ago?" I asked them. "Yeah, but he also treated you with an orgasm" El replied and put one finger in the air at which I just rolled my eyes.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
📍 Pizzeria Da Nanni Barcelona clara_1106 Who needs men when you can have martinis and pizza? 🍸🍕
aurorapaezg You're totally right!! Replying to aurorapaezg: javi_begines Excuse me?! cristoml10 😍😍😍😍😍😍 pablogavi But what about men who serve martinis and pizza? Replying to pablogavi: clara_1106 They can stay 👍🏼
Classes on Wednesday were pretty unspectacular, the term closed and we would all return mid-January for our exam session. Agnes, El and I shared a cab to the airport, where we checked in and went through security control all together. Our flights had similar departure times, so we were able to spend some more time together until our respective boardings started. They were flying to Brussels, while I was going back to Seville, where my dad would be picking me up. As I looked out the window on the plane I couldn't help but think about the plans I had originally made: flying back together with Fermín, spending time relaxing at home, doing stuff and creating memories together these few days that he had off. And now I didn't know what treatment I could expect from him.
My dad noticed that something was off the minute he saw me. "Hey baby girl, you alright?" he asked, at which I just shook my head. "Yeah, just a lot of stuff on my mind... Uni, you know? Big exam week coming up..." I replied and pressed my lips into a smile. "Mhm..." he just said, not fully convinced. He started driving and most of the drive I just blabbered about uni and work so that he wouldn't get any ideas to press me out about anything else.
When we arrived at home, Mum had already cooked a bomb ass dinner and I got upstairs to quickly leave my suitcase and bag in my room, when Carlito entered and closed the door behind him. "Hi. Welcome back" he said and shot me a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. Seems that something was on his mind too. "Hi" I replied and hugged him. "Soooo. About Mum's birthday tomorrow. Are you ok if I ask Mum and Dad to just celebrate it between the four of us? We're already spending Christmas with the Lopez' and the Marins, I think it would be nice to spend some one on one time just with the parents now that we both live away. What do you think?" he asked and looked at me expectantly.
I hadn't even thought about tomorrow, my mind was set so much on Christmas that I had forgotten that Mum usually invited those both families already to her birthday dinner. But Carlito came in like a lifeline for me with his proposal. "Yes! That sounds... like a great idea! Just us for! No Lopez', no Marins! Perfect!" I said, maybe a bit too ecstatically. Only now it occurred to me that maybe his relationship problems with Fati could have something to do with that. "Is everything alright?" I asked. "Yeah, yeah, no, don't worry" he quickly said and disappeared out of my room again.
The mood at dinner was more relaxed thankfully and we caught up on each other's news and spent a really nice evening together. "Oh, Clara, before I forget. Don Francisco, you know, our new deacon, he needs help with the Nativity Scene this year. I said that you could help him" my Dad said before stuffing a piece of chicken into his mouth. "Me? Why me?" I asked confusedly and pointed with my fork at my face. "He's going all out this year. Building cardboard houses and huts and mountains, it's going to be really beautiful" Mum swooned. "Yeah, he was telling us about it last week and I offered you could help, you know as an architect and stuff" Dad said with a huge smile on his face.
That was so not what architects did, but I just nodded and smiled. My parents, who both didn't go to uni were so proud of me that I had made it into that architecture school and paid a lot of money for my course. Carlito had renounced on going to some fancy uni and just went to state university so that my parents could afford sending me to UIC. So I wasn't going to let them down and if showing off their daughter was what they wanted, I'd happily help Don Francisco with his cardboard Nativity scene or whatever.
