Camila and her boyfriend of nine years, Zachary, just got a new neighbor: an athletic, tall, documentary-loving musician. Camila doesn't trust her new neighbor, but when she finds herself in a sticky situation she may find that she doesn't have much...
Camila woke up the next morning with an indistinguishable ache in her heart. She could hardly sleep last night, the words of her new neighbor echoing through her mind. What made it worse was that she couldn't even say that he was wrong. She wished that her boyfriend would treat her better too, but she loved him and he loved her—so she hid those wishes away in her heart and carried on the way she always had. She knew he had the potential to be a good boyfriend, he had the potential to be the best boyfriend because at one point he had been.
After Zachary had left for work, Camila stood up on her tippy toes in front of their storage closet and pulled out an old box full of journals and notebooks that she had filled up in the past. As she sorted through the books she noticed one from when she was in high school. She pulled it out and began flipping through the pages, stopping on one poem in particular—one of the first poems she ever wrote about Zachary.
I know I am young, I know I am only seventeen, but when I think of him and his incandescent smile, my heart swells and beats in time with the cadence of his alluring words.
His mind is like no other, filled with such deep and captivating thoughts that flutter from place to place like a moth, and like a moth I am drawn to his brilliance.
I long to hold his face in my hands and trace his lips with my fingertips and when I close my eyes all I see is the way he looks at me, as if I'm the one who paints the summer evening sky.
I know I am young, I know I am only seventeen, but I think I could spend the rest of my life searching and never find anything nearly as beautiful as the way he loves me.
She ran her fingers over the worn words and sighed. At one point, Zachary had been everything she had ever wanted. At one point, he did make her feel like she was the only girl in the world.
The first time the broke up was shortly after graduating high school. Neither of them wanted to break up, but they were worried that maintaining a steady relationship while studying at two separate colleges would be too difficult...so they parted ways. After less than a week, they both decided they couldn't be without each other and were back to being boyfriend and girlfriend. The second time they broke up was after a nasty fight. Zachary had drunkenly kissed another girl at a college party and Camila found out about it. She had cried and cried, but after a week passed by she accepted his apology and they were back together. They had broken up a few different times, each time for a week or less, and each time they always found their way back to one another. Camila had always assumed that it was because they were destined to be together, but as their relationship progressed she started to question that notion. Especially now.
Camila put away her box of old notebooks and went into the bathroom to take a shower. There were two places that she loved to write: the rooftop and a local Cuban coffee shop called Suite Habana Café. It had been a while since she had written at the café, so she decided to spend her day there. She got ready, pulling on her favorite pair of high-waisted jeans as well as a bright red cropped tank top, and headed out to the coffee shop.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
When she got to the café, she went up to the counter and ordered some guava juice and two ham croquetas. Luckily for her, the cafe was nearly empty so she was able to sit in her favorite chair. She wasn't superstitious but she did notice that some of her favorite poems were written when she sat in that chair...so if it was open, she would sit there. She tried her hardest to write a poem about how she was endlessly head-over-heels in love with Zachary but she couldn't muster up the words or inspiration. So instead, she decided to be honest. Brutally honest.
I love your laugh all your little quirks cute nicknames you've given me and our late night confessions
but I don't want to
because one moment I feel euphoric and the next I don't even know who you are you are not my sunrise or brisk winter day
this constant turmoil of affection and disdain has frozen my heart
it is too much for me to bear
sticks and stones may break my bones, but you will always hurt the most
Camila stared down at the paper, reading and re-reading the poem she had just written over and over again. She always knew that her best poems came from her being overwhelmingly honest with herself, but she didn't want to be honest about these feelings. She wished things could just go back to the way things were when she wrote the poem she had read earlier this morning. She had always assumed relationships were supposed to get easier as you became more mature. Why was her relationship with Zachary just getting more painful and confusing?
She started to feel sick to her stomach and decided to leave the café and head back to her and Zach's apartment. As she walked down the sidewalk, she made an impromptu decision to stop at a local drugstore and pick up a few things they needed—including toilet paper, toothpaste and shampoo. She walked past the aisles of the store making sure there were no other things she needed, stopping and sighing when she saw something she didn't want to be purchasing but knew she needed to. She looked at the near endless options before picking up a pink box that had the words 'First Response Pregnancy Test' printed across it. She swallowed down the lump in her throat, putting the small box in her basket and making her way up to the front of the store to pay.
Zachary had made it very clear at several different points during their relationship that he never wanted any kids—another thing that Camila had always secretly hoped that he would change his mind about. After his stubbornness the night before regarding the fact that he wasn't going to change his mind about marriage, she was fairly certain he wouldn't be okay with her being pregnant. Even if she wasn't pregnant, she didn't want him to even know that she had to take a test—she knew it would freak him out.
Knowing this, she decided to sneak the test into the bathroom in the back of the store—which luckily ended up being a single stall bathroom so she at least still had some privacy. She pulled the test stick out of the packaging and took the cap off. In hindsight, she wished that she had a cup to pee in so she could just dip the test into it...but she had no cup. Instead, she positioned the test strategically in the toilet bowl and peed onto it. Once she had finished, she placed the cap back onto the test and set it on the sink as she waited impatiently. She didn't even realize she was crying until she glanced at herself in the mirror and saw the tears streaming down her cheeks. She grabbed a paper towel from the dispenser and wiped her eyes before checking the time and noticing that the three minutes had passed. Taking a deep breath, she picked up the test and flipped it over to look at the results.
A/N: OH SNAP. BTW, both poems in this chapter are by Madisen Kuhn! One of my favorite poets ever.
