Bonita

29

"I'd like to invite the winners of the scholarship to the stage. A big round of applause, please,
for Nadia Shanaa and Lucrecia Montesinos Hendrich." Mila smiled and clapped next to Carla when Nadia and Lu stepped onto the stage. Azucena smiled at the audience "Bill McKinley will present the award on behalf of Columbia University."

The man stepped forward and looked at the two "Hi, everyone. Thank you for having me. I'm very excited to be here. Congratulations.
We're excited to have you at Columbia."

Nadia and Lu stepped forward and Lu began to speak "Good afternoon. Thank you to our parents and friends who have joined us for such a special moment...for us and... for our fellow students.I would like to..." Lu hesitated for a moment and then pulled away she looked at Nadia who shook her head and Lu leaned into the mic again. "I was saying that..." Nadia suddenly grabbed the mic "I would just like to say that...I would like to... well, we would like to...I think I'm speaking on behalf of both of us...dedicate this award to all our fellow students, especially everyone there in the back,
who, for different reasons, cannot join us up here...as part of this graduation ceremony." The hall applauded the students.

Nadia then continued "Not being able to have them here with us...makes this moment... not as happy as we would have liked it to be." Lu nodded "That's true. Because she and I should be jumping for joy...but we're not. Because we... deserve this award. We deserve this moment, Nadia."

The girls smiled at each other and Nadia leaned forward to speak "My friends are there...due to a series of injustices...the most serious of all being the one that deprived us of having...Marina with us. Injustices...that we both condemn." Lu grabbed the mic and looked at Polo coldly. "That's right. And just one person is responsible for all of those injustices. Polo. How are you? Happy with yourself?" Mila almost began to laugh. "Look, the award we are receiving... was a ploy your moms came up with to clean up your image, basically. And we are accepting it because, I repeat, we deserve it. What should we do? Because this has become..."

Polos mother snatched the mic and looked at the two girls "If it's such a problem for you to accept the award, don't worry. The scholarship has been called off. All we've ever wanted is to support Las Encinas and to help the students." She then walked off the stage, leaving Lu to slowly take the mic once more.

"You know what? I promised someone I love dearly that we would celebrate this day together. That we would have lots of fun and that nothing would fuck it up. Let's go celebrate at Teatro Barceló!"

~~~

"Everything okay?" Rebeka smiled at Mila "Yeah, you look great, princesa." Mila smirked "Do you wanna hug?" Rebeka rolled her eyes "Come here!" She brought Mila into a hug and Mila began to laugh "Let it all out, sweetie." They both pulled away.

Mila took a sip of her red wine as she saw Diego watching her from the bar behind Rebeka. She walked over to him slowly but stopped as she saw a familiar face emerging from the steps. Mila was sick of the pain he had caused her and her friends. She wanted revenge. Polo looked at the group of teenagers in front of him. He knew that he was in for an interesting night. And so were they...

Mila's outfit: