PART FIVE: THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE NEVER DID RUN SMOOTH

When people said that college could be a life altering experience, they weren't lying.

For one, the fact that I ended up going to one vastly different from what I'd intended was already a big change. I'd seen myself going to business school in Rollins, which would help me connect with the business world in Central Florida, maybe even find a boyfriend and future husband in that environment, and in the process take our family business from two shops to franchises all over the country.

Instead I moved to a different state. Like Mr. Davies suggested, I did a year of pure business and then I added a second major in arts. By that point, I had continued to build up on my portfolio and although I started my arts program lagging behind the other students, I soon made use of my characteristic stubbornness to catch up. And surpass them. By the time I was finishing college, I had an offer for an internship with a famous studio in Paris.

I often thought about how right Sawyer had been. At least for the most part.

While I learned and developed and grew my platform, he went onto the grueling process of physical therapy. I did make time to visit him when I returned to Orlando, once even defying his predictions that Ariel would consume all my visit time by bringing her with me. Seeing his princess at the end of the walkway always spurred him on harder. After a year of hard work, he was able to walk with the help of a crutch. His arm had healed a lot better than his leg and eventually he switched to a cane. Manny gave him a bejeweled one for his birthday, saying that Sawyer deserved something pimp-like that would help him catch the eye of all the ladies.

I didn't think Sawyer needed any help on the matter. With his hair growing back to the way he liked it and the now well groomed beard, he looked like a sex god conjured by the dreams of a hipster.

I didn't hear much from him after I left for Paris. The internship that was supposed to be six months long ended up extending into a full time position for a marketing company. I created art pieces that sold perfumes, vacations, exclusive memberships to clubs and more. It was fun and the pay was okay, but it wasn't fulfilling enough. I kept working on my own projects on the side until I had a decent enough body of work. I shopped around for art galleries and invested my savings into creating my very own exhibition. It was a complete disaster in the sense that I didn't sell enough paintings to break even on my investment, but I was proud of myself for daring to go ahead with it and so was my French boyfriend.

We posted pictures of the exhibit on social media, bragging as if I'd done something amazing. And then something truly amazing did happen.

Fellow Metropolitan High alumni, and now budding journalist Ellen Young retweeted my pictures and made them viral. My social media started exploding with new followers after that, and I wasn't dumb, okay? I carpe diem'ed it so hard that the free publicity turned into a new income stream.

When it became clear that I was earning more money for selling my paintings in the American market, I had the conversation with my boyfriend that as much as I wanted to be with him, life seemed to be pointing me in the direction of returning to my home country. To my surprise he agreed, packed up his bags and came with me.

We moved to New York, the hub of everything fine and grand. I started out as a small fish in a big pond, only making a living through online sales and a freelance marketing gig. Then, it was through one of the marketing side jobs that I met a big art connoisseur. He invited me and my boyfriend to his gallery. Turned out he was intrigued by my artistic vision and wanted to see if I'd be part of a project where he was showcasing up and coming talent.

I couldn't believe my luck. I went home right after saying a very emphatic yes, called my sister and told her the news.

"Oh my God," I said to her, repeating it over and over.

A tiny voice joined in the chorus and I laughed as my niece's face took over the screen. "Tía Rora," she said, as she always called me. "Are you coming over?"

"Pronto, princesa."

But I lied. I didn't go back home at all for a year. I suddenly found myself with a lot more work than I knew what to do with, and although my boyfriend had been quite supportive of me before, now that he had to compete for attention against my work, things started to turn sour. It all came to a head the night I forgot we had a two year anniversary dinner, because I'd been too focused working on a painting that I'd sold even before I started the first brush. The pressure was immense, and all I could think about, whether awake or asleep, was how to best produce the strokes of paint that would give the effect I wanted.

He came home and called my name with his soft g's several times until my concentration broke away from the painting. I turned around to find him dressed to a T with a penguin suit and put my foot in my mouth by asking him why he was so dressed up.

He threw his hands up in the air and begun cursing in English. That was when I realized what I'd done. But he didn't let me apologize, because he launched accusations about how I'd forced him to live in a foreign country, only to leave him alone in it.

"Excuse me?" I asked, which was latina for oh no, you did not.

He so did.

The fight was so bad that he packed up his bags again and left.

I spent the next few weeks wondering if I'd made a mistake. We'd had a pretty wonderful time together, or so I'd thought. Didn't all couples go through issues? Weren't we supposed to work things out? And yet I had his half of the bills to take care of now, and since he showed no signs of coming back, I had to work even harder to cover the expenses.

Then two things happened. One, even though work was very good, I struggled making ends meet. Two, my now ex-boyfriend blocked me from all social media, and it was Courtney's stalking what found him to have got engaged with a socialite we'd both met at one of the art galleries. With further digging, we found that while I'd been busy at work, he'd actually been busy at cheating on me. I wished him well on his new American adventure and Lina suggested that this time I be the one to pack up her bags. I did and moved back home.

I'd made enough of a name for myself in the big apple that as soon as I made it back home, I was able to secure a contract to help design an expansion for one of Orlando's amusement parks. That made officially the first time that my face appeared in the news, and it was all thanks to an interview by Ellen Young.

The first thing I did when I sat in a cafe with her was to say, "You have no idea how much you've inspired me."

She blinked rapidly and pointed at herself. "What? Me?"

"And your best friend," I added with a smile, telling her about how I view them as rivals to beat for the title of the most remarkable alumni of Metropolitan High School.

That made her laugh. "I'd say you're well on your way to it. I've been following your career for a while and it's just spectacular. Would you like to tell me more about it?"

In preparation for the article, she asked if they could take the picture of one of my most famous works so far. She had in mind precisely the painting that had caused the breakup with my ex, he whose name I stopped uttering since. I told her I had a better idea.

We got into an Uber and headed over to my house. I'd bought an adorable little house in the middle of the more middle class area of Winter Park, close to my family but not close enough that they'd always be there, breathing down my neck. The beauty of living by myself was that I could employ my space however I saw fit, which meant that almost every room in the house was dedicated to my paintings. As we entered the living room, she came face to face with my work in progress.

Ellen gasped. "That... wow."

I beamed.

"Is this part of a new exhibition?" she asked, turning this way and that so she could better see the details on the canvas. Paint strokes that when looked at individually appeared wild and with no direction, combined to create a body in motion, caught in the middle of a twist. It almost seemed like the man in the painting was dancing, except there was so much pain in his expression.

"This one's not for sale," I said, looking up. The canvas went all the way to the ceiling.

"Is it a portrait, then?" she asked, hitting the nail on the head. As she looked back she added, "Well if so, that's a very good looking guy, damn."

That made me laugh. It was true. Although there was a world of suffering on his expression, and if you looked closely, also a lot of scars on his side, he really was beautiful.

"It's going to be a gift for my biggest supporter," was all I said.

"Who?" she asked, eyes shining as she smelled breaking news.

"Sorry, but he probably won't want that to be known publicly." And just because I was feeling a little mean I added, "This isn't the painting I'd like you to picture in the article."

Ellen pouted. "Then why did you show it to me?"

"Because it's smack in the middle of the living room." As I laughed at her forlorn expression, I guided her to the room that started out as my studio when I bought the house. Another large painting greeted us there, this one of my sister with baby Ariel in her arms. Toni looked like a fairy queen in the forest with her fairy princess glowing in her embrace. Ellen pulled out her professional camera and snapped a few pictures.

My parents celebrated the article by framing it and hanging it in the middle of the living room, and that was officially the moment I felt like my dreams had come true.

All of them but one.

A couple of weeks later, with the finished painting securely tied to the roof of Adam and Toni's minivan, my now brother-in-law drove me over to papa's car shop, giving me a sweet pep talk to help me prepare for the craziest thing I was going to do just yet. Not Paris, not New York, had set my nerves aflutter quite so much.

Because it was time to see if I still stood a chance at all with my first love.