"Quisiera evitar haberme permitido amarte, y no sabes cuánto dueles."

JESSE & JOY | DUELES

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o c t a v i o

I didn't know what I was doing there. After much internal debate and finding that my fridge was empty, I decided to meet Sienna at my favorite coffee shop.

Maybe this wasn't the most ideal setting. After all, I didn't know how I'd react to the news. What exactly would I say? If I were to tell the entire story of my wretched relationship with Mariana, then I'd be late to work.

The most I could've done was focus on the soft indie music traveling through the air, and the aroma of black coffee beans and sweet chocolate that enticed my nose, sending my stomach into a rumble.

I set my brown messenger bag on the wooden bar and retrieved my thick sketchbook. I carried it around with me everywhere, because it'd be worse to have a fluke of inspiration and have nothing to channel it with.

Anna, the waitress who knew me all too well, placed a hot mug of coffee and a plate of my favorite chocolate brownies on the bar.

"The usual," she said. Her Czech accent was as thick as molasses, but we somehow understood each other. Anna was a woman in her mid-twenties, and I had been around the café long enough to watch her transition from hair color to hair color. Blue, purple, lime green, and even grey...which I personally thought suited her best.

"Thank you." I gripped the mug, enjoying the scorching heat on my palm. "How are your anthropology classes going?"

"They're good. Challenging but good. I feel like the world around me is different," Anna giggled. "Now, every time I look around, I think of all the little details of people."

"I can imagine. I've always wanted to do that, but then maybe I'd know too much," I said, watching the way her pale blue eyes intensified.

"It really is." She nodded with urgency. "Are you waiting for someone?"

I froze for a second, remembering that that was the exact reason I was here on this particular day. Maybe I should just say no and leave, tell Sienna that I changed my mind.

Or I could do what I was conditioned to do "man up."

"Um." I blinked. "Yeah, I am."

"I'm gonna get another menu," she smiled politely and strode off.

I leafed through the thick pages of my sketchbook until I reached my most recent drawing. Aaliyah. The lines were rough with a dark consistency, but I managed to capture the sunlight against Aaliyah's collarbones. With the bud of my eraser, I softened the angles, it shouldn't be this harsh.

While I got the detailing of her facial structure, I wanted it to its last edge. Drawing her made me a fool, or she made me a fool. Quite frankly, I couldn't tell the difference. Whether or not my sketches or Aaliyah enticed me, didn't even fucking matter because the outcome was the same. How could a girl I had met twice turn me into a smiley idiot just looking at a rough sketch of her face?

Those Bambi eyes. Full and inquisitive, innocent, but I knew she wasn't.

A nurturing brown, the kind of brown that was dark and wholesome, as wholesome as Mother Earth herself. Aaliyah was all tones of brown. Caramel wisps for curls, her skin as warm and dewy as dulce de leche, yet her lips were as plump and vibrant as ripe raspberries. The contrasts were enticingly exotic, and so was she.

I couldn't ever forgive myself if I was to mess up the color.

"Hey." A female's voice interrupted my train of thought, it was that same British accent that I sometimes struggled to understand. I turned to her as she let the door swing closed and slammed her pale pink purse on the seat next to me. There was a chair that separated the two of us, and I was more than happy with that.

Sienna's cheeks were flooded with a raging red, her green eyes intoxicated with venom. She bit her lip like she was trying to chew it off.

"Hi," I said tentatively. My bushy eyebrows were weaved together as I tried to put the pieces together.

"What's the bloody hell was Mariana up to?" she snapped.

My eyes widened. "Woah, what happened to you?"

She scratched her temples with the tips of her nails. "I'm just...I need to get a grip innit? I just don't understand, and you have to tell me everything," she heaved. "I was thinking about it over these days, and I just can't look at her the same knowing that I potentially lied to me."

Well shit. I thought, then proceeded to take a bite of my brownie.

Sienna narrowed her eyes. "Is this really the time for you to snack?"

"Look, to be really honest here, I was really looking forward to this brownie." I chewed, allowing the decadent chocolate to fill my mouth like a river of heaven. "I mean, I'm going to get to all of that...but my hunger comes first."

She exhaled through her nose, slouching. "Wow, I was such a bitch, I'm sorry."

"Don't worry about it, Mariana brings the worst out of everyone." I dusted off the powdered sugar left on my fingers. "Are you sure you want to hear all of it?"

"Every. Single. Part," she enunciated.

I rested my elbows on the table, manners were going out the window today. I couldn't make any eye contact with her. "I met her at a gallery, November of 2016."

Sienna breathed deeply, squeezing her eyes shut for a brief moment, preparing herself mentally.

"She was this buyer's art consultant, and I don't know, we just...clicked, I guess." Even though I was telling Sienna, it really felt like I was telling himself. Retelling my own tale. "That's when we started talking, and we both liked each other...at least, that's what she told me."

I remembered the way she would bat her eyes at me like she gave a shit about me. Every time we were in public, and she wanted to tell me something, she would whisper in Spanish and walk off. Waiting for me to chase her. And I did. I always chased the girls, even if it hurt.

For a moment, I checked on Sienna to see if she was still listening. The last thing I wanted to do was repeat myself.

"But we also liked our own privacy, so it's not like we saw each every day of the week," I paused. "I sometimes needed more time, maybe I should've known then. But whatever, if I'm honest in the few weeks of us getting to know each other, I wasn't really thinking with my head."

Sienna snickered.

"Anyway, we started dating, and it was great. I didn't think anything was wrong, I dunno... maybe I have no clue about these things, but I never got any signs that I liked girls," I admitted with a dubious tone. "I was a completely different person with me and nine months in, she wanted me to meet her parents. No lie but, I was freaking out...I thought it was kinda fast, but she's brilliant at persuading you. She could've easily changed my mind whenever I wanted to."

"That's so true," Sienna whispered.

"I met them anyway, of course, I did. But after that, that's when I noticed that everything had changed." My voice lowered. "She started disappearing for like two days. She would say that she was going to stay with her cousin and I didn't want to be an asshole and say 'of course you can't see your cousin.'" I took a careful sip of my black coffee, it was just the way I liked it. Bitter. "We didn't have as much, you know, anymore--I obviously know why now--and I just had a feeling. That feeling you get, when someone is slipping away from you, it was like I didn't exist."

My own memory of me sitting in my work office one night, staring at my phone after Mariana left me without a response. I didn't understand, I couldn't get the attention of my own girlfriend.

"I suspected that she was cheating on me," I said dryly. "Then, on Christmas, when Zeitgeist had our annual Christmas party...you came."

Sienna parted her lips and slowly nodded as the scene played out in her head. "Yeah, I remember that."

"You probably also remember when I caught you guys, together, in my office." I didn't want to sound bitter, but it churned my stomach. That night, I was looking for her to ask her about why she had been ignoring me. And I found my answers, just not the ones I wanted. I had stood there at the door frame as Mariana shielded Sienna's body, and with a scoff, I merely turned away.

My anger came in waves; it started off as slow disappointment, but then my heart had been cracked, and the pieces were piercing my veins. I would suppress it all, in my culture, you don't cry. You get angry, or what my family would call passionate. Like my parents had told me growing up: Eres un hombre. Que estás haciendo, llorando? (You're a man. What are you doing crying?)

So I had walked back to the studio, in the snow. I drew until I nearly broke my pencil, painted until I almost damaged my brush. Then, I tossed it all out. Threw Mariana in the garbage.

"I can't believe this," Sienna sighed, her voice cracking. "I was with her in the summer of 2017. She said you were her friend. That you agreed to pretend to be her boyfriend so that she could get her parents off her back. I never thought she was capable of this."

Suddenly, I arose from her seat and scraped her chair back under the table. "And you what? That night, after you walked in. She made me laugh and told me that you were just embarrassed to have seen us like that."

I didn't move, I didn't know what to say.

"And I was so dense to believe her," she spat, her bottom lip trembling. "I can't." Sienna shook her head and shrugged. "I have to go."

As I finished my coffee, swimming around in the war of my mind, I wondered. It was like my whole body couldn't decide whether to commit to a sense of relief or anxiety. A cigarette was calling my name. The bodega was just around the corner.

So, I returned to my drawing. Like I always did.