Amentia

Chapter 55 - Why

It's my fault.

"Why do you like puzzles and brainteasers so much?" Mica asked, sitting backwards on her chair to face her. She hadn't asked out of judgment; she was genuinely curious.

Nati was bent forward on her desk and discovered she was solving one of the riddles from the magazine she liked. She didn't remember starting it, or ever arriving to her classroom in the first place. Hadn't she finished high school already?

"I don't know," said Nati without moving her eyes from the page. "I just like to understand how things work, figure them out, find the answer."

"Yeah, I know, but like... what made you so passionate about it?"

When Nati looked up to reply, Mica was gone. The classroom was gone. She was standing in pitch darkness. No sound but her breathing, no feeling except absolute despair.

It's my fault.

She turned around to see who had spoken, but there was no one there. Her eyes hurt from so much darkness, and she didn't know if she had them open or closed. She felt like the whole world was standing on her chest. Something had happened, something bad.

Suddenly she was in school again, but she was even younger now. She recognized her favorite sneakers she had when she was ten; her parents had saved money for months to get them for her. And on her first day wearing them to school, as she was showing them to her classmates, someone walked up to her just to step on them and laugh.

"Teacherrrrr," Nati cried out with real tears in her eyes. "Santiago ruined my new shoes!!"

Yesterday he had stuck gum on Rocío's hair and she'd had to cut off a whole lock to get rid of it. The week before, he'd stolen Franco's pencil case and thrown it into a toilet. He couldn't go more than a day without causing trouble, and as the year progressed, his little pranks began escalating until it became a habit of his to go punching classmates during recess or gym.

Nati suddenly found herself sitting in her kitchen table with Santiago sitting across from her. They'd been forced to do an assignment together, so Nati had invited him over because she was too afraid to go to his house. She was afraid of him being in her kitchen too, but at least her mom was there. She prepared the merienda for them and later sat down with them to help them on one of the questions they couldn't find the answer to. Later in the afternoon, her dad came back home from work and kissed her mom on the lips and asked her how her day had been. Santiago watched their interaction in awe and surprise and, as if suddenly realizing something, he said, "I never seen my parents do that."

"What?" Nati asked absentmindedly flipping through the pages of the workbook.

"Kiss."

Natalia looked up from the book to find that Santiago looked far less threatening than usual. He looked kind of sad, actually, as he watched how Nati's parents laughed together, and Nati couldn't help but feel sorry for him.

The scene changed again and they were back in school. Nati was standing in a circle of screaming kids and two boys were fighting in the center. Santi was seething, his eyes were wide and lost. He was sitting on Franco's chest and hitting him repeatedly on the face until he started bleeding. Tears were falling from Santi's eyes as if he was the one hurting instead of his victim. Santi didn't stop, he couldn't stop hitting him. It was a horrifying thing to see. And that's when Nati heard it. It took her by surprise because she didn't know she was capable of finding the names of people, but there it was, very clear in her mind. She didn't think twice before calling it.

Els Friulde, she mumbled under her breath, and the words' power reached Santi even though he hadn't heard her speak.

"Stop!" Nati said, stepping forward among the crowd.