𝐁𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐓𝐨 𝐘𝐨𝐮

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟒- 𝐋𝐞𝐭 𝐆𝐨

𝐅𝐞𝐛𝐫𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟐

"Why would you fall in love with me so you could just break me again? You are full of lies, I wanted your love; you told me you wanted to try again, and I did exactly that! I don't know who I am supposed to be without you. I didn't get back with you so that you could take advantage of me! Is our love a curse to you, is that what it is?" A panorama of Deja vu played in front of Lucian and Vivian's perspective. Lucian didn't envisage in reverting to the devastation he bared two months ago. He thought the space between them was destined to reconcile their feelings and forge their correlated hearts. Half of their hearts did yet, Lucian was too despaired to fathom that verity. Vivian's heart hardened into stone and there was nothing that could diminish it. When Vivian's heart was obsessed with the fantasy of his attention he preserved for her; she loved him and thought a second chance of retreating her love would be her last and it only made her departure. She held his hands interlocking them, in hers, looking at him with sincerity. "It's not! I wanted to try again more than ever, I really thought my feelings wouldn't bail on me but, they did, and I can't redeem them. You have to let me go; you can't be in love with someone who doesn't love you." Tears flooded down Lucian's face, her words added affliction to the ongoing pain in his heart. His exhaustion soared in despair. Who will love me if it isn't her?

Lucian wiped his tears off his face as he descended into the science classroom. His irate footsteps turned heads. The group at the table he sits, grasped their attention towards Lucian. He looked like he was about to flip tables, it was an intimidating sight from our viewpoint. "She lied to me." Marcelo mocked, attempting to lift up Lucian's mood. His breakup and Vivian's statements were frozen in his mind. You have to let me go; you can't be in love with someone who doesn't love you. I loved you and I can't find that in me anymore. You should move on. I want you to leave me alone. I don't want you. Why don't you get that?

Lucian could feel tears resurfacing as Vivian's voice echoed, torturing him with grief. Marcelo regarded Lucian's ceaseless, shattered expression. "I loved her." His voice broke, the sound made Marcelo rush and comfort him. As soon as Marcelo embraced him, he shrunk in his arms.

-3 days later-

"¡Escuchen! I have an assignment for you all to do!" Mrs. Santos announced to the class. "Class, you will be split into groups of 3. You will be creating your own restaurants given that we have been learning how to order at a restaurant and to name the foods. In the rubric, it is expected that, you must name the title in Spanish and write your food names in Spanish. You must pick a Hispanic culture's food.  Some examples are, Mexican, Cuban, Puerto Rican, and Colombian traditional food to add to your menus. When I see your poster or your papers, you need to have drawings or printed pictures of what your menu style looks like. Finally, you will be presenting your projects by doing a skit. You will walk through that door." She pointed to the door and continued. " And act like you're visiting a new restaurant, if your partners decide to play the customers, you will use the terms we have learned in class to order your food and check out. ¿Comprenden?" "Yes." The class said in unison. "Okay, I will call your names." Mrs. Santos called the names from a paper she gripped in her hands. Me and Jia nodded to each other, knowing that there was a slight chance that we would be partners for this project. "Milena, Jia, and Vivian. You will be working together."

Me and Jia moved to Vivian's table to talk and start planning the project together. Vivian being in our group was strange. We never really talked to her before, so we didn't know how our conversation was going to work and we couldn't assume what kind of vibes she had. The planning mattered and we would get to know her at any point if she wanted to introduce attributes of herself that none of us knew. Not that any of us cared.

We spent the first five minutes intoxicated in silence. We laughed stiffly when it became open that we couldn't name a title, a culture that our so-called restaurant was going to be based on, and foods. Sometime, Jia broke the silence with the clearing of her throat. "So, does anyone have an idea of what we could do?" Me and Vivian shook our heads. That moment was an imperfect time to react, I had the rarity to speak. "I think, we could make our restaurant based on Puerto Rican culture. We could make it like a cafe." My comment met with nods of approval from Jia and Vivian. "Yes, we could." Vivian said. "What foods could we put for the appetizer section of the menu? We need an appetizer, beverage, entree and dessert section for the entire menu, remember that guys." Jia reminded. "For the appetizer section we could include tostones,  pasteles, bacalaitos, and maybe alcapurrias." "I suggested. "Yes!" Vivian exclaimed. Jia agreed. "You're Puerto Rican?" Vivian asked. "Yes, I am, that's why I wanted to make this a Puerto Rican restaurant." We laughed heartily. "My mom's side of the family is Puerto Rican and when I go to visit family, I love eating the tostones they prepare. They're delicious!" Vivian beamed, sharing lightly about her culture. "Okay, we're adding these to the menu." Jia wrote these items down on the journal she had in front of her. "What's for the entree?" Jia looked expectingly for our responses. "Arroz con habichuelas, ¿gandulees? Con pollo. There's many options for this entree if we want rice." I notify them.  "We could do different types of meats to put with the rice." Vivian offered. "Pollo and Chuleta." I say securely. "Yes." They appointed. "Our menu until now has, tostones, pasteles, bacalaitos, alcapurrias as appetizers; our entree is Arroz con habichuelas and gandulees con both pollo and chuleta." Jia repeated to revise that she wrote everything that we wanted on our menu. "Yes, that's everything we need for now and we need to come up with drinks." "Let's put sodas and juice in there. Any ideas?" Vivian proposed and inquired. "Jarritos flavored mandarin and pineapple, Coke, Malta India, and water." I said right away. Jia added the ending details, we were going to figure the dessert options at a later time.

Jia incited a sidetracked conversation, now that we knew Vivian was Puerto Rican and she was willing to give these narrations to us, it was appealing to know more. "What do you do for fun?" Jia started. "Nothing much, I like to hang out with my close friends." Vivian smiled. "Same, and I like meeting new people. I like listening to music and I like to draw." Jia enlightened Vivian with the hobbies she liked to do, she wanted to see if that would make Vivian her unveil merits, she kept to herself. Jia valued her social skills in this precise way and shared that with others. "Speaking of friends, are you with anybody?" Vivian asked, curiously. "No, are you?" Jia countered. "I'm not, I was with someone recently and I broke up with him. His name was Lucian." An illusion of an innocent breakup had confined Vivian, she retained the ashen blurs of her ex-boyfriend's sobs and agony that deflected her heart. "I knew Lucian, he was my best friend years ago and we grew distant. We would walk together after leaving school and go to each other's houses. He wasn't worth it; he was a bad friend for deserting his friends for popularity. I guess he was a bad boyfriend too." Jia diffused her blindsiding friendship with Lucian. Lucian had tabs sealed onto everyone. These irregular interactions spawned out of thin air. I was undoubtedly in shock. "He wasn't, I thought I wanted him back but, I did not." Vivian inputted. How bad can he be?

Before we say goodbye, let go
But I'm lost in the maze of my heart
From stereo to mono
That's how the path splits, it continues

In order to release your hand right now
I gotta let you know (Gotta let you know)
That I need to let you go (Need to let you go)
Hard to say goodbye, but I can't run

I'm ready to let go.