“Like dad and Jude,” I said sadly, looking down at the fleur-de-lis pattern on my comforter, my fingers absently tracing the lines.

“Yeah,” Josh said grimly. “Like dad and Jude.” His tone lifted. “But that’s an extreme case. Dad and Jude were carrying on for years. He was just stringing mom along, even though I’m sure they weren’t even in love anymore. All I remember were the fights, like mom and dad had always hated each other and were only staying together because of us. But yeah, eventually she found out, and well…we know the rest.”

I couldn’t pretend that I wasn’t thinking about that every time my heart leaped for joy. It was like I hadn’t allowed myself to be happy this whole time because I knew that the happiness was coming from the potential misery of someone else.

“I have to say though,” he continued, “and I’m not excusing Dad because he was being a real dickhead. Totally. But…I see how happy he and Jude are, and part of me understands it. They went about it the wrong way. He should have broken it off with Mom the minute he was attracted to Jude…or at least, you know…I don’t want to get any visuals, but you get what I’m saying. There were always going to be consequences for what they did, but they could have saved a lot of extra heartache by not keeping it such a secret.”

I looked up at him, surprised to see my brother being so insightful and serious for once. Maybe we’d all grown up recently. “I just don’t understand how something like love can be wrong.”

He shrugged. “I don’t think it can be wrong if it comes from a pure place. I suppose you could be like one of those chicks who just keep it all inside and secretly pine for someone for their whole life until it kills them. But you’re not. What you feel isn’t wrong, Vera…it’s not black and white like that.” He cleared his throat. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go get high and purge this estrogen from my system.” He gave me a wink before he left.

With the door closed, leaving me to get back to my thoughts, I felt a little better having confided in Josh. It made me feel like I wasn’t so alone anymore. Unfortunately, talking about it hadn’t solved the problem. I couldn’t really go on like this, every day a battle between my heart and mind, between right and wrong, between the dreams and the reality.

I had to start getting over him.

I started by not answering his phone call later that night.

Then the next.

And the next.

It had been three days since I last talked to Mateo, since I had the talk with my brother. I had hoped, foolishly, that by ignoring his calls, his texts, his emails, that I could pretend he didn’t exist. It wasn’t really working. I was a wreck. I even took after Isabel and mentally began to put my chaos and heartache into tiny little boxes, but I wasn’t sure how long they would hold. I wasn’t as strong as Mateo had been.

On the third night, Josh, sick and tired of my moping, invited me out with his friends again. This time we were going to the Cambie, which was one of my favorite bars. It was situated beneath a somewhat scummy-looking backpacker hostel, and had really cheap pitchers of beer. There were large picnic tables for seating, so you often shared a table with a whole bunch of people you didn’t know. The food wasn’t too bad and there were pool tables and arcade games. The bathrooms were always disgusting though, with stall doors that barely covered you from view and rarely locked. Apparently in the men’s bathroom, you all had to pee into a long trough.

Still, I loved it. It was cheap and relaxed, with no pretension, and at least one fight every night. Plus in the summer, there was a large patio area where you could sit and drink and ignore the junkies who would pester you for money.

Unfortunately, the patio was full by the time we got there, and we barely managed to snag the end of a picnic table inside. The other half of it had been taken over by a bridal party, the bride wearing bunny ears and a veil and looking totally shit faced. It made me cringe internally. Not that they were drunk and having fun, but that she was getting married to someone—someone wealthy, by the look of the rock on her finger—and despite her drunken antics, she looked completely happy and in love.

I was jealous. I wasn’t completely happy, I was only in love.

I knew it was going to be a weird night. I started drinking my beer fast, going through the pitcher I was sharing with Josh in just ten minutes. Every time the bridal chick mentioned her fiancé, I felt my heart turn black and cold. Meanwhile, I had Adam sitting next to me, who kept rapping his hands on the table and wiping his nose. He’d obviously been doing lines in the bathroom, and I watched Josh carefully to see if he’d been doing the same. We’d both left cocaine behind in high school, though I knew he still did it on occasion.

It just wasn’t for me anymore, so I just got myself another pitcher and proceeded to drink the night away. Soon the pitchers were starting to pile up on the table, and I found myself leaning into Adam, almost like I was flirting with him. I suppose I really was becoming Old Vera again.

I bummed a cigarette from Josh’s friend Brad and staggered out into the warm night air. I felt like I was losing myself, very slowly, draining away like the empty glasses. I had no idea what I was doing, I just needed something, anything to mend my heart, to distract me from the cave inside my chest, to make it all go away. All I could think about was Mateo and where he was, and if he was with his wife. Was he in bed with her? Was he kissing her? Was he falling back in love with her? Each thought was another dagger to my gut, the feelings so physical that my shoulders were curling over as I stood there on the street, enveloped in cigarette smoke.

I thought by ignoring him, I could make it all go away. But I couldn’t. It only got worse.

“Hey,” I heard Adam say, coming up to me. “Can I have a drag?”

I gave him a small smile, trying to straighten up through the pain. I handed it to him and his finger brushed against mine. I felt nothing. He kept staring at me, blinking rapidly, nose twitching as he puffed on the cigarette.

“So how are you?” he asked. “How are you feeling right now?”

I pursed my lips. “Drunk. I’m feeling drunk.”

He smiled. It was somewhat predatory. “Good. There’s nothing wrong with feeling loose.”

I shrugged. “Guess not.”

I reached back for the cigarette, almost falling over. He caught me by my arms, his hands squeezing me, and straightened me up. “You look like you could use a walk,” he said.

I nodded dumbly, numbly. He took hold of my hand and led me up the street and around into a smelly, dark and dirty alley.

Suddenly he flicked the cigarette to the ground, pushed me back against the slimy brick wall and stuck his tongue in my mouth. He tasted like beer and nicotine. For a moment I was shocked, and then something in me let him kiss me. I even kissed him back. It felt good to be in someone else’s arms, the object of someone else’s affections.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t just a kiss. His hands were groping me, squeezing painfully at my breasts, trying to undo my jeans. The warning bells went off in my head, breaking through my drunken, emotionally damaged haze. This wasn’t going well.

“Adam,” I said, “stop.”

“What happened to the girl who used to flirt with me?” he said, biting my neck so hard I thought he was drawing blood.

“I mean it,” I said. I tried to get out of his grasp but he grabbed me by the throat and pushed me back to the wall, my head striking it hard. I blinked through the stars, fear coming over me. Oh my god. What if he didn’t let go?

“You mean it,” he snarled. “Everyone knows what a slut you are, that you spread your legs for everyone. What’s wrong with me, huh? Not good enough for your whore ass?”