Chapter Text
help, i lost myself again
but i remember you
The summer air coming through the open kitchen window was humid around her, making her clothes stick to her skin and gravity feel a little bit heavier than normal. Or maybe it wasn’t the weather at all, maybe it was the tight knot in her throat that made it difficult to breathe, sending waves of discomfort all over her body.
Valentina and Eva were both in the kitchen having coffee and chatting, well, at least Eva was. She had been rambling about something for the past 20 minutes, not really bothering to notice how Valentina had checked out of the conversation a long time ago.
Her gaze was fixated on a small bug crawling on the kitchen counter, struggling to fly away due to a wing injury, it seemed. The knot in her throat grew tighter.
“…and clearly we don’t have enough time for bigger preparations, as someone was too eager to get married…” Eva went on by herself.
Married. Marriage. That word sent a shiver down her spine, reminding her what the subject of Eva’s frantic one-sided conversation was about.
Lucho proposed a week ago. Valentina said yes.
Everything had happened too fast, completely out of nowhere. One moment they were strolling at the park after having lunch, the next he was on his knees showing her the biggest diamond ring she had ever seen. So then, out of complete panic, she said yes .
She had said yes because she had a terrible day. She had said yes because she felt completely lost. She had said yes because at the time she could not think of a single reason not to.
Until she walked by a certain bench on that same park a few minutes later, reminding her of a thousand reasons of why she had perhaps made the biggest mistake of her life, all of them leading to one person. One reason.
Juliana.
“… and then we have to think about the guest list! God! That’s a whole other headache. I know you don’t want a small gathering and as a Carvajal, no one expects that of you, of course.”
A guest list. Everyone she knew being invited to the event of the year, to celebrate her relationship. To witness her promising to love and cherish Lucho for the rest of her life. Everyone she knew celebrating a lie.
Everyone she knew. Juliana.
She had to invite her. She had not seen her in three years, this would be the perfect opportunity for them to reconnect.
They lost contact after Juliana and her mom fled the city after being hunted down by the narcos, a lovely inheritance from her deranged father. Valentina tried her best to find a way for them to stay in the city, but Juliana’s mom was too freaked out at the time, deciding that the only solution to their situation was to disappear and leave everything behind. That included Valentina. They tried to stay in touch for a while after she moved away, but life got in the way and Juliana was a terrible texter. Eventually, they drifted apart.
Valentina spent the last three years wondering how different things would be if she had the courage to show her true feelings for the other girl. If only she had been faster in understanding herself; if only she had not been so scared.
But she was. She was terrified of her feelings for Juliana, so she buried them deep inside her. She buried them so deep inside her own chest she forgot how to feel anything at all.
Lucho was there. He has always been there, trying his best, most of the time failing but always coming back to her. Always by her side, no matter what. She knew he loved her, and all she ever wanted was to be able to love him back.
After Juliana left, she clung to Lucho, hoping he could fill the void inside her chest. She knew he could never compare to the dark-haired girl, but she had to try. She had to try because otherwise, she was afraid she would never move on.
She never did.
Juliana was always somehow with her, prickling at the back of her mind at the most unexpected of times, reminding her that nothing in life would ever compare to the feelings she got when she was around her.
She stirred her coffee, observing as the bug on the counter slowly lost its strength.
“…and the caterer must remember how generous we are as a family to not consider booking us at such short notice, don’t you think, Val?” Eva asked as if the conversation had been flowing naturally the entire time.
“Hmm?” Valentina replied, suddenly remembering she was not alone in the kitchen.
“Jesus, Val. Can you at least pretend to be interested in your own wedding?”
No, not really.
“I’m sorry, what were you saying?”
Eva stared at her intensely, trying to read her sister’s mood.
“Val… are you okay?”
Valentina was thinking about all the things that went wrong in her life, about everything that she had lost and would never get back. She was thinking about the girl that got away and how grey her life became after she left.
But she couldn’t say any of that, not after all the decisions that she made. Not after saying yes .
“Yes. I’m just… overwhelmed, I guess. I’m sorry.” She tried, giving a small smile to her older sister.
“Listen, Val… marriage can be a really scary thing. Trust me, I know.” Eva said with a sympathetic smile. “The thing is… if you really love the other person, it’s all worth it in the end.”
Well , Valentina thought, that’s just about the worst thing you could tell me right now.
“You know, at times like these, it’s really important to have a solid support system. I know you have your friends here, but…” Eva hesitated, taking a deep breath before finishing her entire sentence. “Maybe you could bring some old friends back? Are you still in touch with Juliana?”
Even her own sister thought the other girl would be of ultimate importance for this stage of her life, she only failed to see how much she really mattered in that case.
“Sort of… I was thinking about inviting her already.” She tried her best to sound casual, although she was pretty sure her voice faltered a little bit.
“That’s good. I remember how… close you guys were.” Valentina chose to ignore the way Eva’s voice went higher at the mention of their intimacy. She had no reason to hide anything from her sister, after all, nothing really happened between the both of them.
Valentina wasn’t sure if anything would have happened at all, even if Juliana had stayed. She now understood her own feelings, but she could not speak for the other girl. All she could do was replay in her mind all the moments they shared, trying her best to see if there was something she missed, over and over again.
Her memories were all a blur, just small fragments of moments that meant something to her. Swimming lessons. Dancing lessons. Soft touches and even softer gazes. The memory of a laughter that still sent shivers down her spine.
She mostly remembered deep, dark eyes staring back at her with the burning intensity of a thousand suns. The only eyes that were ever capable of seeing Valentina for who she truly was.
Sometimes, Valentina struggled to remember if those memories were real or part of a fantasy that she created to keep the memory of the other girl alive. Sometimes, she didn’t care. Sometimes, she allowed herself to create the most absurd of scenarios, rewriting their own story to the point of mixing reality with dreams.
All of her altered dreams had one thing in common: Valentina did not keep her feelings to herself.
In most of the dreams, they had a happy ending. In some of her bad days, she tortured herself with images of Juliana rejecting her and going away once again.
As she listened to Eva plan her entire wedding, Valentina realized even the worst versions of her dreams were better than her reality at the moment.
She zoned out again, shifting her focus back to the broken bug at the counter, leaving her coffee untouched and giving Eva more space to make all the decisions to her own future.
Valentina opened her eyes as her alarm started to blare at full volume an irritating ringtone. She turned it off, not really able to remember why she set the alarm in the first place. Her mind tried to go back to the dream she was having, something about a flowery field and children laughing. She wished to go back to that, but the light outside her window reminded her that another day had begun, leaving her no way to escape her own reality.
She lazily opened her eyes and checked her missing messages.
Lucho (03:04): Thinking about you…
Lucho (03:30): Are you asleep?
Lucho (03:30): Val…
Lucho (04:22): Can’t wait for us to live together...
She took a deep breath, not really knowing how to respond to any of that. She already knows he had been drunk off his mind after going out with his friends. She most definitely could not imagine waking up besides Lucho for the rest of her life. She decided an emoji would be enough of a response for the moment, not really caring how cold it might seem.
She did not understand how Lucho still loved her. Valentina considered herself now to be a shell of her previous self.
Lucho had met her when she was a party girl, always up for a different adventure and a drink with friends. It had been years since then, she did not even try anymore to measure up to his expectations of who she used to be.
He still loved her, for some reason. She always thought the memory of her former self was what kept him around, but slowly understood that the reason he was so hell-bent on marrying her was that her present self did not fight. Present Valentina did not bother, did not make too much noise. Present Valentina was complacent and ready to be what other people expected of her.
Present Valentina was nothing but a lie, but it was all she knew how to be now.
She remembered that the reason she set up such an early alarm was that she had to make a lot of wedding preparations on that day. Today was about choosing the wedding menu with Eva and hopefully to start discussing the guests.
Her guest list. Everyone she knew and more. Her wedding was set to be the event of the year in Mexico City, including celebrities and big names of the media industry. Amongst all these names, all she could think about was the one that no one else would pay attention to.
Juliana Valdés. She thought about sending a personal invitation, make something special. However, no matter how much she tried, she could not find a logic reason why Juliana would be a special guest for her wedding.
She had considered asking Juliana to be her bridesmaid, but it just felt wrong. She could not bring herself to ask her that. Juliana wasn’t supposed to be a bridesmaid. Juliana was always meant to be the primary event.
She buried her face in the pillow as an intrusive thought of Juliana as a bride flooded her brain. She did not need that. She had to focus on reality for once.
Lucho. Her future husband. The person she was meant to spend the rest of her life with. The man who loved her for years and always came back no matter how many times she pushed him away.
They had broken up a couple of times, the longest being right after Juliana had left the city, Valentina too broken-hearted to pretend she still had feelings for him.
As the months have passed, the hole in her heart grew bigger, as did her loneliness.
Lucho was there. Juliana wasn’t. The math seemed simple at the time.
She stretched her whole body and decided on a quick shower before breakfast, already knowing Eva was going to nag at her for making them late for such an important day.
Valentina loved her sister with all her heart, she really did.
But she absolutely could not spend an entire day with Eva nagging at her ear and bossing her over every single decision about the wedding. To be fair, Valentina didn’t mind that Eva seemed to make every decision for her; the only problem was her making feel bad about it.
Eva wanted to organize everything, she loved having control of things but that did not stop her from reminding Valentina every five minutes how much she should be more invested in the decision making. She was trying her best, really, but she just could not bring herself to care about the type of fish they would serve, or if chicken would be a better option since not everyone is a fan of seafood, and “Oh!” Eva gasped dramatically, “We absolutely cannot forget the vegan options! How silly of me, now we have to rethink the entire thing.”
By the time Valentina got home, it was already nighttime and all she wanted to do was to collapse on the couch and turn her mind off with a movie or something, but Eva had other plans. She trotted behind her speaking rapidly on the phone with Mateo about how she was at her wit’s end with all the preparations she still had to take care of to make sure the event was fit to meet everyone’s expectations of a Carvajal family event, “And the bride is certainly acting like a real princess...”
Valentina sighed and made her way to the kitchen to grab an ibuprofen, already feeling the impending migraine creeping its way behind her right eye.
“Valentina!” Eva shouted from the living room, “Don’t get yourself too comfortable now, I’m expecting the rough draft of your guests by the end of the night. We’re on a tight schedule thanks to your… darling fiancé.”
It was Lucho’s idea to get married as soon as they could. His exact words were, “Let’s just not overthink it and get it over as soon as we can.”
She knew he was scared of her changing her mind, as she had already done so many times before. She couldn’t blame him for that. She thought about calling it off at least a dozen times since that day in the park.
She could, however, resent the fact that he left all of the work for the ladies of the family , as he was sure they wouldn’t want him getting in the way of such important decisions .
Her future seemed bright.
She sat down at the kitchen table with her laptop and a cup of orange juice, ready to finish it for the day. As she stared at the blank screen, only one name flooded her mind. “ Get it together, Valentina.” She whispered to herself. She wasn’t even sure if she should invite Juliana for the wedding, the idea of it just too absurd for her to wrap her mind around. Technically, no one, not even Juliana, would think much of it. Most people knew how close they were for the brief time the other girl spent in the city, and even more because of how wrecked Valentina had been after she left. Most people around her know Juliana had been one of her greatest friends. Past tense. Friends. Only that. A lot of people invited childhood friends and people they had lost contact to their wedding day, it was an important day and people usually want to share it with the others who had impacted their life in some significant way. Right?
Get it together.
She decided to leave that decision for later, as she still had to think about an infinite amount of people.
She wrote down the obvious ones first: Eva, Mateo and her niece, Amelia. Guille and Renata. Lucia. Chivis and Silverio. Camilo. Her bridesmaids, Nayeli, Mayela and Gloria.
She stared at the screen for a few seconds, almost picturing the loading wheel turning inside her head. Was that it? When she was a little girl, she pictured her wedding with hundreds of people packing a beautiful venue, but the more she thought about it, more privacy seemed better. However, a private event seemed impossible considering she knew how Lucho wanted to invite half of Mexico, and Eva already had a full list of her own.
No more names came to mind, forcing her aching brain to return to deep, chocolate eyes who bored into her soul. She stared at her half empty cup of juice.
She needed some mezcal.
Two days had passed since the invitations were sent to their respective guests. Valentina had been on a state of mild panic ever since, constantly checking her phone and email to see if a certain someone had sent a message. Her anxiety only grew with the possibility of Juliana choosing not to come to her wedding. She switched between relief and extreme sadness with the idea, not knowing how to process either of the possibilities.
On the third day, she got a message.
Juls (23:21): Hey. I should probably just RSVP the invitation but that felt too informal, I guess…
Juls (23:23): Sorry for the late message
Juls (23:23): Got the invitation yesterday but I don’t really understand
Juls (23:24): I mean sorry that sounded bad…
Juls (23:24): Val?
Valentina’s heart painfully pounded against her ribs. She read the messages a dozen times before being able to actually process what Juliana was trying to say.
What was she trying to say, though? What didn’t she understand? Maybe stop driving yourself insane and just ask her, she thought.
Valentina (23:30): Juls! Hey!
She mentally scolded herself, that was too ecstatic. Take it down a notch.
Valentina (23:31): Sorry I didn’t warn you beforehand
Valentina (23:31): Everything has been happening so fast lately
Valentina (23:32): You’re coming right?
That was better. She had decided against asking about Juliana’s confusion, not knowing if she would have the answer to whatever question she sure would be coming her way sooner or later.
She watched as the typing bubble appeared and disappeared in their chat. She felt so stupid, of course Juliana would be confused by the entire thing. She was probably thinking Valentina was the most pathetic person she ever met for going back to Lucho after everything and not only that, but also deciding to marry him. Juliana saw how bad he used to treat her years ago. She saw how unhappy he made Valentina and heard from Valentina’s own mouth that she did not love him at all. She wouldn’t blame Juliana if she decided not to come, the whole thing was ridiculous.
As she spiraled down into an even bigger state of panic, her phone buzzed again.
Juls (23:42): Yeah of course I’m coming
Juls (23:42): Can I call you?
Valentina felt her heart skipped several beats reading the last message. She dropped the phone on her bed and started to anxiously pace around her room. She wanted to slap herself for having visualized the message so quickly, that meant she could no longer pretend to have fallen asleep or something like that. She didn’t trust herself enough to hold a proper conversation with Juliana right now. It’s been too long and the subject of the talk was the worst imaginable.
But she missed her. She missed talking to Juliana so much her heart clenched at the thought of hearing her voice again. The situation was not ideal, but how could she turn it down?
She slowly crawled back into her bed and picked up her phone. She took a deep breath and made the phone call.
Juliana answered almost immediately.
“Val, hey! Sorry, I know it’s late…” She sounded anxious as well, that made Valentina feel more at ease. At least she wasn’t the only one feeling the awkwardness.
“No, it’s okay, don’t worry. I… I’ll always have time for you.” She took a deep breath after feeling her own voice faltering a little bit. Valentina tried to convince herself there was no reason to be this nervous, after all, it was Juliana. Her Juliana.
“Val… I mean… Lucho? Don’t get me wrong! I’m really happy for you, but… did I miss something?”
God, she had missed too many things. How could she even begin to explain how she ended up in this situation? She couldn’t, unless she was ready to admit her feelings for the other woman.
“Listen, I know how weird it might seem to you, but… it just… happened.”
“It’s okay, Val. I’m happy for you.” Her voice was low, almost like a whisper. “I was already planning on coming to the city on the same week, so…”
“Oh! That’s great, Juls. I…” I miss you. “Coming to do anything special?”
“Not really, just taking care of some personal stuff.”
“Do you… do you have a place to stay? You could stay here.” The words left her mouth before she could stop herself. She shifted awkwardly in bed, wanting to bury herself amongst the pillows.
“Well, actually, I… I think that would be great, Val.”
“Good! Great, actually! Well… I guess… just tell me when you arrive in the city and I’ll send a driver to pick you up, sounds good?”
“Yes, sounds great. Listen, I have to go now.” Val heard a sigh coming from the other line. “I’m happy for you, Val. Can’t wait to see you again. Goodnight.”
She hung up before Valentina could say anything. She felt her ribs hurt by the intensity of her pounding heart. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to process the conversation and what it meant.
The conversation was awkward and filled with a lot of exclamations and faux-excitement. But Juliana was happy for her, at least that’s what she kept repeating. She was happy and she was going to spend the entire wedding week at her house.
The sudden realization of what that meant for Valentina hit her like a truck. How was she supposed to hold her own feelings back if she was to spend a whole week with Juliana? How was she going to act nonchalant if she couldn’t even keep her shit together through a phone call?
She was, without a doubt, screwed. As her mind raced through all possible worst-case scenarios, it came to a halt as the image of chocolate eyes penetrated her thoughts.
She had a lot of reasons to worry, but she allowed herself a moment to smile at the prospect of their reunion.
She was going to see Juliana again.