Chapter Text
Isabela knew one thing, and one thing for sure.
She wasn't perfect.
That truth should’ve been crushing. Once, it would have been. Perfection was everything- her armor, her identity, her offering to the world. But not anymore.
She just wasn't perfect. She never was.
It may have taken Casita's collapse and the miracle dying to get her to wake up and see it, but once she did, it was liberating. She no longer had to meticulously watch and practice her every move. She no longer had to act like the town's perfect angel when she knew she was far from it. She no longer had to distance herself from her sisters, fearing they could tamper with her image- thank you, Abuela, for hammering that in her head after Mira's ceremony. Really helped with the suffocating expectations.
Some nights, she'd have nightmares where Casita falling never happened. She'd have to fake everything all over again.
But in all honesty, Isa didn’t know what to do with herself. She had spent nearly her entire life up to this point being “Señorita Perfecta,” and now she was just supposed to flip a switch and become the girl she always wanted to be? It was jarring, to say the least. She had longed for freedom from the practiced smiles, the constant effort to beautify everything with her gift, and the utter exhaustion that accompanied the expectations to never make a mistake. But now that she had achieved that freedom, lost the chains that held her up, she wasn’t entirely sure who she was without it all.
She had gotten more comfortable, at least. Abuela, for all her faults, was trying. She really was. She had given a sincere apology and was actively putting in effort to change. It was why even though her mouth formed a thin line and her eyes narrowed slightly at Isa's new look, she hadn't said anything.
Isabela almost wanted her to.
Her family helped. Her sisters, especially.
She noticed how breakfast was no longer a quiet display of etiquette. Now, she argued with Mirabel over an arepa and stole bites from Luisa’s plate, and if someone spilled their drink, no one rushed to clean it like a crisis. It was chaos. She liked it.
The house was so different now- louder, messier, and more honest. There was room to breathe, room to be imperfect. Isa stopped constantly checking to make sure a flower bloomed just right, and no one looked twice. It was good. It was better. Did she get better?
Speaking of change, Isabela was finally free from her frilly purple dresses. When they rebuilt Casita and were starting to move in again, Isa made a point to completely change her wardrobe. She discovered that she much preferred wearing dark blues, which now matched her sisters' color schemes- cooler, quieter tones that didn’t beg for attention. She only got one single purple dress that the town's dressmaker probably knew how to make from muscle memory alone.
Isa had stored it in the deepest part of her closet, completely hidden. She never liked the unpleasant surprise of stumbling upon it when she tugged on a hanger too hard. On bad days, she'd wonder why she had even considered getting it, or why she hadn't thrown it away to be compost yet, but she did take it out when she felt low and nostalgic. It was nice to be reminded that she wasn't that person anymore. That she would never be again.
But still, some nights, Isabela would lie awake wondering if things really did change or if it was just a taunt from the universe, waiting until she let her guard down just to topple the building blocks. It wouldn't be the first time.
She stayed busy. She planted strange, wild things in the comfort of her own room, away from the constant gaze of the town and the ever-watchful eyes of family. Countless bright flowers climbed and tangled into each other with no real pattern, stubborn weeds that no longer made her heart drop, vines with thorns and twisted stems. They weren’t always pretty, but they were alive, and that was enough. Sometimes, she felt a sort of quiet triumph watching them grow, imperfect and wild. And when something refused to bloom the way she expected, she left it alone. Not every flower had to perform.
She stopped fixing wilted petals the moment they drooped. Let them fall, she figured. That’s what flowers do. It was real.
And maybe that's what Isabela needed. She needed to grow out of her space, she needed to be just as unpredictable, she needed to be real. But on her terms.
There was a time Isabela could name every flower in her bouquets, down to the color gradients, down to the hour they’d bloom. Every detail, every calculated shift of nature’s order, was a reflection of how she once saw herself. Puppeteered. Perfect. But now, she didn’t always know what she was planting. She just... let it grow. It felt strange. But freeing.
And the town didn’t need perfection. The town had gotten too used to expecting her to fit into a mold she never wanted to be part of, one she was still learning to break free from. When she let herself breathe, she could see it more clearly. She could see how tightly she’d clung to being their “perfect girl,” to that image of herself, the one they all seemed to believe was the only version worth loving.
She'd started keeping a small section of the town's garden just for herself. An untouched patch, overgrown and wild, where the vines crept free and no one was there to judge what grew. It wasn’t beautiful. Not really. But it felt honest. No one could tell her how to arrange it, and no one could look at it and wish for it to be something else.
Isabela could.
Sometimes Mirabel joined her in the garden. They didn’t always talk- sometimes Mirabel just sat nearby, humming softly to herself while Isabela worked with her hands in the soil. There was something grounding in that, like the silence was a kind of permission. Isa didn’t have to fill the space. She didn’t have to perform.
And sometimes Luisa would bring over crates from the market- Old, cracked wooden things with ivy-worthy potential- and pretend not to watch as her older sister tested how far her power could stretch. "Just enjoying the new greenery," Luisa would say casually, like she hadn’t noticed the way Isa’s hands hesitated before blooming anything new. Like she didn’t see the way the town's angel Isabela sometimes stared at her own fingers too long, like she didn’t trust them.
Isa appreciated the pretense. Pretending not to notice was a kindness she hadn’t known how to ask for before.
How could she? Flowers were all she knew. She may as well be a one-trick pony.
She was also starting to laugh more easily. Not the polite kind she used to practice to perfection in case of visitors, but real, messy laughter. Once, she’d laughed so hard she snorted in front of Antonio, and the look on his face had been pure awe before they both dissolved into giggles. It felt good. Isa liked who she was around them.
Camilo had made a whole performance out of mimicking her old dainty wave. It used to make her bristle. Now she just threw a pebble at his head and told him to get a new routine. She didn't like staring at who she was for too long.
It was enough.
At least, for now.