He lets out a long breath, but before he can respond, I hear a familiar voice. “Is that the elusive Isabella Morales on your phone screen, Martinez?” Anthony Torres asks melodically. “Nah, it must be my eyes deceiving me, because I don’t think Isabella’s phone works anymore.” Anthony throws his arm over Mateo’s shoulders, which Mateo quickly shrugs off. Then he pierces him with a look I can’t decipher.
“Hi, Anthony,” I say shyly, all vibrato gone. “I know, I know. I deserved that.” I nod bashfully.
I really did deserve that.
After shit hit the fan a few years ago, Denise and Anthony stepped up and were there for me at a time when so many cut me off.
I’m beyond honored that I even get to call myself the godmother to their precious second-born daughter, Hannah.
I know I need to get better at responding to the few friends I actually have when they reach out, but it’s hard sometimes.
I feel like everyone out there has somehow figured out life while I’m over here, floating my way through it.
Graduations, engagements, marriages, babies, new job opportunities, even moving across the world, you name it. Everyone in my life is crushing it at one or even multiple things.
And I’m happy for them, truly.
It’s the dreaded part of the conversation I try to avoid. The part that happens once I congratulate someone on one of their many accomplishments.
“So what’s new with you?”
It sounds so innocent. Polite, even.
But the discomfort in people’s eyes. The looks I’m sure they have no clue they’re giving me when I respond with “oh, you know; same old” is soul crushing.
So I try my best to avoid awkward interactions by avoiding people in general. It’s not like it’s that hard, since I don’t exactly have people banging down my door to hang out with me.
Just the occasional texts from Denise and this girl named Nikki, who I met while I was in the Dominican Republic with Mateo and Anna. Which reminds me, I really should respond to her text about joining her for drinks and dinner.
But it’s hard. All of it. Because when my life was torpedoed, all prior plans went up in flames. And unlike many of my peers, I never had a burning passion for any one specificthing.
I was surrounded by so many friends, or shall I say acquaintances, who had dreams and aspirations beyond my imagination. I guess I’ve always found myself a bit lost in that department.
Instead, back then, I poured so much of myself into being the perfect partner, the perfect support system for someone else.
Forhim.
Making sure his dreams were always the priority, because then everything else would surely fall into place. Or so I believed.
Never thinking to put myself first, because what was the point? I never had a reason to doubt us.
To doubthim.
Little did I know he would wield the sharpest knife in my back, hurting me in ways I never knew imaginable. Leaving me behindin the wake of his scandal to fend for myself with only the scraps of my dignity trailing behind me.
And in a blink of an eye, it was all… gone.
The life we had planned.
A life where I had love, a home, and a family to call my own.
A life where I experienced a love so big it would seem ripped out of the pages of a romance novel.
But not anymore. Because I’m Isabella Morales. And once my name became permanent ink on the internet, I knew that the dream would forever remain just that. A dream.
I am now destined to be a bystander. Someone who watches others, whether real or fictional, live out lives like the one I once foolishly dreamed of.
If only I had known that my life would be closer to a dark comedy, maybe I would have put more pressure on myself to pick something, anything, so that I didn’t spend so many years confused as to what my new future would or should look like.
