Previously:

Lucia let Matteo guide her into the waves, trusting his promise that they could leave whenever she wanted. When he kissed her, she answered him, then kissed him again. The moment left her wanting more than she could safely name. Now she has to face what changed between them, certain he will regret choosing a girl from the barrio.

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Lucia

Lucia looks down as she and Matteo walk hand in hand through a college parking lot while a group of classmates turns to stare.

I have been bent and broken, but—I hope—into a better shape.

~Charles Dickens

Matteo was looking at her again. Lucia dropped her eyes and chewed her thumb. Anything to keep the weight of his attention from becoming a need.

Now, as they left the library, his hand drifted close enough to touch hers. She considered pulling it back. Then his damn dimples appeared, and something in her chest loosened. So her fingers knitted into his instead. She looked away as the twitch at the corner of her mouth betrayed her. All that remained was to wait for the moment to turn into something she understood.

He never asked for another kiss or pushed his body against her the way other boys had. His eyes remained soft and asked nothing of her. She searched for a reason but found none. That was the part that unsettled her most.

A few weeks later, as they walked to his car holding hands, a group of classmates crossed in front of them. Their conversation faltered, eyes flicking at their interlaced fingers. Heat rushed to her face as her heartbeat fell out of rhythm. She wanted to run from the sudden widening of their eyes.

Of course, no one thought she was good enough for him. The worst part was that she agreed. The belief moved through her body before she could stop it, and her legs nearly gave way.

His arm settled around her, giving her something solid to lean into without holding her there. He greeted the classmates easily, his voice unchanged. She could not understand how their scrutiny seemed to slide off him.

Lucia leaned into the steadiness she had no intention of needing. Her eyes searched his, waiting for the smallest sign that she had taken too much.

His expression had changed, his eyes narrowing while his mouth curved into something polished and unfamiliar. He pulled her closer, brushing past their stares as he guided her to his car.

When they reached it, she didn’t climb into the driver’s seat. Instead, she surrendered the keys and walked to the passenger’s side, her throat tight. “Can you take me home?”

She closed her eyes and focused on her breathing, counting each breath until she could swallow the knot in her throat. Her lower lip caught between her teeth. She knew how to hide humiliation so well that sometimes she believed her own lies. “I’m tired.”

Matteo

Matteo drives a silver Porsche convertible along the coast at sunset while Lucia sits withdrawn beside him, looking toward the ocean.

Over the past weeks, Lucia had reached for the keys with a quiet confidence that carried more weight than the action itself. Driving had become something structural for her, a small, deliberate claim over the direction of her life. Now something had given way. He felt the shift along his spine and recalibrated his balance.

She closed the passenger door with a soft, contained sound, and folded into the seat. Her posture drew inward, shoulders hunched in that self-protective way that made his chest ache.

He started the car, knowing she wasn’t tired. But tired functioned. It closed doors, redirected inquiry, and returned structure to her inner world. He had learned the shape of her defenses over the past year.

The engine’s low hum moved through the steering column into his hands, and he let the rhythm anchor him. His breath aligned with it. He had no interest in becoming another thing she had to survive.

Instead of taking the entrance to Interstate 5, he remained on the Pacific Coast Highway. The two-lane drive through the beach towns and coastal bluffs had become her favorite.

She opened her eyes, but no objection followed his decision. Lucia sat beside him in fragments. He kept his eyes on the road and read what she could not say in the small betrayals of her body. Her shoulders curved deeper into themselves as she leaned against the window. A curl escaped her braid, as it always did, but she didn’t move to fix it.

Their classmates’ expressions returned with uncomfortable precision, assessing, reassigning. He could still feel the moment they had decided she didn’t belong beside him.

He could still see the impact register in her body, her expression going still as her breath shortened. Identify, correct, restore. The family directive pressed hard inside his chest, reminding him to read the room and contain the reaction. He held himself still and breathed until the need to fix the situation passed.

That kind of social judgment had a shape he should have recognized before it reached her. His mistake mattered, but he didn’t have time to examine it. Self-recrimination had to wait until they were back on solid ground.

From the corner of his eye, he caught her watching the sun set the sky on fire. Her chest rose and fell into a steadier rhythm.

He adjusted his grip on the wheel, knuckles whitening as he took the turn that brought the ocean into view. The air in the car shifted, and the road opened to the coastline, a long, unbroken line stretching beside them before the cliffs rose gradually to meet it.

Matteo had waited until her breathing settled. The water taught him when to yield. Dance taught him when to move. His family taught him when not to. Timing was part of the rhythm his body trusted. Too early, and he landed badly. Too late, and he ended up on his ass.

He turned off toward the parking lot near Tower 5. Their spot. The tires settled into the asphalt before the car came to a stop. He let the engine idle for a moment, giving her time to object, then turned it off.

The sound of the waves replaced the hum, steady, a reminder of his promise. She was not alone in this. The space between them held, fragile and deliberate, until she chose what to do with it. He settled into it, refusing to turn silence into pressure.

She met his eyes, and he knew she was going to try to break his heart.

Lucia

At sunset on Torrey Pines Beach, Matteo drapes his coat over Lucia’s shoulders as she looks toward the ocean.

“I don’t think this ‘no strings’ attached thing works,” Lucia said evenly, pulling her face into the neutral expression that made her feel protected from the world.

“I agree.” His voice was steady, his expression unperturbed.

She blinked. Her emotions lagged her logic, which rushed forward protectively. “We don’t belong together. Everyone knows it.”

“No one gets to define what we get to be.”

What? Her mind hit a wall. Hard. She blinked, then blinked again, trying to recalibrate, but her emotions were now nipping at her heels.

“I want to tell everyone we’re dating.” His voice held firm at first, then softened around the Castilian lisp that always made her thoughts slip. “What it means is left up to us.”

“I… What?” She couldn’t breathe. The air felt heavy, her chest too tight, heat rising to her face. Tears pressed against her eyes, but she refused to let them spill.

She opened the door and stepped out of the car. The ocean enveloped her, clearing her head.

No one would look at her “that way” again. Not if she was his girlfriend. They wouldn’t dare. She let that sink in.

He had to know he was handing her a kind of safety people like her did not get for free. In her experience, generosity came with expectations.

He never demanded anything from her. And her? What did she really want from him, affection, protection, or him? Sometimes she wanted the girl she became in his eyes more than she understood wanting him.

She couldn’t even remember when he stopped being someone others fawned over and became someone she found damn good-looking. Wanting him at all was stupid. Falling in love with him was a freefall that would cost her everything. She couldn’t take from him when fear warned her to give nothing back.

Lucia was about to wrap her arms around herself, skin pebbled, when the weight of his sweater settled over her, still warm from his body. Her breath snagged high in her chest as she waited for the moment to turn into something else. Pressure, a claim, anger, something she would be forced to manage. None came.

He leaned against the car, weight dropped on one hip. His hands in his pockets. No tension marked his face, as if they had all the time in the world.

“I can’t be your girlfriend.” She shook her head, annoyed with herself, with him, with the situation. All she wanted was to go to the library and curl under a desk until closing time. “We already talked about this.”

“We did,” he agreed.

The faint scent of sandalwood from his sweater mingled with salt from the ocean as the fabric rested lightly against her skin, soft without friction. Slowly, without realizing it, she moved closer to him. The sleeves fell past her hands, protecting her more than she had any right to expect.

“Telling people you are my girlfriend is not the same thing as being my girlfriend. We decide what it means.”

“Oh.” The tension in her chest eased in a quiet rush. He had just given her a loophole she could live with. Her head throbbed. Holding her reactions down while she tried to sort through it all was tiring.

People were exhausting. Everywhere. Except for Matteo. With him, it was easy. She leaned against him, and his arms went around her. “No strings attached?”

“We decide what it means.” His lisp grazed her ear, soft enough to undo her.

“Okay,” the word slipped out before she could pull it back. She wasn’t sure why she had agreed, only that if she thought about it, she would find reasons to say no.

Author’s note

Driving gives Lucia a form of control she rarely gets elsewhere. Behind the wheel, she chooses the route and decides when to stop. At home, other people usually make those choices for her. Each lesson lets her practice making decisions without permission. One look from her classmates shakes that new confidence.

Their expressions confirm what Lucia already fears. She doesn’t belong beside Matteo. Shame moves faster when it finds a suspicion she already carries. The classmates never threaten her or say a word. They barely need to.

By the time Lucia reaches the car, their rejection has entered her body. Her throat tightens. Her legs weaken. She no longer trusts herself to drive without exposing what happened. So she hands Matteo the keys and takes the passenger seat before anyone sees her falter. Minutes earlier, she controlled the car. Now Matteo does.

Was Matteo’s girlfriend loophole brilliant, ridiculous, or exactly the kind of nonsense two people in denial would invent?

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Chapter 18: Bent and Broken