15. Amalia
It took two days and more explanations than I care to count, but the faculty administration was understanding once I told them what actually happened.
Which is a small victory, I suppose. The less small problem is Paulina, who is currently heading straight for me with a look on her face that suggests she has mapped out at least three ways to murder me and is simply deciding which one is most satisfying.
“You went crying to the dean? How pathetic do you have to be that you can’t defend yourself?”
And just like that, I see her. Really see her, maybe for the first time.
She’s small. She’s always been small, and the only reason I never noticed is because I spent years making myself smaller to fit beside her.
I wanted a friend so badly in high school that I let everything slide.
The remarks that always had just enough of an edge to sting.
The envy she wrapped in humor so I couldn’t call it what it was.
The way she had this talent for making me feel fortunate just to be in her orbit, like I should be grateful she’d chosen me at all.
I wasn’t lucky to have her. I was just easy to keep.
I let her simmer for a moment while I tuck one of my books into my backpack.
“I’m going to say this once, and I hope it’s the last time. Stay away from me. Stop acknowledging my existence. We have nothing to share, Paulina.”
If anyone could breathe fire right now, it would be her.
“You think I’m going to let this go like it never happened? They docked two points from my final grade, Amalia. You’re lucky we’re in public because otherwise...”
Euclid, give me strength!
“Otherwise what, Paulina?” And this time I’m the one stepping into her space, giving her no room to breathe.
“The next time you so much as breathe my air, I will make sure you’re expelled, because that was the dean’s solution.
I’m the one who proposed two points off your grade.
I gave you the chance to keep studying here.
That was an act of generosity on my part, so don’t make me regret it. ”
I watch my former friend stare at me with her mouth slightly open. The old Amalia would never have said any of that. The old Amalia would have sat down and taken it, but this time someone rattled something loose in me.
I feel a current at the tips of my fingers, where we touched two days ago, and I am officially in trouble.
Pull yourself together, Amalia Sanchez!
Paulina turns and walks away without another word.
I don’t move. I just stand there, replaying the last thirty seconds, trying to figure out who exactly that was.
Because I snapped. I actually snapped, without second-guessing myself, without apologizing immediately after.
And there’s this feeling in my chest, restless and warm and completely unidentified, and I don’t know what to do with any of it.
This is not me.
At least, it never used to be.
Good thing the bell snaps me out of it, and I rush to the next classroom.
Camila Fuentes is one of my favorite professors, and the fact that she teaches one of the hardest courses on the curriculum only makes me respect her more.
It takes me exactly two minutes and ten seconds to reach her lecture hall from the main path, a route I’ve walked enough times to know every shortcut.
I slip into the front row as usual, settling my laptop, notebook, and colored markers onto the desk with the quiet efficiency of someone who has done this a thousand times.
When I look up at the board, I find her already staring at me with unusual intensity. I instinctively reach for my phone to check that I haven’t left whipped cream from my hot chocolate on my face.
I haven’t. So that’s not it.
Before she starts the lecture, she walks over and leans both hands on my desk, dropping her voice just above a whisper.
“Be careful not to lose yourself in distractions, Amalia. You have enormous potential, but that alone isn’t always enough.” She gives me a small, knowing wink and straightens up.
I watch her walk back to the front of the room, genuinely baffled. I am the most dedicated student I know. I time my attendance at parties to the minute. I don’t drink. I have never been in love. I’m not entirely sure I understand what distractions she thinks I could possibly have. But okay.
She spends the rest of the class walking us through sorting algorithms, then assigns homework before letting us go: implement three of them and compare their running times. I write the requirements down neatly, already knowing exactly which test cases I’ll use.
The lecture ends, and I’m already packing up before the last sentence leaves her mouth.
Math analysis is in the building across the courtyard, and I have exactly seven minutes to get there.
I sling my bag over my shoulder, murmur a quick goodbye to the girl beside me, and half walk, half jog across campus, the cold air hitting my face as soon as I push through the doors.
I make it with two minutes to spare, which feels like a personal victory until I notice my heart is beating considerably harder than the sprint warrants.
Ay corazoncito, we need to start exercising more!
But I realize, deep down, that’s not the only reason it beats like this.
I know this man unsettles me. But standing here now, I can’t even pretend it’s simple nerves. It’s something more layered than that, a combination of adrenaline, anxiety, and anticipation that I shouldn’t be feeling. Not toward my math professor.
I frown at myself and take my seat. I’m among the first to arrive, and Mr. Vaughn isn’t at the podium yet.
I glance toward the door and spot him in the hallway, on a call, clearly irritated, running a hand through his hair. Today he’s wearing a black shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and for the love of Newton, why can’t I stop looking at his hands?
When he finally walks in, later than usual, I can’t help wondering what held him up.
What do you care, Amalia? The man has a life outside these walls.
His gaze finds me almost immediately, and my hands start fidgeting under the desk.
Does he know I talked to the dean? I don’t think he stopped to follow up on whether I actually went through with it.
Today he’s clearly in a hurry to get through the material, because my hand races across the page just to keep up with everything he’s putting on the board. Behind me I hear several classmates growing confused, struggling to match the pace of his dictation and the board simultaneously.
God, my wrist is going to give out.
I’m fairly certain a sigh escaped me louder than I intended, because his whole body stills, and he turns from the board toward me. His expression gives nothing away, but I’m completely sure he can see the strain on my face as I try to capture every formula and proof before he erases the board.
Something shifts in his eyes, and I take a breath and keep writing. When I look back up at the board a few moments later, his hand is moving more slowly. It doesn’t escape me how, every so often, he turns toward me and glances at my notes to see how far I’ve gotten.
Is he slowing down for me? Be serious, Amalia. He probably just strained his wrist from gripping that marker hard enough to fill eight boards in thirty minutes.
At some point he sets his papers down and says, hands in his pockets, “You’re free to go. See you next week.”
Free? We still have at least twenty minutes, and now I’m genuinely curious about what happened to make him cut us loose this early.
My classmates are already filing out, so I take the opportunity to walk up to the podium.
“I’m sorry, are you okay?” It comes out before I’ve fully decided to say it, and I feel my shoulders do that thing where they try to climb toward my ears. I clear my throat quietly, like that might somehow undo the last five seconds.
What is wrong with you, Amalia? It’s his business why he let you out early.
His eyes narrow on me, more precisely on my hair clips, for just a millisecond. Something about the way he looks at them makes my hand twitch at my side, fighting the impulse to reach up and make sure none of them have staged a revolt. With his arms folded across his chest, he answers.
“I’m perfectly fine, Amalia. Why?”
“Oh, it’s just that it’s the first time you’ve ever let us out early, and you seemed kind of...stressed?” I wince slightly, which is not at all what I was going for.
He spends a few more moments looking at my bun, from which I know at least three strands are currently sticking straight up, then at my green earrings, and then at my lavender hoodie.
Something softens in his expression, and I make a mental note that he probably likes lavender.
“I’m fine, Amalia.”
I just nod, understanding that’s all I’m going to get from him, so I grab my backpack and head for the door.
But before my foot crosses the threshold, I hear his voice behind me.
“How does it feel to see the fear in their eyes?”
My heart skips a beat at the sound of it, and without meaning to, a smile spreads across my lips. I stop to answer.
“Pretty damn good.”
I can’t see him, but I could swear the corner of his mouth is slightly raised right now, and my stupid heart does a small jump.
The rest of the day passes in a blur between seminars and my mind already mapping out a battle plan to get all my projects done ahead of schedule.
I stop by the library because se?or Gustav sent me a small job to take care of.
Just some invoices that need to disappear from a database, and even though it’s nothing particularly serious, the feeling I get when I delete the records is like the first bite of a chocolate cake after a week without anything sweet.
I check the table one more time to make sure I haven’t missed a single invoice from the list he sent and confirm that none of those documents appear in the interface anymore.
Their great stroke of luck is that their records aren’t on a platform sophisticated enough to automatically send document copies by email.
I’m not sure when I started genuinely enjoying this kind of work.
Maybe the moment I felt the first thread of adrenaline enter my veins when I deleted something from a system, or maybe when I forwarded certain compromising footage to the wife of a director who had been trying to push out some employees who had become too vocal for not being paid for more than four months.
What I know for certain is that the old, sweet Amalia wouldn’t have been involved in any of this, and I think that’s exactly what I like about it. That behind a keyboard, I don’t have to be polite all the time. I don’t have to keep my head down.
Sometimes I wish I were more like Lupe, with her restless streak and that spark she has for life and youth.
For me, the perfect date would be in a small café, armchair-style seats, jazz in the background, hot chocolate with too much whipped cream, and rain outside.
Though for it to count as a date I’d need someone across the table from me, and somehow I can’t picture any of my classmates in that setting. Right then, two brown eyes — almost black — appear in my head, looking at me through the lenses of his glasses.
He’d probably be dressed in black, Converse on his feet, that vintage watch on his wrist that gives him an infuriatingly attractive maturity, shirt sleeves rolled up.
He’d probably be drinking black coffee or one of those strange green teas that taste like grass, with a book on some algorithm or theorem God himself has forgotten, and every so often he’d look up at me.
And that would be enough.
I don’t know why it stings the way it does. It’s just a fantasy, something my own mind invented out of nothing. But the thought that I’ll never actually have it settles over me like a weight I wasn’t prepared to carry.
I head home with that feeling trailing quietly behind me, telling myself it doesn’t matter.
You’ve never been good at lying, Amalia. Not even to yourself.