Page 90 of That Last Summer

“Fuck...”

“That’s not reason enough to get married.”

And in the middle of this catastrophic situation, Hugo said, “Guys? I have something to tell you.”

But no one listened. They were too busy fighting Alex and Priscila.

“Guys?” he repeated.

Nothing.

“Guys.”

Ignored again, he ran out of patience.

“Everybody shut the fuck up!” Hugo wasn’t much for swearing; now he had their attention. “I said I have to tell you something.”

“What the hell, Hugo? Calm your tits, man!” River said.

“No tits for me. I’m gay.”

“Fuck man, now? ... Fuck me sideways...”

“Marcos!” They all shouted in reprobation.

“Fuck...”

“Are you serious? This isn’t a ploy to divert attention from these two?” Adrián asked.

“What do you think?”

“Okay. Does anyone else have anything to confess?”

It was Alex’s turn. “I’m in love with Priscila. I want to share my life with her. We want to live together, with Dark, in a house that will be only ours. And I want her to be my wife. What’s wrong with that?”

“You can do all that without getting married,” Adrián said.

“But we want to do it.”

It was a dead end.

Priscila continued to argue with her brothers almost until dawn, long after she’d said goodbye to her boyfriend. Well, not with all her brothers. Hugo was lying low. He didn’t regret confessing his big secret to his siblings—he knew they would support him no matter what—but he’d begun to feel guilty he hadn’t done the same for Priscila.

Before she went to bed, Priscila looked at her soulmate—her brother Adrián—with disappointment.

“What do you want me to say? What do you need me to tell you?” he asked his sister.

“I need you to tell me that you like Alex. As simple as that: ‘I like Alex, Pris.’ And I need you to really feel it.”

It was crazy, yes. Even they knew it. He was twenty-four and she was twenty-one—almost twenty-two. They were so young. They got carried away by the moment, by their emotions.

But who hasn’t, at that age?

Who hasn’t done crazy, wild things?

For some, that madness might be parachuting, or crossing half the country on a bus without parental consent to see the boy or girl they like. Alex and Priscila decided to get married, because of the love they felt at that moment, and because they could. Being able to do it counted, of course it did.

Alex was financially independent, and Priscila was about to finish university. Alex thought he was the king of the world then, that he could take what he wanted, when he wanted and how he wanted just by snapping his fingers—or, in this case, by proposing to his girlfriend. He had his own money, his swimming earned it, so why couldn’t they get married? Why not spend all day together, alltheir lives together? He wanted her, and he wanted her now. He had met millions of girls and every year at the competitions he met two million more and none of them stood out, none of them made him laugh like she did or made him feel like she did.