Chapter Text
What Now?
Mariana is standing in front of the door. She takes a moment to dry her tears but she knows there is no point in hiding that she has been cried for a while now. She can feel that her eyes are puffy. And she knows very well that the person who will answer the door will know what she has been doing. She wants to knock on the door but her instinct is telling her not to do it. She knocks anyway. She waits for a moment and when the door opens, she stops breathing for a second. She wanted her best friend to answer but instead , it’s Pablo who is standing in front of her.
Before anyone has the time to say anything, Mariana’s face drastically change the moment she is looking at the woman, half naked, standing back in the hallway inside the apartment. In that exact moment, she remembers why she didn’t want to move with Pablo and Elena. And that reason was exactly this: Mariana didn’t want to run into the fling of the month or waking up one morning and meeting someone’s one night stand. “Thank God I didn’t move in.” She thinks to herself. Then, a wave of sadness comes over her because now the question is ‘where am I supposed to go?’
“Mariana!” says Pablo bringing her attention back to him, feeling very much uncomfortable like he’s been caught. “Hi! Uhm… I’m sorry. I- Are you okay? Come in.”
“Oh no no, sorry for coming here unannounced. I just wanted to see if Elena was here. I tried her phone a couple times but it went straight to voicemail.” Mariana smoothly lies to him. In all honesty, she was hoping that the roomie offer still stood, but seeing him with another girl only two weeks after the proposal rejection and only after a few hours after the baptism of their daughter this morning, Mariana thinks that nothing can top today’s event. What a roller coaster of emotions today has been so far for her and it’s only 1740.
“Aye, no s-sorry! After the baptism, we all came back here, but she told us she was going to stay at her parents house for the night.” Pablo tells her. Mariana can see that he wants to add more but he’s holding back. He turns his head once again to see if Cynthia is still standing there but they both hear the door closing.
He looks back at Mariana and says “Mariana, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were coming. I-I can explain wh-.”
Mariana holds up her hand to him as he stops talking.
“You don’t owe me any explanations Pablo. It’s okay. Please, just tell Elena I am looking for her and tell her to call me when she can. Okay?”
Pablo silently nods at her.
“Bye!” she says as she walks away from the entrance door.
“B-bye!” he replies before slowly closing the door.
Mariana is back to where she started: looking for place to sleep. She wants to cry, scream or both, but her attention shifts to a cute noise indicating her that Regina is awake. As Mariana is looking at her child, sadness comes over her once again. She can’t believe that the baby she carried inside her for 9 months and counting was named by Ana, the chic business and bossy woman she confessed her love to a few hours ago. Mariana thinks that this day will never truly end. “How did I get here?” She asked herself out loud.
She leaves the building with Regina. It’s not raining outside but she can feel it in the air that it will soon. It got darker outside than before when she walked in the building earlier. When she walks down the street,she actually doesn’t know where to go, she feels lost. A part of her wants to call her mother, but she’s too proud at the moment and also hurt from her mother’s affairs with Juan Carlos to dial her numbers.
Mariana is about to wave for a cab when her phone makes a noise indicating her she just received a text. She looks at it and it reads “Mariana, where is your mama?! Can you open the door for me. I’m waiting outside the apartment. Sad face.”
Mariana has to read the text twice because she is still confused as to why her mother isn’t already at home. Anuar left as soon as Ana reveal the infidelity of her husband which was around 1400.
“Oye mama! What now? Ugh…” Mariana says out loud. The old couple walking by her stops and turns around to look at to her.
“What? You’ve never seen a woman with a baby before?” rising her voice a little bit at them. Mariana is annoyed by the constant look she keeps getting since she’s been a mother… or since she’s been in this new neighbourhood. She knows she’s only 23, but she’s an adult just like the rest of them. She hates that judgemental look.
Mariana finds a taxi around the corner and after putting the stroller in the car, with the help of the taxi driver, she proceeds to give him the address of her mother.
The vehicle drives away from the curb, Mariana looks at Regina who’s giving a smile. It wasn’t a laugh, but the simple gesture by her cute little girl, brought memories to Mariana of that time when her and Ana were in the nursery with Valentina and Ana was trying to make Valentina laughed because she had cried all day in her presence. The moment shared between her and Ana was so innocent, but the hug they shared at the end of their conversation, even though it was a bit awkward, ignited something inside Mariana that she tried to suppress for a while…until today.
Lost in her thoughts during the entire drive, the taxi driver brings her back to the present when he says “ señorita, it will be 15 US dollars.” Mariana is not too happy about the among but she still leaves him a nice tip. Inside the building, Lucía is happy to see her granddaughter and baby Regina.
“Ah! Finally you are here!” Lucía says while she’s sitting on the floor against her door.
“Oh my god, Gramma, how long have you been sitting there?! You’re gonna catch some hemorrhoid later! Please, let me help you stand up.”
Lucía makes a noise as she is being helped by Mariana. As they both are now standing in front of each other, near the door, Lucía notices the sadness in Mariana’s eyes.
“What happened my love? You’ve been crying. Are y-.”
“ Ya, ya, I’m okay , Gramma. Everything is okay.” They both know she just lied, but Lucía doesn’t say more because she knows her granddaughter will try to push her away just like Mariana has been doing with Teresa.
Mariana unlocks the door and let her grandmother go first but she doesn’t come in.
“Mariana what are you doing? Come in. Your mother will be home soon. I’m sure she just stopped to grab some food for dinner. Aye! What a morning at the baptism yah?
“Yes Gramma. Long and exhausting day. It’s getting late and I have to feed Regina before she goes to sleep. You gonna be okay until mama comes back?
Lucía is about to say something when Teresa shows up behind Mariana.
“Mariana? What happened ? What are you doing here my love?”
The voice of her mother is not soothing to her at the moment and all Mariana thinks about is a way to just avoid answering her questions.
“Im going back to Ana’s house. Gramma needed the door opened. Okay. Bye”. She says while saying a lie and a truth in one sentence. “What is happening to me?” She thinks to herself.
“Mariana!” Teresa and Lucía both say at the same time.
“I have to go mama, it’s getting late.” Mariana is so hurt and angry at her mother from to the secret affair with Juan Carlos that Mariana would prefers to sleep the night anywhere but under the same roof as Teresa.
She walks away and again, Mariana is outside another building with Regina. Her phone beeps . It’s a text from Elena. She can feel the chilling wind. She covers Regina with an extra blanket. She is about to read the message when it starts raining on her. Mariana opens her cellphone.
“Hey you are okay, dude? Pablo said you tried to contact me? Saw your missed calls. Sorry I took a nap. What a crazy event. How’s Ana? She’s probably gonna have a bad hangover tomorrow ,ya? Lol! Natalia just got here.Call me tomorrow, okay?”
Mariana is truly on the verge of screaming. She realizes that after everything that happened with Elena, she never truly experienced rejection before. And now, she just wants this feeling to go away. And she was hoping to talk to her best friend about what happened with Ana. Tomorrow will have to wait.
Mariana stands back closer to the building on the dry area. Regina has been with her this entire time, but she has been so quiet earlier that she thought that maybe she went back to sleep in the car seat, but that’s not the case. Regina is whining. Mariana knows her daughter is hungry and tired from all the travelling. She talks to her daughter in a soft voice and says “aw my love. It’s okay. We’re going back home. It’s okay. I’m gonna feed you on the way.”
Maybe it was the way she said home or simply for hearing the sound of her mother’s voice, but Regina stops whining at the word and looks at her mother with such a beautiful smiling and see the sparkles in her eyes. It brings a tender smile to Mariana, a first since she left Ana’s house.
She looks on her phone again to see what time it is and it shows 1835. Her option are limited. Either go back to her mother’s house and have this heavy discussion with Teresa and her grandmother about what happened today. Or go back to Pablo’s apartment and deal with him and the supposedly new girl in his life. But when she thinks of these two options, Ana comes back in her thoughts with a flashbacks of all the things that they’ve gone through. From their first meeting to the confession.
Mariana puts her hurt feelings aside for the well-being of your daughter and decides that that is the best option for Regina. She waves at a taxi that is driving down the road and once in the vehicle, she hesitates but gives an address to the driver.
She looks at Regina and says “We’re going home sweetheart.”
Her heart sinks as she says those words to Regina because she realizes more than ever that the place they are heading to is a safe place, after all.