46- Miss Atomic Bomb

**Thursday, March 11**

**My Flaca:** Hi beautiful, good morning.

**My Romantic Lyric:** Hi gorgeous. Good morning.

**My Flaca:** I'm heading to my university! Have a super lovely day!

**My Romantic Lyric:** Thank you, my love, I love you!!!

**My Flaca:** I love you too.

**Mia Berhnhardt:** Where are you?

**My Romantic Lyric:** At my university, princess.

**My Flaca:** Where did you spend the night yesterday?

**My Romantic Lyric:** At Lisa's house.

**My Flaca:** Oh, okay... well, I'm off to class, I'm already late.

**My Flaca:** We'll talk later, okay? Kisses.

I had just found out 10 hours later that my girlfriend had spent the night at her friend's house while I had gone to bed past 3 AM, waiting for any sign of her. I couldn't feel more foolish. I was living a lie; she left me alone while I spent the night writing her poems, poems that pierced my bones with the hope that they would reach her hands to revive me. It wasn't my romantic lyrics that were to blame for this relationship that was wilting due to distance, that way we had of suffering from being apart. After all, as Shakespeare said: "The great lovers of history have always lived apart." Goodbye to the idea of cooking dinner together, waking her up with nibbles in the morning, surprising her one day with a gift after a tiring day at university. The prospect of my future with Ro sent a chill through me, full of fog; just trying to breathe in the smoke of her absence, I imagined her by my side. We were one of those relationships where from the start, you knew it had an expiration date, but still, you jumped into the abyss and took each other's hands, pleading with time to have mercy on us.

I was frustrated; I kept silent even though I knew that was a mistake. The truth is I was full of anger; if I talked to Rocío, I would unload it all, and that would probably make everything worse. Each day that passed, we drifted further apart. I didn't want to be that possessive and jealous girlfriend; I felt helpless seeing her so distant, watching myself disappear right in front of her eyes while she was enjoying brownies at a party with her friends. Soon I would become nothing more than a specter, and she would be one of those muses that poets talk about so much, until one day they forget whether everything they wrote really happened, whether it really exists, or if it was just the reflection of a star in a sky that never shone.

I turned up the volume on the music; "Somebody Told Me" by The Killers began to play. I quickly freed myself from my tight shorts and blouse, tossed them onto the bed, and walked to the bathroom while awkwardly taking off off my underwear. I stepped into the shower. The feeling of hot water on my skin relaxed me; the pressure of the water against my neck massaged my muscles. It was soothing.

I emerged wrapped in a towel and started my beauty ritual, moisturizing my skin with cream and applying yogurt to my hair, which I would rinse off in a quarter of an hour.

I felt a huge void in my stomach; I knew it wasn't hunger; I missed her. Ro hadn't contacted me; I deduced she had been at the university since early morning, as when I wished her a good day, she was already there. The entire afternoon passed, and night fell, yet Rocío still hadn't appeared. I finished reading Bécquer's legends and had started Isabel Allende's "Paula." It was nine o'clock, and I had no idea where she was or who she was with. I checked my cellphone, and the inbox was empty. No news from her. Days passed, and we weren't nurturing our relationship; while I fell asleep every night without a "goodnight, princess," I went to bed with that constant need for her to make me shine for her with a few sweet words, words that always left me hungry as they never arrived.

Ro didn't say anything about her hours of disappearance; she barely seemed to notice and hardly cared to stay in my life. Again, I was waiting for explanations that would never come. I felt worse as the minutes passed, coming to terms with the idea that she was really too distracted to write to me. I wanted to know what she did yesterday and today, but we hardly had time to talk because she was never around. Things were getting worse. We were disconnected. My wounded pride wouldn't even let me bring up the topic, and she didn't realize I was losing myself, that one day the emptiness would swallow me whole, and I would disappear forever from her life.

I wanted an entire weekend without leaving her bed, to stay there while I caressed her chest and hypnotized her heartbeats, until she got goosebumps, until her very skin whispered how much these fingers of mine loved her, caressing her as if I had built an indestructible castle when our hands met. To turn her into poetry with my smile. I missed you so much, Ro. I missed you so much those days.

I decided to write to her in the hope that she would respond.

**My Flaca:** Hi

**My Flaca:** How are you?

**Don’twriteher:** Hi beautiful, I’m at Valeria’s dorm with the girls.

**My Flaca:** Are you staying there for the night?

**Don’twriteher:** I don’t know, we’re making dinner.

**My Flaca:** Can I call you when you get home? How did today go?

Suddenly, the familiar feeling of having too much in my stomach took over me. I didn’t know if it was bad luck that I always felt hurt at the least opportune moments, like now when I knew she was making dinner and probably wouldn’t respond. Rocío had a whole life with her friends, of which I was only a part-time member on weekends. The food mixed with my emotions, and soon both climbed up my throat in a race. I needed that balance between physical pain and the hurt caused by Rocío's indifference. I went to the toilet and vomited all the cereal. I couldn't keep it inside, and I couldn't keep Rocío in my life any longer.

Magically, I began to feel like a hippopotamus, as if my skin weighed tons and the feelings that overwhelmed my mind made me feel even heavier. I felt fat. I didn’t know if I really was fat. How would I know? I could never see myself in the mirror without knowing my true reflection. At that moment, I saw myself as fat, disgustingly fat. I took a glass of water, and it provided momentary relief. That monster inside me was no longer tamed by its gaze, and I felt smaller and smaller. At least the food in my stomach had disappeared, and the sensation of being wrapped in a layer of fat would gradually fade away.