I didn’t know I have it. I have other pictures of Jared, but not like this. The whole group of us are at Abby’s house playing volleyball, but I’ve turned away from the volleyball net and I’m facing Jared, laughing while he grins at me.

I wonder who took this picture. Someone who knew there was more between me and Jared than either one of us let on.

“Who is Jared?” Tiago asks.

“He’s—he’s someone special.” 

“Did you email him?”

I shake my head. I want to but— “I won’t. He’s moving in a few weeks. It’s better if we don’t stay close.”

“What about Owen?”

I smile, but it’s tight, and I avert my eyes, not able to quite hide the pain in that name. “We broke up months ago.” I try to say the words glibbly. To show it’s no big deal, that’s part of life, I’m over it. Or at least okay with it.

“I’m sorry,” Tiago says. “I know how much he meant to you.”

Hearing these words from Tiago nearly undoes me. He, more than anyone else, should be gloating over the fact Owen and I are through. 

I look away before I cry and repeat the facade I’m trying to portray. “It’s fine. It’s life. Happens to everyone.”

His hand comes up under my hair and squeezes the back of my neck in a miniature version of a hug. I go back to my emails and take comfort from his touch.

By the time we head to the ocean a few hours later, I’ve successfully put my sadness behind me. The aqua-blue water, sandwiched between the sand and the coral reef Recife is named for, is grand in its wide expanse leading out to the edge of the world, waves crashing like thunder on the shore.

Martha sees a hot dog vendor and insists we go buy one. 

“I don’t love hot dogs,” I admit to Tiago as we stand in line.

“Because you’ve only had American hot dogs,” he says, wiggling his eyebrows at me. “Brazilian ones are much better.”

My eyebrows rise as Tiago gives instructions to the man behind the cart, adding tomato sauce, peas, corn, eggs, raisins, and string potato chips to his hot dog.

“That can’t possibly be good,” I say.

“Try it,” he urges.

I’m not as brave. I fumble through the words, using my fingers to point out the food items I want. Tomato sauce. Corn. Potato chips. Mayonnaise.

We step out of line, and Tiago waits for me to take my first bite. It falls apart when I do, the bread soaked by the tomato sauce, and I understand why the vendor served it in a cardboard tray with a fork.

“It’s really good,” I admit, mopping my face with a napkin. 

“See?” Tiago grins at me, and then his expression sobers. “I still can’t believe you’re here.”

“Me neither,” I admit. “I can’t believe I bought that ticket.”

“I’m so glad you did. I missed you so much.” He studies me, that half-hooded expression I remember so well. “You’re my best friend. You mean the world to me.”

 I hold his gaze, for once not uncomfortable by his bold statements of affection. “You’re a lot kinder to me now than you were last time I was here.”

He winces. “I was young. Stupid. I’m sorry.”

“I forgave you already.” But if he’s hoping for a second chance . . . That’s not going to happen.

We head back to Tiago’s house, and nostalgia pushes up against my brain when I enter the front room. I stand by the kitchen and sigh, remembering being here two years earlier, when I was so in love with Tiago. We ate here, we fought here, we made out here. I flash back to those moments, and for an instant I feel seventeen again, transported to the past, to the hopes and fears and hurts of that time. 

I turn when Tiago comes in behind me, and I see him through the lens of the past also, sixteen and so confused about his place in his world and mine. Briefly, the two merge, and I struggle to know what is real and what is memory.

I turn away from Tiago and follow Martha into the kitchen to put away the groceries. She continues chattering at me in Portuguese, and I find it very helpful. I am forced to search my vocabulary for words to talk to her, and it stretches me. It’s only been two days, but already my brain is forming new pathways, connecting dots. I’m excited to see how much I know after thirty days.

Tiago walks me back to his grandfather’s house after dinner. 

“See you in the morning,” I say. “Thanks for such a fun day.”

“See ya,” he echoes.

The door closes behind me, and I let myself into Grandpa’s house. I hum as I go past the kitchen and up the stairs.

We are still friends, Tiago and I.

I can almost forget that Owen and I are not.

***

Tiago’s whole family comes to pick me up for church in the morning. I wear the brown floral dress Martha bought me last time I was here. She recognizes it immediately and tells me how wonderful it looks. I squish into the back of the car with Tiago and his brothers.

His hair is back in its ponytail, lending him a sultry vampire look. I bite my lip to keep from laughing.

“What?” he says, seeing it.

“Nothing.” 

He touches his ponytail. “You really don’t like it?”

I shrug. “What do you care what I think?”

“I will cut it if you want.”

“No.” I say the word sharply enough that his mom glances back at us and his brothers lean forward. I soften my tone and lower my voice. “Don’t do anything for me, Tiago. Do what you want for you.”

Even though its winter, the temperatures here in Recife are sweltering. I pull my hair up as we enter the chapel, cooled not with A/C but with open windows and large ceiling fans over the pews. I forgot how tropical it is here.

I forgot how much I love it.

The rain comes, like it has every day since I got here, like it does all winter. I imagine it raining on Grandpa’s garden in the courtyard in his house. It sprinkles for a few minutes, and then it stops. Like magic.

I stick with Tiago, and a number of people remember me when he introduces me. He starts to translate for me, but I brush him off.

“I understand most of it. I need to learn the rest.”

He nods and lets me try to decipher the language. It’s a mind-boggling hour, and I’m relieved when it’s over.

The moment we step into the house after church, I smell food, and I take a moment to inhale with anticipation. Their maid kept busy while we were gone.

“Lunch almost ready,” Martha tells me. 

Tiago gets out his guitar and strums a few chords, but Rafael snatches it from him hard enough that it bangs into the wall, and suddenly the two of them are on their feet, fighting. Yelling at each other, getting in each other’s faces, popping their necks and trying to show off who is more manly.

It happens so fast, and I feel like a cat stuck in a dog fight. 

I expect them to calm down, but instead they circle each other like rabid wolves, hands in fists and pupils dilated. They yell at each other, spitting insults and hurling words I don’t understand, stretching their necks to make themselves look taller and glaring down at each other.

And then they pounce, and I can’t speak, my heart racing in my throat as they lock arms and grapple with each other. 

Martha gets in the middle of them, telling them to stop, and Tiago turns on her, gesturing angrily and speaking in the same tone as he did to his brother.

“Don’t talk to your mother that way!” I yell at him.

“Lucia, não entra nisto, vai lá, fique fora,” Martha says.

I don’t need to speak Portuguese to get the gist of what she’s saying as she tries to shove me from the room, but I won’t budge. “Tiago won’t hurt me,” I say, and I catch his eye. I’m shaking, but I’m not sure if it’s fear or anger. “Grow up. Now. STOP IT.”

The fury in his eyes dissipates. He strides from the room, and I collapse on the couch. Martha sits beside me and babbles in Portuguese, but I can’t make out a single word. Turns out I have to be emotionally stable to understand.

Rafael grumbles a few more words and leaves the house. Martha stands up and goes after him.

“Hey, I’m sorry.”

Tiago comes back into the room, and I look up at him with glazed eyes. He sits by me on the couch.

“I know that upset you, and I’m sorry you had to see it,” he says.

“You’re sorry I had to see it?” I say, firing up again. “How about being sorry you let it happen?”

“I had to defend myself,” he replies.

“You had to show you were the tougher one,” I bite back, just angry enough not to mince words. “It was a stupid immature display of aggression toward your younger brother and YOUR MOTHER. There’s no excuse for it.”

“She should not have gotten involved.”

I want to slap him. “I hated watching you act that way. I felt like I don’t know you after all.”

I see from the way he flinches that my words hurt. 

“Everyone gets angry,” he says. 

“That wasn’t normal, Tiago,” I say. “It scared me. I was afraid you would hurt someone.”

“It’s how men act, Lucia.”

And there it is: the cultural differences between us. Here in Brazil, he might be right. But in America, that behavior is not acceptable. I won’t accept it. “Anyone who treats their mom that way, the most important woman in his life, will do the same to his wife.”

His eyes flick over mine, searching, a flicker of fear in them.

“I won’t,” he says. “I promise I won’t.”

“There’s no way to know until after you’re married, is there?” But I won’t take that chance.

I leave the words unsaid. But they hang there. I know he feels it. He just gave me more solid proof of why we should not be together.

His mom comes back in, her face weary and streaked with tears, her nose red. Tiago rises and goes to her, then folds her in a hug. Her shoulders shake, and he holds her. She goes into the kitchen when he releases her, and he returns to me.

“I won’t treat her that way again,” he says. “You’re right.” He meets my eyes, a quick glance before he looks away.

For a second, I thought I saw it. Blatant hope. The desperate prayer that we can be together again.

But I must have been mistaken. Tiago knows I only feel friendship for him. He knows we can’t be anything more.