Brazilians like to take life slow. We eat, play games, and sit around. Usually I go to Tiago’s house because there is not much to do at Grandfather’s house. But today he catches me by surprise by coming over to Grandpa’s while I’m eating breakfast.

“What do you want to do today?” he asks.

“Not sit here,” I say. “I’ve been here five days and don’t feel like I’ve done anything.”

“We can go to the beach,” he says. 

I make a face. “We did that yesterday.” I peel down the shoulder of my shirt and twist my neck to look at the exposed skin. “I think I’m burned.” There’s a redness to the brown color.

“Looks like it. Like raw meat.”

I scowl at him. “Thanks. That’s appealing.”

He laughs. “We can walk to the park.”

Walking sounds good. “How far is it?”

“About twenty minutes.”

I push away from the table. “Let me get my shoes.”

We walk side by side down the cracked sidewalk, stepping over dog poop and around piles of trash brushed off the cobblestone street. All of the houses are concealed behind concrete walls with broken glass stashed along the top to deter intruders. 

“I want to live in one of those someday,” Tiago says, pointing out the high-rise apartments in front of us. 

“An apartment?” I wrinkle my nose. “I’d much rather have a house.”

“Because you grew up in a nice house. My house is small and simple. The condos are clean and big and safe. Better than houses.”

“I suppose.” It’s hard for me to imagine an apartment beating your own private residence.

“They are very expensive, though. I have to get a good job to buy one.”

“What will you do?”

He shrugs. “I think I’ll go to university to study engineering. And then—I don’t know. What did you study?”

“I’m majoring in English.”

“What will you do with it?”

I get this question a lot, and it uneases me because I have no answer. “I don’t know. Everyone expects me to be a teacher, but I don’t like little kids, so I don’t think so.”

“So will you have kids?”

“Oh, yes.” I laugh. “Of course. One day.” I picture my friend Riley as she held her new baby, the maternal expression on her face, the softness of that new life. “I was there when Riley had her baby, Tiago, and it was the coolest thing. So amazing. It made me excited for someday.”

“You will be a great mother.”

“I hope, right? No one knows until they actually become one.” I glance at him and find him looking at me. He looks away as if caught doing something inappropriate, and I pretend not to notice.

 I wonder what else I’m pretending.

“What about you?” I ask. “Kids in the future?”

“Yes. One, maybe two.”

Now I look away. I remember talks like this we used to have, only they involved us as a couple, our children. Wondering who they’d look like. 

I was younger and stupider then, but at this moment, I don’t feel any wiser.

“Tell me more about school,” he says, filling the silence that fell between us. “Any raging parties where you got drunk?”

We turn the corner, and there’s a park up ahead. I wrinkle my nose as we walk past an open canal that reeks of sewage. A man covered in dust and not much else stretches out in front of the gate leading to the park, and Tiago takes my elbow and steers me around him.

I cast him an amused look. The idea of me touching alcohol . . . “Nope. Still an alcoholic virgin.”

He smirks. “I gave that up a long time ago.”

“Oh, I know.”

He leads me to a bench beneath a giant tree with long branching arms and dangling tufts of leaves that remember hair more than plants. He settles back, resting on his hands, the overhead sun dappling his face as he blinks up at the sky. 

“Did you date a lot?”

“Yep.” My face warms. “Nothing serious happened, though.”

“At least you had fun.”

“I did.” I don’t regret it, not any of it. 

“Did you like any of them?”

“One.” I pull out my phone again and flip through the pictures until I find another of Jared, this time in our kitchen, sitting on the couch by the fish tank. Justin and Iris sit beside him, grinning at the camera. I point to him. “Jared.”

“You dated?”

“We did. But I cut things off.”

“Why?”

“Because of Owen.” His name whispers out of me, hushed, reverent, afraid of the injury it might cause upon its serrated exit.

There’s a long silence. I blink at my phone, willing back any evidence of emotional damage.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Tiago finally asks.

I exhale and straighten my shoulders before looking at him. “It’s weird that you’re asking.”

“Why?” But he must know, because he grins. “I was there through your whole break up.”

His grin breaks my mood, and I laugh, shoving his shoulder. 

“You caused our break up!”

He didn’t. It was my fault. But he takes it. 

He shrugs. “You got back together.”

I turn back to my phone, but his teasing about such painful subjects makes me feel close to him, he who was a friend and confidant. “Owen and I got back together, and we broke up, and we got back together, and we broke up, and we got back together, and we broke up. I lost track of how many times. The last time we got back together, Owen wanted us to be committed, to keep an eye on our future. But that didn’t work either. We are not getting back together.”

I say it so stoically that I almost manage to get it out with no reaction. But my voice hitches in the last sentence.

We are not getting back together.

I’m still trying to convince myself.

“When was that?” Tiago asks.

“February.” My heart throbs as if swollen, and I look down at the dirt beneath the bench as the memory of that break up flashes through me. “I went to Louisiana to see him for his birthday.”

We were closer than we’d ever been.

He ended us the next day.

“And he broke up with you?” Tiago sounds ready to be angry on my behalf.

I lift my face. “It was more complicated than that. He knew he was leaving for two years. He wanted to be friends, but I—” I shake my head. “I was done. I told him I couldn’t be. That was the last time we talked.”

“You didn’t speak again?”

“I blocked his number and then deleted it.”

Tiago takes both of my hands and cradles them in his own, gently. His dark brown eyes meet mine. 

“I know what you felt. It’s how I felt after you left Brazil two years ago.”

I pull my hands away and turn my gaze to the trees. I don’t want to talk about what happened between me and Tiago. That can of worms is long buried. No need to dig it up and open it. I keep talking as if Tiago hasn’t spoken.

“I wasn’t a super pleasant person to be around after the break up. But Jared stuck by me. I almost didn’t realize I felt more than friendship until we said goodbye. Then—” I smile wistfully. This memory is sweet. “He kissed me.” I focus on him. “And you?” I arch an eyebrow. “Have you managed to date other girls?”

He hesitates, and then he gives a strained smile. “Yeah. I’ve gone on dates.”

“Anyone special?”

“Maybe.” He shrugs. “Not yet. We will see.”