“Titi, what on earth is wrong? What are you talking about?”
Tia shook her head. “You’ll be so disappointed in me, Juju, if I tell you. And right now, I can’t lose you too.” She began to sob uncontrollably.
“You love him, don’t you?” Julieta breathed into Tia’s hair as she held the younger girl close.
“With all my heart!” After a pause, “But it doesn’t matter. Because I can’t have him.”
“I think you’re wrong. The boy that just left here was completely willing to give you himself. You could have him and the world at your feet for the asking, I think.”
Tia shook her head. Juju didn’t understand. How could she? She was still pure, untouched. She had waited for her Prince Charming. And she had found him too.
Too bad Tia hadn’t waited for hers. Snow White. How ironic that Tae had impersonated Snow White, of all the Disney heroes. Just another reminder of her own shame.
“Titi, I’m your big sister. I will always be in your corner, no matter what you do. What happened?”
Tia felt like she was going to puke. Her heart was racing, and she broke out in a sudden sweat. Even her palms were getting clammy. She wiped them on her pants. “I don’t want to tell you, Juju.”
“I know, but I think you need to.”
Tia swallowed. “You-you promise you won’t be disappointed in me, Juju?”
Julieta sighed. She doubted it was as bad as Tia thought. Occasionally, Tia overdramatized certain things. “I promise.”
In a rush, Tia mumbled her thought, the last word resembling a keyboard smash more than an actual word, “I’m not a vrgn.”
“What? You’re not a what?” Julieta craned her head towards Tia as though that would help her understand the unintelligible.
“Virgin,” she whispered.
Julieta’s eyes grew wide. This was worse than she’d thought. Tia had lost her virginity and not told her? When? Julieta was instantly very upset because she could tell how much this had weighed on Tia’s heart and mind, and she had never shared it. She’d been carrying it around alone all this time. How long? And who? Who on earth could she possibly have slept with? She’d never even had a boyfriend. This went from bad to worse. It must have been a one-night stand when she was vulnerable. Was it right after their parents died? Julieta’s eyes grew wider with horror. She hoped Tia hadn’t been thirteen then! It must have been just awful, the way she was acting. She’d been a baby then! Before Julieta’s vivid imagination could run away with her, Tia came to her rescue.
“It was just once, Juju! And I regretted it immediately. I didn’t love him. He didn’t love me. There were no promises between us. It was the biggest mistake of my life!” Tears sprang to her eyes again.
Julieta looked at her baby sister, her own heart breaking for this sweet girl who had also been through so much pain. Julieta hadn’t been there for her. She’d hidden herself away in her ice castle, unable to help her younger sister, the one who had always hidden her pain so well. This was an ache that was now crushing Julieta. “I wasn’t there for you. You couldn’t come to me,” she whispered.
Tia’s eyes flew to her face. “What? No! Julieta, this was in no way your fault!”
“How can you say that? Of course, it was! You were looking for someone to numb your pain, to silence the echoes of their deaths,” she thought of their parents, “to share your burdens. It should have been me, but when they died, I was so devastated that I shut everyone out, including you. And this is the result. Oh, Tia, I am so sorry!” Julieta burst into tears.
Tia clung to her sister. “It’s ok, Juju.”
“No, it’s not. Because it’s stopping you from being with Tae.” She paused to consider it. “Do you really believe Tae would push you away because you’re no longer a virgin?”
“No. But I want him to have the best. And clearly, it’s not me.”
Anger burned through Julieta. “Tia! That is not true! You are the best person I know!”
Tia turned sad eyes towards Julieta’s face. When their eyes locked, they were both crying. “But it is true, Juju. I’m pretty sure Tae has saved himself for his wife. So he deserves a wife that waited for him.”
“Even if he loves another precious girl who was so broken she made a mistake one night?” Julieta paused. “When, Titi? Who?”
“Rodrigo.”
“No!” Julieta had never liked that guy. He’d mooned over her sister for two years, but she’d always felt like he was just after Tia’s body, not her heart or mind. Apparently – sadly – she’d been right.
Tia nodded. “I was seventeen. You-you’d gone to stay at Martina’s house that night. He-he showed up to return a book.”
Julieta was blazing mad now. “The heck he did!”
Tia was startled by Julieta’s anger. “What?” Her sister was usually so mild-mannered.
“He knew I wasn’t going to be home that night.” As Tia had spoken, a scene from long ago had popped into Julieta’s mind. “On my way to Martina’s that night, I stopped at a store to pick up some snacks. I bumped into him. He asked me what all the snacks were for, and I told him I was going to Martina’s. He must have made a beeline for our house. Oh, Titi, this is all my fault!”
Anger rose like steam and shot throughout Tia’s nerves, making her want to punch something. “Don’t you dare, Julieta! Don’t you dare make this about you! Don’t you dare blame yourself for this! I made this choice! I gave in to him! Me!”
“Yes, but he wouldn’t have come that night if I hadn’t—”
“You don’t know that! You did nothing wrong! I might have made the same mistake another night! I was hurting so badly. I-I considered taking my own life.”
“Oh, Titi!” Julieta hugged her close. “I don’t care how bad things ever get, promise me – PROMISE ME – you will come to me. You will tell me. You won’t ever harm yourself. You’ll never leave me. Tia, I couldn’t live with myself if you did. Promise me.”
Julieta was staring intently into her eyes. Tia responded just as forcefully, “I will promise you that if you will swear that you won’t ever blame yourself again for my choices.”
Eyes of fire fenced with cool jade. Finally, Julieta nodded. “All right.”
“Juju, the past is past. We can’t live back there anymore.”
“Neither one of us, Titi. You need to tell Tae.”
Tia’s heart jolted.
“I know it’s going to take some courage, but you can do it. He needs to know. At the very least, you owe him that truth if you’re going to walk away from him forever.”
Forever. That was a long time. Could she do it? Could she resist Tae if he kept pursuing her even after she told him the truth? Did she love him enough to give him an untarnished life with someone else?
