I got a knot in my throat.
There were things I wanted to say. Painful things that have forced me to hide. But I was sixteen, afraid and I was embarrassed that had never belonged to me.
Then I looked down and whispered:
- No.
The next morning, Daniel was gone. When I woke up, his place on the bed was empty.
At first, I thought he was gone. I waited. The minutes passed. Then the hours. Nobody came.
Finally, the door opened.
There was no Daniel.
It was his mother.
I was standing on the threshold, dressed in a dark dress, with a cold look and a smile that froze my blood.
“Where’s Daniel?” I asked.
He slowly approached.
“She left.
– Is he gone? Why?
He looked at me like I was dirty.
“Because he
She knows,” she said. “He knows you haven’t been ‘clean.’”
The room started to circle around me.
That night, the whole town was talking about it.
Daniel had told everyone that I was not a virgin. He said he’d lied to him. That he had disgraced him. That I had infiltrated his family by hiding the truth from him.
People whispered my name on the street. Women looked at me with contempt. The men looked away with morbid curiosity. Mothers kept their daughters away from me, as if my pain was contagious.
