Chapter 4 - Disillusionment

EVERY TIME Kelly came back from the coast with her skin darker from the sun, she was incredibly excited to tell me the details of what was going on there and usually, Mondays were full of news for me. Her teenage cousins took several friends to her family's summer house and there, all sorts of “grown-up parties” used to happen, right in my friend's eyes.

"They get naked in front of me." And they do a lot of naughty things. Its cool!

Kelly began to tell me everything that happened at those weekend “meetings” at the beach and those confidences became our main topic for a long time. Like me, she was starting to become curious about her own sexuality and it was exciting to hear her talk about all the social detachment her cousins had when they were alone.

— Sometimes they get high with the mixtures they make with cachaça, vodka and other drinks. Lose the total row! They dance until the wee hours of the morning, smoke, have sex… it's all crazy!

I led a very ordered and square life without any kind of adventure at that time. I hardly ever travelled, I didn't know any place beyond São Paulo and I had only been to the beach in my childhood, a long time ago. I was easily impressed and my mouth fell open with the stories my friend always brought back from that summer house. Lacking emotions of my own, I was content to know that the girl was having the time of her life for both of us.

Things progressed quickly as Kelly's visits to the south coast became more frequent and over the years, she began to not only watch, but also participate in the sexual relations between the cousins and their perverted friends. With each new “status update”, she would come to me all excited to tell and I would just listen.

— You won't believe this, Nicole! I got laid for the first time!

At the rate things were going, that wouldn't take long to happen, but I was surprised by the news anyway.

— Caracas! Serious? Did you lose your virginity? And how it was? Did it hurt?

“Actually, it was only part of it. I just gave my little hole — and she laughed, blushing with embarrassment afterwards —, but that already counts as the first time, right? It was with my cousin Henrique. He has a really big dick and he put almost everything inside me!

Kelly had been initiated into one of the drinking parties that the Schneider's promoted and she had sex with her cousin again, making those incestuous relationships commonplace in her life. With each new adventure, she confided in me everything in detail during break time and when the thirty minutes between classes became too little for our secret conversations, I began to visit her frequently in the apartment where she lived with her mother to gossip.

We quickly became addicted to talking about sex, and that was the first time I realized that life had much more in store for me than just studies, grades, and midterms.

Our class at school was concise and consisted of twenty or so students within an environment that held thirty. We received all classes in the same room every day and a group of five teachers took turns with the most basic subjects of Elementary School.

I had no trouble learning anything I was taught and was, in a way, envied by other girls in the class who saw Kelly and me as rivals they wanted to outdo.

She and I weren't so popular when the issue went beyond the knowledge acquired during teaching and we weren't the most desired for our specific physical attributes — aka, ass and chest — in the eyes of sporty kids. We had become known around the halls as the “nerds” and that kind of put the suitors off us.

When it came to socializing, Kelly was even more aloof than I was, especially when it came to people in our age group, and she rarely gave a leash to any boy who even dared bring up a conversation with us in the courtyards and corridors of Dom Pedro II. Despite this, I wanted to exchange ideas with the most handsome boys in school, but the reputation of being an “intelligent blonde” made me practically inaccessible to them.

During those first years at the new school, the only boy who even interested me in getting to know him in depth was called Paulo André and he was part of the class's soccer team. He was certainly the most beautiful in the whole room, he had brown skin, brown eyes and a prince charming's square jaw that left me in awe.

Like Kelly, he had started to be part of the group only from the sixth year and I didn't know him as well as other boys on the team. We had never exchanged a single word, until the day when he, in passing, bumped into my wallet and accidentally knocked over my pen case.

"Don't you watch where you're going?"

I had been angry to see my colored pens strewn across the floor and hadn't even noticed who had bumped into my seat. When I saw him gently bend down to pick up my things and give them back to me, our eyes met for a moment and I felt ashamed for having been so stupid to him.

“I'm sorry, Nic. It was an accident.

He had called me by the nickname that most usually only Kelly used in the room and that made me slightly euphoric.

After that quick moment inside the classroom, Paulo approached me during one of the breaks between the first three classes and the last two and brought up some subject. Kelly was with me at the time and was slightly disturbed by the boy's approach to us on one of the patio's concrete benches.

— Will you be in the stands at the winter championship final on Sunday?

Paulo André was one of the most talented players on the sixth year futsal team and practically had a legion of ardent fans who sighed just to see him playing with his legs out on the court. The same girls who hated me and Kelly for being too smart would give a front tooth to have that opportunity we were both getting to have some laid-back halftime chat with the boy.

"We weren't invited," I replied, slightly disconcerted to be talking to him, "and then, I think there will be enough people here to cheer for your futsal team...

Kelly was serious-faced and barely making eye contact with the boy next to me on the bench. She took her boxed juice in small sips and demonstrated by her posture that she was bored with that subject.

“It would be really nice if you two came to see me play on Sunday. Everyone says that you never leave your bubble, that you never mix…

— “Everybody” who? ' I asked, interested.

“Oh, you know… everyone!

We had good relationships with most of our classmates, but I knew that our popularity came down to good grades on our report cards and not our ability to blend in. I didn't want to be known as the snob and decided to accept Paulo's invitation without first consulting Kelly. She got mad at me.

- You are crazy? — she asked me some time after our conversation in the courtyard with the sports boy — On Monday we're going to have that super-difficult History test on the Regency Period and you're going to want to take your weekend study time to watch it to a football game?

Kelly had fun with her cousins, the beach, the sun and the sea. I had nothing but high school and I was frank with her:

— I can study on Saturday, and besides, I'm not trying to clip your wings when you say you're going down to the coast with your cousins on test week. Why would you want to do this to me just because I want to see a boy playing ball?

We had never argued before, but that conversation made Kelly realize that she was being selfish in wanting my existence to be reduced to being her supporting role.

The following Sunday, I asked my mother for permission before a shift at the hospital and she replied that she would allow me to go to school on one condition:

— If it's with Kelly, I'll let you out of the house to watch that championship, otherwise, you can settle your little ass in your room.

My mother trusted Kelly a lot because of our daily coexistence and also because she knew that Claudia was not one to allow her daughter to waste time with nonsense. Unfortunately for me, my friend wasn't in the mood to watch football games at all and I had to use all my powers of persuasion on the phone.

"Please, man!" I never asked you for anything in my life. If you don't go with me, my mother will forbid me to go!

“It's just a football game, Nicole,” she answered in a grudging voice, “every weekend is there!

— Yeah, but Paulo André only invited me to watch this one. I need to go. Please!

It was a struggle to convince her, but in the end, I won.

Kelly and I arrived at Dom Pedro II's multi-sport gym around two o'clock in the afternoon, with express recommendations from our mothers that we return home by nineteen at the latest.

The bleachers were very full at the time and I recognized a bunch of students from our class sitting in a row cheering for the team that entered the court. The winter championship took place every year and used to ignite the sporting rivalry between the college classes, from fifth to eighth grades of Elementary. High school folks used to compete in their own category run by the night PE teachers, but even their older students were filling the seats around us.

"Look at your boyfriend!"

Kelly had agreed to accompany me, but she was in one hell of a bad mood next to me. He casually pointed to the boy wearing a red soccer uniform between the four lines of the court below and I replied:

“Stop the story. He is not my boyfriend!

During the game, I noticed that Paulo André was even better with the ball at his feet than people said, and I found myself rooting for him in high spirits. The noise in the stands was almost frightening and I had never seen such a vivid manifestation of joy in one place. That was the first sporting event I attended and I was loving it.

At a certain point in the first half of the match, Paulo scored a great goal kicking hard from the entrance to the area marked in white on the floor and even Kelly clapped her hands, although without much enthusiasm. He ran towards the ball in the back of the net, still enjoying the cheers of his teammates and crowd surrounding his display of skill, and as he walked back closer to the center circle, he waved to someone who was taking a seat in the middle of the stands. , along with the crowd.

I craned my neck in the direction he was pointing and saw a girl with long curly black hair bouncing excitedly, responding to his wave from the court with kisses. I had never seen her anywhere and I didn't even know who she was, but at that moment, I felt all my enthusiasm for being there wither and I was left with a taste of disappointment in my mouth.

Kelly noticed that I had been upset because of my body language, but she didn't spare me the comment full of irony:

"Looks like your boyfriend already has a girlfriend."

Paulo André had never given me any hope or even sent me signs that he had any romantic interest in me. He had only called me personally to honor him on the court during a football game, but in my innocent mind, that was my first love disappointment in my life.