Chapter Text
Admittedly, all of this situation is Carla's fault.
She got reckless, and she shouldn't have – she was the one keeping them in check. Of course that when she stopped acting as the safety fuse, the mechanism broke. Nobody, and least of all Carla, would expect Samuel to be the one to hold them back.
Carla doesn't know when it happened – when she realized she loved him, when she said it out loud, when she let him kiss her at school when classes were still going on for the first time, when she snuck him into her house while her parents were at home. Somewhere between these occurrences, Carla kind of stopped paying attention and focused on feeling good.
She almost never feels good – only when she's with him. As much as she was stupid, her stupidity was understandable. That doesn't make it any better, though.
Actually, she does know when the real downfall came: when, after Samuel and Marina's relationship crisis got kind of glossed over and Samuel told her, shrugging, sitting on her bed, that the García's and Nunier's wouldn't part in bad blood (or at all), she didn't investigate into what that means for them – all three of them. Just pecked his lips and then let him climb on top of her.
And then, somehow, for whatever reason, decided to randomly tell him she loved him during sex.
So much wrong in just one event. That was when even the last, tiny bits of her rationale flew out of her brain. The worst thing was, after she saw the genuine surprise and uninhibited joy in Samuel's eyes, she decided that it had been worth it.
If she hadn't made these irresponsible decisions, it wouldn't have come to this.
This being, she's fucking Samuel half-dressed in a guest room at a party, and it takes her more than a few seconds and a muffled gasp to realize that someone has opened the door. It's only a theatrical cough that gets her caught up.
"Samuel," she whisper-screams, stands up from him – she was straddling him while he was sitting on a bed – and turns her head to what she already knows is there.
"Carla?" Lu says with a perfect mixture of disgust and shock. She could dub animated characters. "Samuel? What the fuck?"
Not an I'm sorry like a normal person could say after they've stormed into a room without knocking (admittedly, they're at Lu's house, but still). Just, Carla. Jesus, Lu sounded as judgmental as her mother.
Samuel grows about as red as a tomato and mutters something incomprehensible while frantically zipping up his jeans; Carla pulls up her dress, tries to zip it and fails because she can't reach her back, and strikes Lu a so-what look of defiance.
"I'll let you – deal with this," Lu raises her eyebrow mockingly. "But Carla, we're gonna need to talk."
She slams the door and Carla scoffs. Lu and her haven't talked like friends in literal months, they know nothing of each other's current problems, but she has the audacity to act hurt, entitled to know about her affairs that she disapproves of in a snap of fingers.
"Uh," Samuel reminds her of his existence, which she's frankly kind of forgotten about. It's not like he can add anything useful right now. "This could be a problem."
Carla exhales shakily; that's for sure. This could be a massive, huge, horrible problem for her and him and Yeray and Marina and basically everyone else.
But even though Lu and her don't talk anymore, they used to be friends. She's not going to want to completely ruin her life. Right?
"It'll be fine. Lu won't tell anyone," she announces heavily and sits down on the bed.
"I hope so," Samuel gets out just as thickly. "Otherwise, I'm really fucked. We're really fucked."
"Maybe rightfully so," Carla murmurs. So, so stupid. "You know all of this is your fault, right?"
She's not about to admit that it is in fact hers, because she's the one inbetween them who's supposed to have self-control.
"I'm sorry," Samuel utters dryly. "But last time I checked, two people were required to do what we were doing."
"Yeah, sure, whatever," Carla rubs her temple with two fingers. She's not in the mood for a serious nor a half-hearted argument. She has to outline her plan for damage control. "I have to go find Lu."
"I should probably go home," Samuel nods curtly and stands up. "Bye, Carla."
He leaves without saying anything else, let alone a hug or a peck on the lips. It shouldn't be a reason to be disappointed.
Carla's not exactly doing her best with reason. That's why it stings as the door clicks behind him. She has to breathe in and out, purse her lips and remind herself that she has an important mission to take care of.
And that letting loose and concentrating too much on her feelings is exactly what brought her into this mess.
¤
"Does Yeray know?"
Carla sighs. "What do you think, Lu?"
They're both quiet. It was a rhetorical question. Lu sips from a plastic cup – the parties at her house aren't what they used to be – and shakes her head a little. "I just don't get it. Why would you cheat on him with Samuel?"
Carla hears the clear condescension which upsets her more than it should. "Maybe because Samuel isn't insufferable and doesn't treat me like a trophy," she barks.
Lu lifts her eyebrow ever-so-slightly. "Looking for pure, unmaterialistic love?"
"Please. He fucks better," Carla hisses, getting defensive. Too defensive. "And you don't get the right to judge me."
She realizes that this confrontation is absolutely not going according to her damage-control plan, so she backs off. "I mean. It's just complicated. Please, don't tell anyone."
She knows how pleading and desperate she sounded and how fake it was, but it doesn't matter. She needs this.
"I'm not gonna tell anyone," Lu rolls her eyes. "If you tell me whether you are the reason Samuel and Marina broke up."
Carla doesn't know whether Samuel and Marina actually are broken up right now, but she doesn't say that. "It's common knowledge she's been cheating on him with Nano for like two years. That's the only reason," she clenches through her teeth dangerously. "Nobody knows about Samuel and me, and it's gonna stay that way."
"You're so intense," Lu groans. "Jesus. I'm not gonna tell anyone. I promise."
"Thanks," Carla mutters, not trusting herself to look up. She really is a huge bitch. "Thank you, Lu."
She storms out of the room, leans on a wall and lets her breath find its natural pace. That would be it. Crisis averted.
She finds her way to the kitchen, does a shot but it doesn't help. There's still a needy, annoying question tugging on her neurotransmitters.
What are Samuel and Marina, currently?
¤
"Hey."
"Hi."
Okay, this is a little weird. She knows they're both very out of place, taking a walk in the park. It's just not what they do.
It's not what they're doing right now, either. They're not on a date. Carla's here with a purpose.
"Are Marina and you together or not?"
It's not like putting it off will change anything.
Sanuel licks his lip and bites his tongue, almost provocatively. That's usually her specialty, but she doesn't point it out. She just wants her answer, to determine how big of a catastrophe it will be if they get busted. If Lu goes nuts and exposes them with a megaphone yelling from the school roof or something.
Of course, it would be better if Marina and Samuel weren't together, for obvious reasons. This is already a one-way cheating mess, no need to double it (and where Marina is added, it's more like tripling).
There's also a tiny selfish piece of her that wants Samuel to go down with her.
And another, completely unrelated selfish piece that doesn't want Marina and Samuel to be together no matter what.
"Are you jealous?"
"In your dreams," Carla snorts. "I'm on damage control."
Samuel chuckles amusedly. "Sure." He just takes her hand without reason, instead of continuing, and although that is a somewhat feel-good surprise, she's getting impatient.
"Are you together?"
"Define together."
What a smartass. Carla punches him in the chest with their joint hands – now, they're really taking a walk in the park. What a cliché. "Dating. I'm just trying to keep our little faux-pas under the rug, dumbass, so you could maybe answer me."
Something undefinable sparkles in Samuel's eyes. "Officially, yes." He pecks Carla's temple – what the fuck has gotten into him today – and murmurs into her hair: "Practically, no."
Carla pulls away and makes sure that the irony in her voice is overexcessive, so that even the dumbass will get it. "Officially?"
Samuel shakes his head defeatedly, lowers it and explains to the ground: "We're keeping it up in front of our parents."
She snorts. "Don't tell me that they still believe you, after all of that cheating and Nano bullshit was discussed at dinner parties."
"Our parents can be pretty stupid," Samuel points out. "They're experts at living in denial. They think we inherited it from them."
"Isn't it a little far-fetched to pretend just for them to be happy with their business buddies?" Carla argues innecessantly, because she already has her answer.
Samuel chuckles. "Are you really telling me that, Carla?"
She scrapes her lip with her teeth, looks up at him, looks around and then nods curtly. "Fair point. I'm a hypocrite."
"You're not a hypocrite. You're just doing what needs to be done," he says, slides his hand onto her lower back and has her lean on his shoulder. She doesn't protest. "We all are."
¤
Carla feels almost peaceful after waking up the next Monday morning. She wakes up stupidly smiling with a memory of Samuel and her eating ice-cream at the park like the picture-perfect highschool sweethearts they definitely aren't.
She's reminded of that as soon as she steps into Las Encinas and is met with a mixture of all kinds of gazes: condescending, curious, outraged, mocking.
But all on her.
It doesn't take a genius to guess, and exactly three seconds of slight unsurety pass before someone spits in her face: "So, you and Samuel, huh?"
She is going to kill Lucrecia.
And herself, probably, seeing who's approaching her resembling a steam train, practically fuming out of his ears and all rigid, blocky, hard.
"Carla, why are they saying this about you?"
She's positive her head is going to explode. "Not now, Yeray." She tries to put as much meaning into her words as she can, but he's not particularly bright, so she doubts it will work. "Not here."
"Yes, here! They're saying that you and Samuel-"
"What don't you understand about not making a scene?" Carla hisses, pushing herself up into his face. "We will talk about this later."
"Carla!"
She ignores him; she knows it's not a productive solution, but she can't deal with him. She needs to find Lu and push her out of the window to relieve her anger. That absolute fucking bitch. I promise I won't tell anyone. Yeah, sure.
But when she steps though the door of their first-period classroom, Lu isn't there. Who is, though, is a problem that she hasn't considered althogether but she should've.
"So. You've been fucking my boyfriend this whole time?"
God, she hates this tone of voice Marina does. This provocative, sleazy, nonchalant thing. She wants to punch it out of her. (Yes, she's aware that her thoughts are very violent today. It's just that, though; her thoughts. She gives them a pass - finds them reasonable.)
"You've been fucking his brother. Why don't you let Samuel have his share," she retorts coolly. Marina is four levels behind Carla at looking unaffected while her insides are searing. She's going down.
"That doesn't matter! He was still my boyfriend and we are best friends!" Truly, her voice is already in high-pitch. She has zero natural skill for buildup. If you scream all the time, nobody's going to take you seriously with anything you say.
"Are you hearing yourself?" Carla tilts her head, taking a step towards Marina. "So, you can cheat and it's fine, but when someone else does, you're the moral police?"
"We're supposed to be best friends!" Marina fights back fiercely but unsuccessfully. "You don't fuck your friend's boyfriend!"
"You don't want him, he doesn't want you, and you're together just for show. You're fucking someone else but he can't, because – what? You're jealous even though you don't give a fuck about him?" She takes a step closer; Marina's eyes are filled with tears of rage. "You just can't stand the fact that he'd like someone other than you. You have to be adored."
"This isn't about him!" Marina yells into her face, pushing her roughly. It happens so fast that Carla doesn't register what led to her stumbling. "This is about you! We're supposed to be friends! We've known each other since we were babies! You just threw all of that out of the window!"
She's awfully theatrical; it still sends a shap pang of pain through Carla's body.
"Well," she ignores it – is good at it. "Since we don't even tell each other anything anymore, I don't think there was that much to lose." She takes a step back, analyzing Marina's flushed face and burning pupils. "Has anyone seen Lucrecia?"
Upon her classmates' understandable ignorance of her question, she flees the classroom – actually, walks out gracefully, to demonstrate her nonchalance – but once she's out, she doesn't care about the people in the corridors. She needs to get into the bathroom, away from everyone, fast. Calm down.
She doesn't do that, not exactly; she locks herself in a stall and cries. Carla doesn't cry a lot, so she's almost surprised when she feels tears wet her cheeks; it's a kind of out-of-body experience.
"Carla?"
Fuck. Now, this she can't deal with. She considers for a second to just stay hidden in the stall, but she's unfortunately not dumb enough to do that.
"This is a girls' bathroom, Yeray," she hisses, storming out. She knows it's obvious she's been crying, but she doesn't – can't – care. She just needs to get Yeray out, she needs to get away from him, she needs to be somewhere else right now. "I don't wanna talk to you. Get the hell out."
"You don't wanna talk to me?" An explosion of repressed anger: something she's never seen in his interpretation. It's not a pretty sight, the vein on his forehead pulsing, but it's somewhat comforting in the sense that he actually understands something and has a natural reaction to it for once. All this time, Carla's been feeling like she's been dating a robot on an extremely annoying Gutmensch setting. "You cheated on me, but you don't wanna talk to me?"
"Get the fuck out of here, Yeray!" Carla grits her teeth as the bathroom door opens and two girls freeze in the frame like gossip-hungry ice statues. "I'll call you later. We're not doing this here."
"Oh, yes, we're doing this here!" Adrenaline pulses in Carlas veins as he shakes her shoulders – not violently, but enough to feel his grip marking into her skin just a little bit. The hormone rush makes it, at least, possible to forget about what her parents will say after they find out that Yeray won't invest in their company because their lovely daughter's been having an affair with Samuel García Dominguez. In this scenario, he would be the Montegue son if she was a Capulet.
None of that matters as Yeray yells, millimeters from her face, a few droplets of spit landing on her watered down foundation. "Why the fuck would you do that to me? I gave you everything you asked for, I treated you well, I- I just don't know what the fuck I've done wrong, Carla, for you to have to jump onto the first guy you see at a party! Why wasn't what we had enough for you? Why did you have to do that to me?! I never-"
"Yeray, stop," Carla tries to be firm, but it comes out all squeaky and timid. "Please."
He snaps out of his frenzy instantly; she sees the shock in his eyes as he realizes that he's gripping onto her, and his hands jerk away and grab his school uniform blazer. "Shit. I'm sorry, Carla, I- did I hurt you? I didn't-"
"I'm fine," she shakes her head exhaustedly. She hates that rueful face he has, as if she were a porcellain doll that he just stained with his subtle hint of aggression. "I get it, you're upset. You have a right to be."
"I never wanted to hurt you, Carla," he ignores her completely, still mumbling on. "I- But we can fix this, right? I still love you, I mean, if it didn't mean anything, I can get over-"
Something snaps in Carla's brain, the last string that's been holding it together. "You don't love me, Yeray," she whispers with every ounce of the sincerity witheld for months, years, her whole life. "And I certainly don't love you."
"Carla, I'm-"
"No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry because I'm telling you the truth," she interrupts him. The hurt in his eyes makes her feel bad at some level, for sure, but mostly, as she stares into the deep, black holes of despair, she feels astonishingly empty. "We never should've been together. I'm sorry."
"No, Carla-" he starts, but she's already slipping out the door, ignoring the whispers and a video of the whole altrecation obviously being shared among phones.
All that she feels walking through the hallway is an almost unbearable lightness.
¤
Her emotions that day are awkwardly vivid. The shouting fight with Lucrecia (outside during lunch break, at least some distance away from people) where the brunette stubbornly denies, denies and denies opening her loud mouth until double-sided exhaustion.
Eventually, Carla spits in Lu's face that she's not an idiot and she doesn't care why she had done it (truth, lie), and that Lu can go enjoy her life because Carla doesn't give a shit whether she'll be in New York, Africa or hell.
She stops herself at the last one when she sees Lu's eyes flood with tears, but it's too late now. She feels bad about it, but not enough.
She already has two missed calls from her father. Any available empathy and forgiveness is replaced by stark, thick clogs of fear and anxiety in her throat.
"I didn't tell anyone, Carla, but right now, I wanna congratulate whoever did! Because guess what? You're a fucking bitch!" Lu screams, cheeks flushed, and turns away from Carla, her heels getting stuck in the grass as she makes her way to the school building.
Carla watches her back and briefly entertains the idea that Lu was telling her the truth, but she can't spend much time on it. She has to press her lips to stop herself from crying, think about what she's going to tell her father and determine whether her relationship with Yeray is still fixable.
She already knows the answer: it is.
The certainty makes her head spin with nausea. She could (would? will?) go to Yeray and beg for forgiveness with a mixture of emotional blackmail and manipulative seduction. "I didn't know what I was saying. But you and I aren't ones to give up, no?" Bite her lip, smile, look up onto his face full of badly concealed hope.
She sees the way she'll tilt her head and curl her fingers against his bicep while saying it, and it makes her feel physically sick. She feels as if she'd rather eat a thousand cockroaches than do what she knows she's perfectly capable of executing to success.
Whether she'd rather face the wrath of her father is a different question althogether.
"Carla?"
She twitches when she feels Samuel's hand brush her palm. "What do you want?" she fails to sound unaffected. What her voice really encompasses, is: I'm about to cry.
"Are you okay?"
"Ye-"
"You're not," he doesn't even let her finish. "But you-"
"Why are you asking me then if you know the answer?" Carla pays him back for the interruption, but she misses the mark on sour and her tone deviates to pure despair.
"I don't know, I'm kind of an expert at stupid questions," Samuel shrugs, and Carla has to bite her gum to prevent her lip from going up. "Anyway. It's gonna be fine. It'll blow over, and Marina really has no right to say anything to you."
So far, Carla has managed to avoid explicit crying in front of people, but then Samuel gives her a hug and she feels a tear falling down her cheek that she can't stop. "Fuck," she whispers. "I'm so stupid. I knew this would happen."
"If it's about Marina, just don't listen to her. She should be the last one to moralize and criticize people for-"
Although Carla doesn't know what Marina's been saying about her since they only had one dreadful morning lesson together, she can imagine. She shudders a little. "I don't care about Marina. My dad is going to kill me because Yeray will pull back, the company will go bankrupt and my mum's gonna go to jail."
"That's not gonna happen," Samuel's voice clinks with overcofident certainty and Carla wants to hit him.
"Yeah. What would you know?"
"Our parents are never gonna go to jail or go bankrupt because of us," Samuel sighs, still holding her close. Carla knows this is only worsening her situation, but she can't pull away. "They're just manipulating us to make their lives easier. But guess what? When the whole Marina-Nano-me thing was going on, they kept blaming everyone and repeating that everything was ruined, but nothing really happened. Sure, the board meetings were a bit tense and their stocks dipped a little, but it was like a month. Now, everything's back to normal."
"I'm not sure it's gonna continue being normal after they find out about this," she objects quietly.
Samuel pulls away and gives her a questioning look. "They already know." Pause to reaffirm that Carla's confusion is genuine – which it is, Carla's crinkling her eywbrows and her brain is racing to put the puzzle pieces together. "Who do you think Marina told first? Her parents. They called mine this morning."
"What?" Carla finally manages to speak as everything falls into place. "Marina?"
"It wasn't the best family breakfast, let me tell you," Samuel continues rambling, lips in a small mixed-feelings grin. "My mum started yelling at me, my dad tried to calm her down, then they knocked over the eggs, soft-boiled yolks were all over the floor and my dad eventually just told me to go to school before my mum sends me to church to confess my sins. He actually seemed pretty amused-"
"How did Marina find out about us?" Carla interrupts him roughly, not appreciating the film-like comediality of his morning meal.
"Apparently, she saw us at the park," Samuel explains casually, and that really tips Carla over.
She bursts out in miserable laughter. "She saw us talking and assumed we were screwing?"
"Well, she was right," Samuel brushes it off mindlessly, but Carla doesn't see it as an anecdote.
"So, you're telling me, she had no proof. If you'd denied it, none of this would've happened." She searches for discrepancy in his eyes, but all she finds is content affirmation. "But you just admitted it."
"Yeah," Samuel confirms easily, and in that moment, Carla really wants to punch him.
"Yeah?" she mocks, finding it extremely hard to keep her hands to herself and not make contact with Samuel's perfectly content (perfect) face. "Just, yeah? You just said it without a fight?"
"What do you want from me, Carla?" Samuel asks, his calm, quiet tone in stark contrast with her second-by-second growing aggravation. "I didn't think it would help anything. With Lu knowing, people would find out sooner or later, so when my parents directly asked me, I just didn't think that it made sense to lie anymore."
"Because you're not with Marina anymore, so it's only gonna fuck up my life? That's why it's not important anymore?" Carla reiterates coldly, finding her solid ground again. Two public hysterical scenes at school were enough for today (with a bonus private one); she doesn't need another one, and she definitely won't be the one to cause it.
Samuel shrugs, unaware of her mental thought process being the only reason why she isn't demonstrating her frustration physically. "No. Because I want to be with you."
It disarms her. She idiotically opens and closes her mouth like a goldfish with an IQ of 7, and can't think of a single thing to respond.
"And I want to stop hiding," Samuel continues, probably set to take full advantage of the time she isn't voicing her irritations. "So that's why I didn't lie. I want everyone to know that we're together."
"Oh, please," Carla snorts, only finding the oldest, most overused line in the back of her brain, but give her a break; she's momentarily startled. "We're not together."
"Of course we are," Samuel shakes his head blissfully. "It'll be especially convenient now, since everyone will talk shit about us for a little while. It's better to be in it with someone."
"So," Carla finally manages to form a coherent thought, "You want us to publicly date. You want to be my boyfriend."
Maybe it's not the brightest thought-process, but baby steps are necessary in this situation. Samuel's grin widens. "Exactly," he confirms. "And, because of the argument I provided, I think it'd be pretty good for you to accept."
It flashes through Carla's brain briefly that dating idiots seems to be kind of her thing while she kisses her teeth and utters: "I guess so."
"So, it's official, we're stuck together now," Samuel repeats contendedly, and grins at her like she's the most desired toy and he's a five-year-old who's found her under the tree on Christmas.
"Yep," Carla affirms flatly, not showing a hint of emotion. "I guess."
Samuel pulls her closer to himself and kisses the top of her head, and only then, she decides to look up, smile at him and nod.
It's not that she wouldn't be able to hold the smile back, unlike so many of her outbursts that day (she's made enough scenes for a fucking millenium). She's finally snapped back into her perfectly-composed ways, knowing that she'll be able to face both Marina and Lu.
(Fuck, Lu. That's gonna be a huge problem.)
Anyway, the smile that she gives him is hundred-pecentedly a decision; one made merely to benefit Samuel. It's the most valuable reason to smile – in order to cause someone else to do so.
The way his eyes glow, his lip curls and his mouth finds its way onto hers makes her effort successful and her nervous.
"People are coming here for break," she mutters lowly, spotting a few clusters making their way over the bridge.
"Let them stare," Samuel murmurs, resuming the kiss.
So, Carla does.
She's officially dating an idiot now. She's gonna have to start getting used to this.