Look, I was at rock bottom. Socially, spiritually, and sartorially fucked. I had strutted into American college looking like I was auditioning for a Daddy Yankee tribute band, and the locals had noticed. Big time.
"Ay, Dios mío, I hate my fucking life," I muttered into my pillow.
So naturally, I did what any desperate Spanish teenager marooned in suburban America would do. You'd do the same, ¿verdad? Claro que sí. I called Francisco.
Francisco was that guy back in Leganés. You know the type—shirt permanently off, hair always gelled to perfection, convinced he's the hottest thing to happen to planet Earth since the invention of the air fryer. He's the kind of tío who wears sunglasses indoors and uses cologne like it's fucking bug spray. I still don't know how this cabrón managed to look good even after failing to break through in football while the rest of us mere mortals struggled with basic hygiene.
The video call connected. Boom—there he was, shirtless on his bed like a low-budget telenovela actor, flexing without even trying.
"¡Hugo, mi rey!" he said, grinning like he'd just won a game he wasn't even playing.
"I looked like a complete payaso, Paco," I said, my voice cracking like I was going through puberty again. "They laughed. They fucking cackled. I was the punchline and I didn't even know the fucking joke."
Francisco blinked, suddenly serious. "¿Qué llevabas puesto?"
"You know. My skinny jeans. The good button-up. Those leather shoes Tía Camela gave me for my birthday."
He winced so hard I thought he'd pulled a neck muscle. "Madre de Dios, hermano, were you applying for a bank loan or trying to get laid?"
"I thought I looked... suave."
"You looked Spanish. Which is perfecto if you're in España. But over there? You need to dial it down, tío. Think: effortless. Casual. But like, cool casual. Not homeless casual."
He grabbed his phone, flipped the camera, and started scrolling through photos like I was enrolled in a crash course called How to Not Embarrass Your Entire Bloodline 101.
"First of all," he said, pointing at the screen, "lose the leather shoes. You're not a 45-year-old divorciado with a motorcycle crisis."
I nodded solemnly. A man must know when to let go. Hugo's Rule Number 13.
"And cologne? Two sprays, cabrón. Two. Not six. We want intrigue, not chemical warfare."
Then he pulled up a pic of some influencer I'd never heard of.
"This is what the girls like now. Loose jeans, oversized tee, maybe a flannel tied around the waist like you're too cool to actually wear it. Messy hair, like you just woke up—but on purpose. Lamine Yamal style, ¿entiendes?"
"So... the goal is to look like I don't give a shit, while caring very much?"
"Exactamente. Welcome to modern masculinity, hermano."
By the end of the call, I had a shopping list, a full-blown identity crisis, and the unsettling realization that I'd just taken fashion advice from a man who owns more crop tops than any straight guy should legally possess.
But still... I trusted him. Francisco had never steered me wrong before. And maybe, just maybe, tomorrow would be better. If not, I could always become a monk or transfer to Canada. They probably appreciate European fashion in Canada, ¿no?
Sí, I knew exactly what to do. This time I wasn't going to be the laughing stock of Westbridge University. I was ready for day two. Ready to conquer this place like some kind of reformed Spanish conquistador armed with Francisco's fashion wisdom and a healthy dose of denial about today's disaster.
I had it all planned out. Baggy jeans—check. Oversized t-shirt that made me look effortlessly cool instead of like I was trying to seduce someone's grandmother—check. Hair that looked like I'd rolled out of bed but actually took me twenty minutes to perfect—perfecto. I was going to walk into that campus and show everyone that Hugo González wasn't just some overdressed European reject.
And then the Isabel thoughts came flooding back like a fucking tsunami of teenage hormones and bad decisions. I was standing in my room, hyping myself up in the mirror like some kind of motivational speaker, when I decided to open the curtain and look out at the night. Maybe get some inspiration from the American suburban landscape or some shit. But there was her house, right across from mine, and her bedroom light was glowing like a beacon of all my romantic failures.
You know what's fucked up? My room was on the top floor, directly opposite hers. Perfect stalker setup, gracias to whatever perverted architect designed this neighborhood. Like they planned it specifically for awkward international students to accidentally become creeps.
I wasn't trying to look, I swear. I was just... existing near a window. But then I saw movement, and like an idiot, I looked.
"Mierda, she's looking right at me," I panicked, freezing like a deer in headlights. And then—¡joder santo!—she flipped me off. Just straight up gave me the middle finger like I was some creepy neighbor pervert who spent his evenings collecting restraining orders.
My brain immediately went into overdrive. "Wait, why the hell was her curtain open in the first place?" I started spinning conspiracy theories like some kind of lovesick detective. "She had to know I could see her from here. Ohhhhh, this chica always looks at me! She wants me to see her! This is like some kind of sexual tension thing, ¿verdad?"
I slammed my curtain shut like it was on fire and I was afraid of getting burned.
"¡Cristo bendito!" I shouted at my empty room, "Now she thinks I'm some kind of voyeur. Hugo the fucking window stalker."
Perfect. Just what I needed to add to my growing reputation as Westbridge's resident weirdo. Tomorrow's campus gossip would probably be: "Spanish creep watches Mexican girl through window like some telenovela villain. Also wears too much cologne and thinks he's in a music video."
I started pacing around my room like a caged animal, running my hands through my messy hair. This was exactly the kind of shit that would follow me for the rest of college. I'd be known as the pervert exchange student who couldn't keep his eyes to himself.
But when you think things can't get more jodido, when you're convinced the universe has officially declared war on your sanity, life decides to grab you by the balls and squeeze until you scream. Because that's when Laura knocked on my door.
Well, "knocked" is generous. She basically tapped twice and then walked right in like she owned the place. Because apparently privacy is a concept this family has never fucking heard of, and my door might as well be made of tissue paper for all the respect it gets.
She was wearing one of those oversized hoodies that somehow made her look both innocent and dangerous at the same time. Her dark brown hair was down, and she had that look in her green eyes—the same look from the towel incident that had been haunting my dreams and making me avoid eye contact during family dinners.
She knew I'd been dodging her for days. Hell, she probably had a whole strategy planned out, because American girls are scary smart when they want something. And the way she was looking at me said she was done playing games, done pretending like nothing had happened between us.
And honestly? After the day I'd had, after being humiliated in front of the entire campus, after accidentally becoming a window pervert in the span of five minutes, I needed some kind of relief. Some way to feel like I wasn't a complete failure at everything involving the opposite sex.
Don't judge me. You'd probably make the same stupid decision if you were eighteen, horny, and convinced that your life was turning into a cautionary tale about cultural exchange gone wrong.
"Laura," I said, my voice coming out rougher and more desperate than I intended. "Perfect timing. Close the door."
Because sometimes when you're already at rock bottom, when you've hit every possible level of social suicide, you figure you might as well grab a shovel and keep digging until you reach the center of the fucking earth. At least then nobody could see you making terrible decisions.