Camilo
- Part One -
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I remember when I first saw Elizabeth. Well, actually, I don’t. It must’ve been in eighth grade. That’s when she arrived at our school. I had heard about her and everything, but she wasn’t in my class. She wasn’t very remarkable, either, I guess. But I must have first seen her in the halls, or something.
I do remember when I first met her. How could I not? This year, we got put in the same class. Neither one of us was very familiar with the rest of our classmates, apparently, and we were stuck pairing up for the first assignment of the year, in French. We had to write a short text about each other and present it in front of the class.
“Vous pouvez décrire l’apparence de votre camarade, mentionner ses origines, et parler de ses intérêts, ses passe-temps et ce qu’il ou elle a fait pendant les vacances,” instructed our teacher.
We had to sit together to discuss with our partner, so I went and sat with her.
“So, um, your name is Elizabeth, right?”
“Yeah. And yours is Camilo.”
I noticed my name already written down on an otherwise blank lined paper on her desk. Her handwriting was pretty. “Y-yeah.”
“So, where are you from?” she asked, pencil ready to add more information on me.
“Peru.” She swiftly wrote my answer down. “You?” I added.
“Oh, my dad’s Canadian and my mom’s Chilean.”
“Seriously?”
She looked up at me, smiling a bit. “Yeah. Do you speak Spanish?”
“Oh, uh, not much, actually. I actually kind of suck at it. I’m just used to hearing it and understanding it, but I don’t really speak it often or well...”
“For real?” she exclaimed. “Me too. Like, exactly the same. I’m just used to understanding what my mom says, but I’m really bad at speaking it.”
I laughed softly. “Really? It’s the first time I meet someone else with that, like, specific situation.”
“Yeah, that’s so weird.” Her smile had become ten times brighter. She seemed to be someone actually pretty outgoing, in that moment. Certainly compared to me. I wondered why she might not have any friends in our class.
“A-anyway, we should probably, umm...”
“Yeah, right, um, so...” She thought for a second. “What do you like doing in your free time, or whatever?”
“I guess, uh. Gaming, talking to friends, or whatever.”
“Oh, really? I don’t see you with friends that often, though.” She paused for a second. “Uh, I mean, like, from the few times I saw you, like last year, uhh...”
“Yeah, I guess I don’t have many close friends here. I mean online, I talk to friends a lot.”
“Ohhh, okay.” She stared down at her paper for a few seconds, suddenly less talkative. “Sorry, for saying that. It was kind of a weird thing to say.”
“It’s fine, no worries.”
Elizabeth glanced up at me and then back to her paper. “So, you said… Wait, how do you say ‘gaming’ in French?”
“No idea.”
“Wouldn’t it be, like, ‘jouer à des jeux vidéo’?” She didn’t have much of a French accent, somehow. “It’s kind of long, though. I don’t like it,” she added, more to herself than to me. “Oh, whatever,” she sighed, finally, writing my answer down in French.
I was starting to feel bad that I wasn’t writing anything down, myself. Thing is, I didn’t think I would need to bring any material to our first class, and had nothing to work with. I had abstained from asking her to lend me anything, though, because… Well, I guess I just didn’t feel like imposing. But I wasn’t sure how I could retain the information she would be giving me from this point on, so…
“Do you have an extra paper?” I forced out, nervous.
“Oh, um, I think so, yeah.” She rummaged through her stuff, taking a loose leaf of paper from her binder and handing it to me.
“Thanks,” I managed to respond. “Uh...”
“Oh, you need a pencil, too?” She searched through her pencil case. “Pen or pencil?”
“I don’t mind.”
She handed me a pencil. I took it, glad she didn’t mind. Or maybe she did, internally. I couldn’t help but feel bad about it anyway.
I started writing down her name on the paper, and underneath… How do you say ‘Chilean and Canadian’ in French? My grip tightened on her pencil. She was silent. Was she waiting for me to finish? I didn’t dare look up. Swallowing hard, I wrote ‘Chilien et Canadien’, just to get it over with.
“You have to use the feminine form, and the capitals aren’t necessary.”
So she was watching. My throat tightened. “Oh, right...” Trying to stop shaking or at least hoping she wouldn’t notice, I erased what I wrote and corrected myself.
“Sorry. I’m really bad at French.”
“Oh, no, it’s just that I speak it, so.”
I looked up at her, surprised. “Really?”
“Yeah, my dad taught me. He’s Quebecois.”
“Then this class must be a breeze for you, then.”
“Yeah, sort of,” she mumbled, shyly. “I don’t like to admit it, though, ‘cause it’s still not my first language, and I don’t want the teacher to expect too much of me if he finds out...”
“I see, that makes sense. I won’t mention it in the presentation, then.”
She smiled softly. “Thanks, Camilo.”
For the rest of the period, we discussed everything the teacher wanted us to. I found out she likes drawing and studies a lot in her free time as well. Apparently, she had gone to spend time with her mom’s family in Chile for a good part of the summer, then went camping with her dad and paternal grandfather over in Quebec.
Later, at lunch, while checking my phone, I noticed a new notification from Instagram. It was a new follow request. It’s true that Elizabeth had talked to me about posting her art on Instagram, and I had said I was interested in seeing it, but she had never given me her username for me to find her account. I guessed that she had probably found mine just by looking up my name and checking that I was following some other students at our school, and decided to follow me.
Unlike me, she hadn’t put her full name anywhere on her profile, though. It seemed more like an art account than a personal account, really. The name associated to her account was “Lizzie”, which reassured me that it was really her before I accepted her request and followed her back.
I then skimmed through her posts. The fact that her drawings were amazing hit me basically instantly. I was almost stunned with how cool her art was. I, for sure, could never produce anything at that level.
I ran into her again right before our last period, Math, waiting outside our classroom. She spotted me from afar and saved me the stress of having to approach her first.
“Hey, Camilo, did you see my follow request?”
“Yeah, I did. Your art is really nice.”
She smiled widely. “Thank you so much! Also, I was wondering, do you have Discord?”
“Oh, yeah, I do.”
“Cool, what’s your username?”
“Uh...” I pulled out my phone, but as soon as I saw the time, I realised class was starting in less than a minute. “Ah, we gotta go inside, the bell’s gonna ring soon.”
“Right, yeah. Just message me it on Insta?”
“Sure.”
That evening, I did as she said, and we starting talking online that night. She was very forward, in my eyes. When she saw from my status that I was playing Minecraft with friends in a voice call, she asked if she could join the call and watch us play.
A bit flattered that a girl was showing interest in me like that and knowing that my friends wouldn’t mind, I invited her to our group chat where we were calling, and she joined our call. My friends all appreciated her presence, and acted as usual while she was there, but I remember toning down my usual personality, nearly going silent for the rest of the time. At one point, she said she had to go eat supper and left the call. I nearly let out a sigh of relief.
“Hey, what’s wrong man?” asked my best friend, Dylan. “You went quiet as soon as Lizzie joined.”
“I don’t know...”
“If I were you, I’d be grateful that a girl wants to watch me game. Is she cute? I bet you like her,” teased Asher.
“No, I mean, I don’t know. Uhmm… I just don’t know how to act around her. I’m not used to her, like I just met her today, and stuff.” I sighed. “It’s stupid, but I guess I’m afraid she’ll judge me, or something,” I finally admitted to them both.
“So you do like her.”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh shut up, Asher.”
“Well I mean if you don’t, and if she’s not taken... I’ll gladly—”
“Asher, Jesus,” groaned Dylan. “You’re old as hell, dude, you don’t have a chance,” he finished, laughing.
“Stop saying that, I’m literally just twenty-five.”
“She’s a minor, you fucking creep,” responded Dylan. They both laughed it off. I didn’t. “Anyway, Camilo?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s totally normal that you aren’t a weirdo like Asher. Do you really feel like you don’t want her here though?”
“I mean, I don’t know, I guess I get a bit uncomfortable, but she’s really nice. I don’t wanna turn her down.”
“But do you want her here though?” he insisted.
“Uh… I guess so. Probably. I mean, I’ll get used to her.”
“Okay then, if you say so.”
And I did get used to her. She certainly got used to me. Elizabeth was nearly always present when I was gaming with friends, and even joined in games whenever it was something she could play online for free. Even when I was just playing something alone, like Osu!, she always asked to watch me play. At one point, I even started inviting her to. Needless to say, since we became so close online, we were also hanging out at school quite often. Those seemed to be the moments she preferred. Lizzie... often got really close to me. Or I mean, at least closer than I was used to being with anyone. I don’t know. She seemed to really enjoy my presence, but I couldn’t for the life of me understand why. Until…
“Hey, Camilo?”
We were on our lunch break, in late November. She had invited me to walk outside the school with her. “Yeah?”
“I kind of have something, um, important. To ask you.”
“Yeah, what’s up?”
She stopped walking and looked down, fidgeting slightly. “This might be a bit sudden, but I really like you. Like, a lot. So… would you maybe wanna, um, be with me?”
I froze. “Be with you?”
“Yeah, like, in a relationship.” She looked up at me hesitantly. I averted my gaze.
“I mean, I don’t really know. Like, I really like you, too, but I don’t know if… I really feel like that about you.”
“Oh… Okay.” I could feel the disappointment in her voice. I quickly caught myself.
“But, I mean, I’m not saying ‘no’ right away.”
Her expression brightened a little. “Really?”
“Y-yeah, I mean. I’ll think about it, okay?”
“That’s fine, yeah. Um, thank you,” she said, smiling softly.
I told my friends about the incident later that evening.
With a slight smile, I put away my phone and thought about it all. She’s always been super kind and sweet, I told myself, and I’ve gotten used to her at this point. I couldn’t say I’d never imagined what it would be like, being with her, but I never thought I’d be put in this situation, so I never pondered it seriously. Honestly, I… I wasn’t sure if it would be a good idea, like Dylan said, but… I knew I wasn’t that attractive, and this might not happen again for a long while. Especially a confession coming from someone so nice. So…
From then on, I didn’t really know what our relationship might become. I got super nervous about how things would be after that. But when I saw Lizzie the next day at school, she didn’t really act any differently than usual, which reassured me.
However, at lunch, she asked to go on a walk outside again, like the day before. I tried to stay calm but couldn’t help but feel anxious about what would happen.
As soon as we got outside and a few metres away from the school, Lizzie asked if we could hold hands. Which… I didn’t want to tell her, but I didn’t feel was the best idea, since my palms were sweaty. I discreetly wiped them on my pants and slipped my hand into hers, hoping she wouldn’t notice or care.
“Hey, Camilo?” she said softly.
I struggled to make eye contact with her. “Yeah?”
“I’m really glad you decided you wanna be together.”
“Oh, um, yeah. I’m… I’m glad you asked me out in the first place.”
I felt her thumb gently stroke mine. “I love you,” she mumbled.
I felt butterflies in my stomach as I muttered back a quick “I love you too.”
“There’s something… I think I should tell you.”
“What is it?”
“Umm...”
I waited for Lizzie to say what she had to say. Finally, she shook her head and looked up at me with a weak smile.
“Never mind. It’s not important.”
I wasn’t sure what to respond. “Oh… Okay.”
She stopped walking at a street corner. There wasn’t really anyone around. “Do you… wanna kiss?”
“Huh?”
“I mean, um, only if you want to.”
I swallowed. It’s not like I didn’t want to at all. I just felt like it was all happening a bit too fast, but… I didn’t want to say no. “Yeah, okay.”
Lizzie held both of my hands in hers and approached her face to mine. I leaned in, and our lips touched.
After a few seconds, I pulled away slightly. She did as well.
For the following few weeks, things started to change between us. Not in a bad way, I think. It’s just that we became more of a couple. It’s not like we went that far together, but we would occasionally have some make-out sessions in private corners of our school, and were kissing every day in public, when we saw each other in the morning and when we had to part after school. Just a peck, in those moments, as like a ‘good morning’ and ‘goodbye’ kiss. Because of that, the whole school came to know about our relationship after a while. I noticed Lizzie’s friends from last year talking to her more often; they often accompanied her on her walk to the metro after school, while I had to take a bus in the opposite direction. I was pretty sure they were showing interest in our relationship. A lot of people were. After all, we seemed to be the only couple in our grade so far.
Even outside of school, things changed. Lizzie and I started calling not only after school, but late into the night, until we fell asleep, and then would talk while we woke up, before heading off to school.
Because of that routine, there was barely any time in a day that we would spend completely apart. I found it pretty nice in the beginning, but after a while, I kind of started missing how things were before. Not that much. But to an extent, I guess. I wasn’t really the type to hate spending time alone, so… Her constant presence was not always the best for me. And in the moments I felt I wanted to be alone, I never had the guts to ask her to back off. But that was my problem, and not a big one, at that. So I tried not to really think about it.
My friends did notice that I was spending much less time with them at this point, but since I had told them that I was spending that time with my new girlfriend, they respected that.
A week before winter break, nearing midnight, both Lizzie and I were in our respective beds, listening to music in a voice call. Suddenly, she stopped the song.
“Camilo?”
“Yeah?”
“Um...”
“What’s up?”
“I don’t know how to say this.”
“Just go for it.”
“Well, I’m… I’m gonna be moving away during winter break.”
I could barely process what she had just said. “What?”
“My, my grandfather’s sick, so my dad wants us to move over to Quebec to spend time with him, and so I’m gonna be moving over there during winter break, and changing schools, and… Yeah.”
“Oh...”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier.”
“When did you find out?”
“Um… Like… At the end of November.”
I paused. “That was a while ago. That’s… That’s when we got together.”
“Yeah, I know… I wanted to tell you, but…”
I felt my face heat up. “So why didn’t you?”
“We were just getting together, and I didn’t want you to like… Change your mind. About me.”
“You should have told me,” I said, sitting up in my bed.
“I know, I just. I was just afraid you’d leave me right then and there.”
“Wait, is that the thing you wanted to say before we first kissed?”
“Yeah.”
“Seriously? And—” I shook my head in disbelief. “Why did you think it’d be such a better idea to wait until now to tell me?”
“I guess… I guess I just thought that I wanted to have a relationship with you without worrying about going away, and stuff.”
“So you just didn’t think that my opinion mattered, then?”
“No, that’s not...” I finally noticed her voice had been wavering, and I had raised mine. “I’m sorry, Camilo...”
I tried to speak softly this time. “Listen, I…” I sighed. “I just… I don’t know. I wish you’d told me sooner.”
“Are you going to break up with me?”
“What? No, of course not. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
I wasn’t really sure what to say anymore. “Can we just… Not talk about this tonight? I’m really tired.”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Goodnight, then.”
“Goodnight, Camilo.”