Intermission - Letting go?

She entertained the thought for like half a second, nothing more! She didn’t think it would actually happen! And besides… Ugh, it was like a wish on a Monkey’s Paw. Yeah, he would be staying at the same resort as her, but he was with all his girlfriends because OF COURSE HE WAS. Why wouldn’t he be?

Fernanda, her dad and her mom continued walking while Oliver and the other girls stopped to rest for a bit. Good thing, too, because walking together would’ve been so awkward. Not that the walk between them was devoid of any awkwardness. Fernanda kept quiet and listened to her parents talk.

“Did you notice one of them was much older than him?” her mom asked.

“I wouldn’t say MUCH older, but yes,” her dad answered.

“How old do you think she is? She has to be at least in her mid 20s if not more.”

“Perhaps,” her dad said. It was odd how he was keeping a straight face. No, it was more like he was keeping himself from frowning too deeply.

“And she’s around a group of youngsters, too.” Her mother shook her head. “What does she think she’s doing?”

“Whatever it is, it is for them to decide and not for us to judge,” her dad said. “Young Oliver has a good head on his shoulders. I’m sure he understands what he’s doing.”

“Even if he does, I’m not sure she does.”

Fernanda’s eye twitched. “Mom, that’s pretty rude to say.”

“I’m sorry, but it’s true. What is an older woman doing with a bunch of youngsters? What would you think if your dad and I suddenly got divorced and he came back with a girl your age?”

Fernanda flinched. She had to admit the image didn’t sit right with her at all.

“I admit I did find it strange,” her dad said. “I knew Oliver had multiple partners, but he never talks about them much, and I try not to ask things that would make him uncomfortable. Regardless, his choices are his own, and so long as everyone in that group is on the same page, we have no right to judge.”

“You really do have a soft spot for him, don’t you?”

“What I said is true regardless of whether I do or not,” her dad said, speaking firmly. “Besides, the least we owe that boy is not speaking ill of his choice of company.”

“I… I guess you’re right.”

Things got quiet after that. It was awkward, but not in a way that it felt like her parents were fighting, but more like they wanted to say things they couldn’t in front of her. Fernanda had an idea what it was about. Her dad really did have a soft spot for Oliver, and no doubt he was thankful that he was helping her out at the coffee shop. That was probably what he meant.

They kept walking for about 40 more minutes until they got out of the woods and found another coffee shop/gift shop. Her mom was tired, so they decided to stop there. Fernanda, however, had other plans.

“Ah, actually I forgot I wanted to take some pictures of the woods. You two have coffee. I’ll be right back.”

It was true, but she also wanted to let her parents talk without her around so they could clear up that awkwardness. Like that, she went back into the woods, walked off the road and began to take reference pictures from everything she saw. The short waterfalls, the foliage, the trees, the ground covered in leaves, the mountains in the distance… This was all right up her alley. She absolutely loved landscapes like these. It only took her 10 minutes or so to get her pictures, but she didn’t want to go back yet. Instead, she sat down on a rock a few meters away from the river.

“...”

Fernanda had her own thoughts about what she had seen. She was shocked when she saw that woman, too. She had seen her once before, in the coffee shop. Somehow, Fernanda wanted to believe she was just a young aunt or a cousin, but Oliver clearly introduced her as his girlfriend. Diana, right?

…

All of Oliver’s girlfriends were very beautiful and sexy, but that woman was… different. She was scary, for starters. Fernanda noticed her looking her way, glaring, and she immediately had to look away. But when Oliver said she was his girlfriend, she couldn’t help but gawk like an idiot because, as scary as she seemed, she was absolutely gorgeous. Maybe it was that she really did look like an adult next to the other girls, but the air around her was completely different. Her immediate thought was basically ‘Oliver can even charm someone like that.’

…

Six women. Oliver had six girlfriends.

How did they even make that work, Fernanda wondered. She’d never been in a relationship, but she had seen classmates of hers get together and break up in a matter of months. Relationships always seemed scary to Fernanda. Too complex to understand. She couldn’t even imagine how theirs worked.

Maybe… Maybe seeing them was a blessing in disguise. Fernanda was already terrified of standard relationships. She’d been hit on before, flattered and asked out, but she was always too afraid to reciprocate in any way. After all, if she did they would eventually realize she was a boring person, a screw up. She didn’t want to go through the pain of having people leave her behind. Seeing that big group of theirs was a really good visual. It made her realize that, even if she liked Oliver, even if she were to somehow gather the courage to… flirt or something, even if the impossible were to happen and Oliver reciprocated her feelings… she had no business being there with them. They would all realize what an uninteresting person Fernanda was, the failure of a person she turned out to be.

Yes, seeing them together was good. It helped her finally stop dreaming. It helped her give up on a dumb fantasy. But… But if it was such a good thing, why did she feel like she was about to start crying?

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