Page 101 of My Spanish Love Affair

They don’t belong here. They don’t deserve this.

Oh,god.

How will they see me now? I can almost feel the weight of my students’ eyes on me, their whispers turning into stares.

What will my colleagues think when they read this? When they see my life exposed in a way that’s not just about who I am, but about who I’m dating?

I never wanted any of them to be involved in this circus. The school community that I’ve worked so hard to be a part of is now part of something that I can't control.

Are they all going to hate me? Ostracise me?

What if theyfireme?

I can’t breathe. My chest tightens as my mind spins, racing with a thousand thoughts, none of which make any sense. I feel dizzy, like I’ve lost all balance when I thought I had a firm grip.

This isn’t me,I want to scream, but I don’t know who I’m even saying that to anymore.

Not to the world. Not to the press.

Certainly not to the headlines that have reduced me to something I’m not.

But here I am.

I feel a sharp, overwhelming sense of claustrophobia, as if the walls of my apartment are closing in around me, tightening with every breath I take. The air feels thick, suffocating.

This is it. This is the moment when everything changes.

When my life is no longer mine.

I want to run. I want to hide from it all, to pretend none of it is happening. But the truth is, itishappening.

And I don’t know how to stop it.

Chapter Thirty-One

My apartment is quiet. Almost eerily so.

My phone lies untouched on the kitchen counter. I haven’t been able to go near it since I first read the article around an hour or so ago and left a voicemail with the school to say that I wouldn’t be working today.

Santi’s name flashes across the screen for the third time in fifteen minutes, but I can’t bring myself to answer.

I’m pretty confident that I already know what he’s going to say. That this is all just a misunderstanding, that Javier will issue a statement, that I need to give it a few weeks and the media will move on to something - or someone- else.

But none of that feels like enough.

I pace the small space between the counter and the couch, the walls of the apartment closing in on me. My thoughts are spiraling, twisting into themselves like a never-ending loop.

The article, the school being named, Claire and Javier seeing me as some sort of media puppet…

It’s all too much.

I grab my phone and unlock it, my thumb hovering over Santi’s name in my messages.

I want to speak to him so much. I’m going against every natural instinct not to answer his calls, or to call him myself. Iwant to tell him how I feel. More than that, I want to hear his voice; to have him tell me that everything will be okay, that he’ll take care of it and make it right.

But even thinking about it makes me feel weak. Like I’m relying too much on him to fix something I should’ve had control over from the start.

Five months of Valencia - five months of Santi - and I’m lost. A shell of the woman I was when I boarded that plane to Madrid.

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