I don't know how to start anymore, so I'll just speak, as I always do when I'm confused. When the mind fragments into pieces, words become the only way to piece everything back together. But still, nothing seems to fully unite. My head, my heart, my body... nothing works in a linear way. Nothing seems to follow a pattern that I can comprehend. And that's exactly how I met her. Lost. Random. Inconstant.
My name is Helena. I'm a literature teacher. What I do is just my job, but over the years, it has become my prison. I'm not a good teacher. I believe my truth is always slipping through my hands, like sand that dissolves between my fingers, sliding away until I find myself once again alone, trying to reassemble everything I've already lost.
And that's how she came into my life, on an ordinary day.
I remember her entrance into the classroom as if it were yesterday. She wasn't 18 yet, still a year away from it. Her dark eyes, an opaque shade, seemed to look at everyone, yet at the same time, at no one. She walked in without announcing herself, as if the room were an extension of her own space, unaware that others were there. I saw her, but I couldn't get close. It was as if she were part of a scene playing in my mind, a scene in which I saw myself lost, unsure if I could reach her.
Her name is Beatriz, but I allow myself to call her Bea, always. Her name, like herself, was far from any predictability.
Beatriz was a difficult student, not because of her grades, but because of the way she related to everything and everyone. She was the student who never fit the stereotype, who questioned with empty eyes, who never gave the right answer, but always asked the questions no one had the courage to ask. Sometimes, she seemed completely oblivious to everything around her, other times, she seemed to devour the world before her with an unwavering gaze.
And it was on one of those rainy autumn afternoons, when the sky seemed to collapse on us, that I finally saw her up close. After class, she stayed behind to talk to me. I, thinking it was just another conversation about some assignment, didn't expect it to be the beginning of something so devastating. We sat in the corner of the room, away from the desks, in silence, until she spoke.
— Professor… what's it like to be you?
I looked at her, not knowing how to answer. It was a simple question, but it carried a huge weight. How could I explain to her that I didn't know how to be myself? How could I show her, without words, that my life was adrift?
But instead of thinking, I simply said:
— I don't know, Bea. I... I don't know.
She looked at me deeply, her eyes heavy with something I couldn't comprehend, something between desire and suffering. But it wasn't the first time I had felt that kind of look. In my previous lives, I had seen that gaze in women who faded from my memory. But with Bea, it was different. It was as if she were a primal force, as if she saw me in a way no one else ever had. She wasn't sweet, she wasn't the type of student who was content with a superficial answer. She wanted something real, something I wasn't sure I could give.
And there, in that moment, the world unraveled for an instant. I saw Bea not as a student, but as a storm. A storm I wanted, but didn't know how to face.
In the following months, our relationship evolved in a strange, complicated, and often painful way. I was her teacher, she my student, but there was an attraction that couldn't be ignored. She was lost, in pieces, like me. But maybe she was more fragile, or perhaps she was stronger than I could understand. Beatriz had something I had never had: she wasn't afraid to destroy herself, and that both terrified and fascinated me at the same time.
I knew what we were doing was wrong. But at the same time, I couldn't pull away. It was as if my mind had been seduced by her very instability. She had a bipolar disorder that made her even more unpredictable. When she was well, Beatriz was a brilliant girl, full of life, with a smile that could light up any place. But when she was down... the world around her disintegrated. I didn't know how to deal with her intensity. I didn't know what to do with all that turmoil.
I knew I shouldn't get involved, but the desire to save her — or was it the desire to be saved by her? — blinded me. She was my student, but more than that, she was an uncontrollable presence in my life. Sometimes, she'd look at me in a way that made my heart race, as if it was impossible to escape that. Other times, she seemed distant, completely oblivious to me, as if my existence meant nothing to her.
Beatriz had a need to prove something, not just to me, but to herself. She wanted to see how far life would take her. And me? I found myself losing the limits, the line that separated what was right from what was wrong, what was professional from what was personal. I found myself surrendering, little by little, to her chaos, and to my own.
It was a hot summer night when everything changed. She was at my house, sitting on the couch, her eyes gleaming with something I couldn't describe. I felt the tension in the air, as if time had slowed down, as if the future were about to collapse into our lives. And then she looked at me, as she always did, with a suffocating intensity.
— Helena… — she said, with a soft voice, but heavy with a weight I didn't know how to carry. — Are you happy?
I didn't know how to answer. The answer seemed to be on the tip of my tongue, but it was so far away, lost somewhere inside of me. How could I be happy? How could anyone be happy when they can't even understand themselves?
— I don't know... — I finally replied. — I don't know.
She smiled, and then, like a hurricane, moved toward me. Her lips touched mine, and I couldn't pull away. However, it wasn't a soft kiss, it was desperate, as if we were trying to fill a void we couldn't fill. We gave ourselves to it, kissed, but deep down, I knew it wouldn't last. Nothing between us would last. It was just a matter of time.
And then came the first collapse.
Beatriz entered a cycle of highs and lows, and I found myself, once again, in the middle of a storm. She began to pull away, disappear from my life for weeks, until one night, in the middle of a crisis, she called me.
— Helena... — her voice was distorted, as if she was crying and laughing at the same time. — I don't know what to do anymore. I don't know who I am anymore. And you? Are you who you say you are?
I didn't know how to answer. She was in such a dark place, so far away from me, and I didn't know if I could bring her back.
I knew I couldn't. I couldn't save Bea. I didn't have the power. And still, I watched her sink deeper and deeper, until she was lost. And then, in the final act of her life, she disappeared, as always, leaving the question in the air: accident or suicide?
I never knew. I never knew if Beatriz really left, or if her death was a choice she made, a final act of freedom. I never knew if she was asking for help or if she just wanted to escape it all.
But what I do know is that, in the end, Beatriz disappeared into her own randomness, just as she always had. And I... I stayed. I stayed lost, trying to understand everything, without ever really comprehending anything. And that's how I remember her. Lost. Random. Inconstant. But, at the same time, impossible to forget.
She taught me something that, to this day, I don't know how to express. Something about life. About love. And about death.
And maybe, in the end, life was never meant to be understood. It just happens.