16: Becoming Us

The weeks that followed Sarah’s first real lunch with Bharath and Marisol unfolded like something out of a dream she never knew she could have.

Her little house off-campus had never seen so much life. Where once the silence clung to the walls like mildew, now it rang with laughter, late-night debates, the rhythmic thump of reggaeton and 90s pop and hip-hop, and the clatter of pans as Ravi and Jorge inevitably argued over how to properly make instant noodles versus real pasta. Tyrel started calling the place “Club 10,” a nickname that stuck for reasons no one could explain - though it may have had something to do with the three beautiful women under one roof.

Most nights, the gang was there - sprawled on the living room floor, half-sitting on worn beanbags or leaning against Sarah’s low couch. Video games on Fridays alternated between Sarah’s and Smith 202, depending on whose fridge was better stocked. On Sarah’s turf, the real party started when the girls - Marisol, Camila, and Sarah - claimed the kitchen.

“Arepas or tostadas tonight?” Marisol would ask.

“Make both,” Sarah would reply, rolling up her sleeves. “We’ve got four nerds to feed and three queens to impress.”

They cooked together. Cleaned together. Ate together. Fell asleep on each other sometimes, like a tangled, oversized litter of exhausted cubs. It felt ... right. Like this was what college was supposed to be. Something no textbook could teach.

And through it all - Bharath remained the anchor.

He was a better version of himself now. Focused, confident, still awkward sometimes but fully stepping into his strange, magnetic presence. He tutored Ravi and Tyrel when they fell behind, explained pointers to Jorge during CS homework reviews, and helped Camila fix a syntax bug in her assembly code that had her threatening to throw her laptop into a wall.

Sarah, to her own surprise, became their second tutor.

They had known she was a junior but they hadn’t realized how brilliant she was. Her quiet command of chemical theory and mathematical clarity quickly earned their respect. Soon, Ravi started calling her “Professor Sarah” in mock awe, and Tyrel insisted he was only pretending to flirt so she wouldn’t give him extra homework.

But beneath the laughter and late-night takeout, beneath the card and board games and movie marathons, Sarah’s favorite moments weren’t loud.

They were intimate.

They were those casual, domestic glances between Bharath and Marisol when no one else seemed to notice - but Sarah always did. The way Marisol melted into his side during a slow evening on the couch, her head nestled under his chin while Bharath traced soft circles on her bare thigh without looking up from his notes. Or how he always seemed to tilt his coffee mug so she could take the last sip without asking. Or how Marisol whispered Spanish into his ear at the grocery store, her voice low and syrupy, and Bharath - who pretended not to understand most of it - would smirk like he knew it wasn’t innocent.

Sarah would sit at the kitchen island, pretending to scroll through her books, heart thudding in a rhythm that had nothing to do with caffeine or anxiety.

She longed for that kind of quiet certainty.

And every night, when Marisol “slept over” to avoid dorm checks, Bharath would come too.

They stayed in the guest bedroom - technically.

Sarah never asked. They never offered details.

But the walls were thin.

And by the second night, Sarah wasn’t just hearing. She was listening.

At first it was innocent - or so she told herself. She’d catch the muffled rustle of sheets and assumed they were settling in. Then came the soft gasp, the low murmur. Then the sounds no part of her could ignore.

Marisol’s voice - unfiltered, wrecked with pleasure. The sound of flesh meeting flesh in a steady, punishing rhythm. Bharath’s voice - low, in Tamil, half growled, half whispered, a language Sarah didn’t understand but felt down to her bones.

Marisol would cry out in Spanish, her voice rising and dissolving into pleasured sobs. “Dámelo ... más ... así, así ... cabrón, me vas a matar...”

And Bharath would growl back, something primal - short, sharp commands that made her body jolt with involuntary heat even when she didn’t know what the words meant. There was a rhythm to them. The beat of domination. The melody of surrender.

What shattered Sarah, though, was the way it happened.

She had never experienced anything like it.

There was a night she couldn’t forget - when she heard Marisol gasp, “Si amor, don’t stop, pull my hair, please- “, followed by a sharp thwack and a sobbing cry that wasn’t pain, but ecstasy.

Bharath’s voice had dropped so low it was nearly a snarl. He was spanking her. Pulling her hair. Taking her from behind with a force that made the headboard softly, rhythmically tap the wall - and yet every moan that followed was laced with love, with reverence.

“Idhu enadhu.”
This is mine.

She didn’t understand the language.

But she understood the message.

Sarah had bitten her lip so hard that night it left a mark the next morning. She lay curled in bed, barely breathing, legs trembling as her hand moved between her thighs - not enough to finish, just enough to ache.

Because it wasn’t just the sounds that ruined her.

It was the energy.

The dynamic.

Marisol had become someone else behind closed doors - raw, submissive, undone. She moaned like a woman who trusted completely, who wanted to be claimed. And Bharath - sweet, awkward, bookish Bharath - had turned into a man who owned her body. Utterly. Without apology.

Sarah had never seen - or heard - anything so erotic.

And it wasn’t just once.

There were nights Marisol wanted to be overheard. Sarah knew. She would enter the kitchen the next morning with her curls piled into a messy bun, cheeks flushed, skin interspersed with rude red marks that peeked out from under her oversized tee. Sometimes she moved gingerly, her gait just a touch off - like her thighs still ached from the night before.

She’d open the fridge, pour herself juice, and then lock eyes with Sarah. No words. Just a slow, wicked smile - and maybe a wink.

Sarah’s throat would dry. She’d pretend to look away.

But the damage was already done.

Marisol knew. And she wasn’t ashamed. If anything, she was proud.

And that drove Sarah wild.

There was one morning - the one that made her breath hitch for days afterward - when Marisol came into the kitchen in just one of Bharath’s shirts, thighs bare, hickeys blooming like wildflowers across her collarbone and neck, even her thighs!

She poured herself a glass of milk, leaned against the counter, and in a voice far too casual, asked, “You sleep okay?”

Sarah nodded, heart hammering. “Yeah. Fine.”

Marisol’s eyes sparkled. “Our man has a gift for keeping people up at night, huh?”

Sarah couldn’t even form a reply. She just stared at the cereal box in her hands like it held all the answers she didn’t have.

It was torture.

And it was intoxicating.

She hadn’t made a move. She hadn’t dared.

Because part of her was still healing. Still fragile. Still trying to remember what it meant to want something without fearing the cost.

But the way Bharath’s voice turned into thunder when he growled into Marisol’s neck in Tamil...

The way Marisol begged in Spanish, her words tumbling out with a rhythm born of need...

The sound of it all...

It lived in Sarah’s bones now.

She craved it - not just the sex, but the surrender. The freedom to fall apart in the arms of someone who would catch you. Someone who would worship you, even as they wrecked you.

She would lie awake after those nights, one hand clutching her pillow, the other pressed between her thighs - unable to finish, unwilling to forget.

And somewhere between arousal and ache, between envy and longing, a new truth took root in her chest.

She didn’t just want to hear them anymore.

She wanted to join them.

Not for pleasure.

Not yet.

But for belonging.

For the intimacy. The heat. The love. The safety of being held between them like something precious.

Sarah closed her eyes in the dark and whispered a promise to herself:

One day. When I’m ready. I will walk into that room and demand. Not to borrow. But to be claimed.

She respected them. She respected herself. But she knew now - completely - that she didn’t just want to be near them she wanted to be with them in every way possible.

The girls were becoming her sisters, and that alone was healing wounds Sarah didn’t know she still carried. Camila opened up over old heartbreaks. Marisol teased her into laughter when she got too quiet. Even Jorge - with his smooth game and subtle charm - always offered to walk her home if she stayed late after class.

These weren’t people who wanted to use her. These were people who saw her.

And it had changed her life.

Maria Rivera didn’t scare easy.

She’d raised two girls on her own, worked double and triple shifts, pinched pennies until they squealed, and still managed to hold her head high in a world that didn’t exactly roll out red carpets for single Cuban mothers with sharp tongues and no patience for nonsense.

But what she was seeing now in her youngest?

That scared her a little.

Because it was unbelievable.

She stood in the kitchen doorway, dishrag in one hand, brow furrowed as she watched Mia at the dining table - hunched over a thick AP Calculus prep book, a mechanical pencil tapping rhythmically against her cheek. Her face was drawn in deep concentration. Not the fake kind she used to put on for show. Not the pouty, “I’m busy” look she used when she was scrolling through fashion magazines and pretended it counted as reading.

No. This was different.

Mia was studying.

Voluntarily.

She’d come home from school, dropped her bag, and gone straight to the table with her laptop and a stack of college brochures. Georgia Tech was at the top - circled in pink highlighter.

Maria blinked. Georgia Tech?

Just a few weeks ago, Mia had rolled her eyes at the very idea. “It’s a nerd school,” she’d said. “All those guys smell like code and despair.” Now? She was writing essays, planning her personal statement, even calling the counselor to discuss scholarship requirements.

Last week she’d asked about the SAT deadlines.

Yesterday, she signed up for AP classes. On purpose.

Maria leaned against the doorframe, the scent of lemon oil and café Cubano lingering in the kitchen behind her. She watched Mia scribble something in the margins of her practice test, then flip back to an earlier section to double-check an equation. Her long lashes were furrowed in thought. Her lips were pursed. Her hair - usually curled and sprayed to perfection - was swept into a messy bun with a pencil jabbed through it.

Still beautiful, Maria thought. Still trouble.

But quieter now. More focused.

More serious.

It wasn’t that she’d become someone else - the old Mia was still in there. She still walked like she owned every hallway. Still had boys at school tripping over their sneakers to open doors for her. Still laughed like it was a performance and twirled her hair when she was thinking.

But something had shifted.

Mia wasn’t just moving through the world anymore. She was reaching for it. With intent.

Maria folded her arms, the dishrag forgotten.

Part of her wanted to believe it was the conversation they’d had that night - when she’d spoken to Mia about worth. About not giving herself away to people who didn’t deserve her. About fighting for the future she wanted, not the one life handed her.

She had meant every word.

And Mia had listened. For once, she hadn’t rolled her eyes. She had nodded, quiet and serene. Then she went to her room and didn’t blast music for two whole hours - which, in Rivera terms, was practically a spiritual awakening.

Maria wanted to believe that talk had done this.

But another part of her - the part that knew her daughters like the lines on her palms - suspected it wasn’t just about her.

It was about him.

Bharath.

The polite, guileless, oddball boy who somehow walked into their lives with wide eyes and a knife wound - and left behind an entirely new atmosphere.

Maria thought Mia would have barely looked at him that first dinner. After all, Mia was the one that was pursued by boys. Not the other way around. Except she had. Constantly. Maria had seen the way her daughter watched him. Not like prey. Not like a boy to toy with.

Like a puzzle.

One she couldn’t solve.

Maria had watched the entire shift happen in slow motion: the banter, the failed flirting, the shock when none of it worked, and then the dawning intrigue. Mia wasn’t used to being ignored - especially not by a boy with arms like Bharath’s and eyes that could melt glaciers when he smiled.

He hadn’t chased her. He hadn’t flirted back.

He had only ever looked at her with a kind of surprised politeness.

And that had undone Mia in a way Maria had never seen before.

Now Mia came home early. Now she worked hard. Now she asked about “good extracurriculars” and mentioned phrases like “research internship” and “women in STEM” over dinner like they weren’t foreign languages.

Maria exhaled.

She didn’t know what Mia wanted from that boy. Maybe she didn’t know either. But the fire was lit. Not the sultry, dramatic kind Mia had always wielded like a sword - but something quieter. Steadier.

Purpose.

And Maria?

She wasn’t sure what to do with that.

She loved her daughter. Always would. But she knew how easily obsession could look like ambition. And how easily ambition could unravel when rooted in wanting to be seen rather than wanting to be whole.

Still, she couldn’t deny the results.

Mia was transforming. Not just for show.

She was aiming higher.

Maria smiled - faint and cautious - and turned back to the kitchen. She had to start dinner soon.

But as she passed the kitchen window and looked up at the darkening sky, she found herself murmuring a prayer under her breath.

“Señor ... whatever this is ... let her become someone she’s proud of.”

But as she said it, she knew it already wasn’t about that.

Mia was on a mission.

And that boy - that strange, respectful, maddeningly sincere boy - had become her compass.

Now all Maria could do was watch.

And hope.

Mia didn’t walk the halls of her high school with her head down. She owned those halls. Her heels clicked like a metronome of confidence, her hair was always perfect, her laugh strategically deployed. She’d dated the quarterback and the debate captain, sometimes in the same week. Her locker was a rotating altar of birthday gifts, notes, and gum wrappers folded into hearts. Guys flocked. Girls took notes. Teachers rolled their eyes but secretly admired her fire.

That was before.

Before she came home and saw her sister wrapped in the arms of a boy who didn’t look like much - except that everything about him was wrong.

Wrong for her sister. Wrong for the neighborhood. Wrong in the way that meant he was unlike anything she’d seen before.

It had been a few weeks since she first laid eyes on Bharath. And somehow, nothing in her life made sense anymore.

“Babe, are you joining us at the Galleria this weekend?” Carly asked during lunch that Monday, spinning her Diet Pepsi can like it was a crystal ball. “Ryan’s older brother can get us into Fahrenheit.”

Mia didn’t even blink. “Nah.”

Carly’s shaped brows shot up. “You serious?”

“Got to study,” Mia said, popping a grape in her mouth.

Silence.

“You’re still studying?” Ashley leaned across the table, inspecting Mia like she was a hologram. “Are you okay?”

Mia gave a half-smile. “Better than okay.”

The table exchanged looks. Jocks at nearby benches whispered. A guy she used to date - D’Andre - gave up midway through a slow walk past her table and turned around, defeated.

Mia didn’t even watch him go. She’d started going to bed earlier. She’d started reading. Actual books. Not Cosmo or Glamour. Real books. The Great Gatsby. Tuesdays with Morrie. Things she’d heard her English teacher mention but never bothered to crack open.

She’d gone to the school counselor to ask about AP Calculus. Her. The girl who once said math made her “itch.”

She was calling Georgia Tech for admissions forms. She was asking about SAT tutoring. She was spending evenings in the kitchen poring over practice tests and chemistry formulas with the same determination she once reserved for eyebrow pencils and spaghetti strap strategy.

Her teachers didn’t ask questions. Just handed back tests with quietly pleased smiles and the occasional “finally.”

Even her mother had stopped nagging. Maria just watched her now. With a mixture of suspicion and ... pride? Mia didn’t say anything. Couldn’t say anything. Because the truth was too big. Too strange. Too simple. She had seen something she couldn’t unsee.

Not the moment Bharath walked into their house - awkward and polite and weird as hell. Not when he didn’t blink at her obvious flirtation. Not even when he flinched from her touch like it burned.

It was when he looked at Marisol like she was the moon. Like she was gravity and fire and a secret all at once.

Mia had seen love before. Or at least, she’d thought she had. It was loud. Possessive. Flashy. Built on territory and jealousy and manipulation. It had rules. It had power plays. It came with receipts - the kind you showed your friends to prove someone cared.

But Bharath’s love didn’t look like that. It looked... safe yet consuming. Genuine.

Like he wasn’t trying to own Marisol - but to hold her carefully, reverently, like she might break but also might explode into stardust if he kissed her too hard.

And what was worse? Marisol glowed. Mia hated how much she wanted that.

Not just Bharath. But the self that Marisol had become because of him. Confident, brave, soft and fierce all at once.

Mia wanted to be more.

Not for a boy. Not even for Bharath - though she couldn’t lie to herself and pretend she didn’t think about him more than was comfortable. About how he said her name like it was a riddle. How he didn’t laugh at her jokes unless he meant it. How he listened with his whole body - and looked with eyes that saw past everything fake.

She wanted to be someone he might admire. And maybe someone she could admire too. Someone worthy.

That was why the magazines stayed closed now. Why her compact mirror stayed in her bag. Why she scribbled lines of code from a computer lab printout on the back of her spiral notebook, even though she didn’t understand half of it - yet.

Because someday, when she stepped onto that campus...

When she passed Bharath in the quad...

When she maybe helped Marisol shop for books or joined them for coffee after a lecture...

She wanted him to look at her not as a sister. Not as a flirt. Not as a distraction.

But as someone who could stand beside them.

Smart. Focused. Free.

Mid-terms came and went like a bad dream for most of the gang. Much to the consternation of the gang, Bharath and Sarah couldn’t even pretend to have been bothered while the others huffed and puffed their way through the course material. What made things a lot better was that thanks to their tutoring, the gang was well prepared for their exams as well.

As usual, they all gathered at Sarah’s place to celebrate the end of mid-terms with a house party. Laughter echoed off the walls of Sarah’s living room, mingling with the faint hum of music from the stereo and the clinking of empty Solo cups. Ravi was dramatically reciting the lyrics to “Livin’ la Vida Loca” from atop a kitchen chair, while Jorge tried (and failed) to coax Camila into dancing with him again.

Bharath was curled up on the floor with Marisol tucked under one arm and a bag of Doritos under the other, looking like the only sober chaperone at a very undisciplined summer camp.

Sarah was flushed and radiant, her hair spilling over her shoulders as she lounged in the recliner with a mischievous smile that could only mean one thing.

“Let’s play truth or dare,” she declared.

“Oh no,” Bharath groaned immediately. “Absolutely not.”

“Yessss,” Camila drawled from the couch, throwing her legs over Jorge’s lap. “This is what we need.”