With the towel tied around his waist and his hands empty, Omar walked out of Soe’s room like someone who had survived a fierce battle. When he looked up, Rebeka could tell he was in a situation that was hard to explain. After all, he wasn’t going to dare deny his mother-in-law a favor, but he also didn’t know if fulfilling that favor would be the right thing to do.

Omar looked his girlfriend in the eyes, sighed deeply, and, with a half-smile, tried to say something, though Rebeka interrupted him:

“Don’t worry, everything is fine.”

After getting the approval he needed, Omar dressed in his school uniform and, after saying goodbye, went out to do the errand he had been sent to do.

A few minutes after Omar’s departure, Rebeka could hear her mother calling her to her room. 

  With small steps, without realizing it, she entered, and although she had the courage to accept what he was going to tell her, she could not help but stop in her tracks when she saw her mother crying silently.

A good, nice, pure-hearted person has no right to suffer. At least, that was what Rebeka wanted to believe. But the reality was that being nice, good, and pure of heart made no difference to the amount of suffering she had to experience in her lifetime. So why not be the opposite? For those around you who depend on you. After all, my lack of effort, dedication, and purpose to live up to anyone’s expectations of me is an insult to such a person.’

Her mother’s sobbing was not only capable of breaking her bones and breaking her heart, but it also brought back terrible memories. She had only heard such a sound the day her father was taken away.

 ‘Would she feel guilty?’ wondered Rebeka as she approached her like a little girl.

Soe, with narrowed eyes and well covered under the bedcovers, lifted what was covering her, like someone showing a doorway.

Without needing to ask, Rebeka slid her body onto the bed, lay down under the covers, and hugged her mother, who was wracked with suffering and needed not to feel alone. She, covered and well settled, returned the embrace to her daughter, who was careful not to hurt any of the bumps her mother had.

Silence fell, punctuated by her mother’s halting breaths.

“I’m sorry, I wish I was stronger,” said Soe. “But I can’t now.”

  Rebeka noticed how her mother’s voice did not come out clearly or with the tenderness so characteristic of her, for even as she cleared her throat, her voice trembled, like a leaf under a blizzard.

‘I can understand her sadness,’ Rebeka thought. ‘With your face damaged and your body in pain, you can’t get food for me or keep house. My mother, life closed all the exits for you and made you a destroyed woman, isn’t that so? But I still have hope. I am young, I am pretty, and I refuse to believe that the future for us is going to be this difficult. I would like to tell you that I would like to talk to you about all my ideas, but I can’t do anything but keep silent. I still don’t know if it’s going to work or if I’m being too optimistic, but I do know that you’re going to get up. That you have me...’

  As soon as the crying of a woman who had vowed never to cry in front of her daughter again was over, Rebeka understood that Soe had given up. But she couldn’t do the same; no matter how many hours would pass by, she couldn’t do it, having slept for so long the night before. Still, even though her body was motionless, Rebeka’s mind was going over a hundred miles an hour. She thought about everything she had done and what she could do, although she was interrupted as she noticed her mother writhing on the bed.

Although she was asleep, Soe’s face bore the vivid expression of unbearable pain. On the bed, the woman’s shattered body, little by little, was shrinking on her hands and feet. She was wrapped in tremors and hid her head between her daughter’s chest.

‘Her muscles are contracting, and she’s sweating more and more frequently. I’m worried,’ Rebeka said to herself. ‘Maybe the pain is coming back. I feel her clenching the bed sheets and the sound of her teeth pressing against each other, trembling and cringing. Her pain is definitely coming back. There’s no way she can stay asleep... Mmm, it stopped.’

  ‘She’s barely breathing,’ Rebeka thought after she stopped paying attention to her thoughts and focused more on the moment. ‘Shouldn’t she take her pain medication? Yes, she should have brought some from the hospital.’

Rebeka gently and cautiously got out of bed, with the intention of not inconveniencing her mother, to move on to rummaging through her belongings with the intention of finding pain medication to lessen the pain.

After searching inside her mother’s purse, she found nothing resembling medicine—no ointments or ointments. ‘Didn’t they give her anything when she was discharged?’ she wondered.

‘No,’ thought Rebeka as she looked back at her mother. ‘Knowing her as I do, I’m sure she didn’t want to bring medicine to the house. They must be very expensive, and once again, money. Damn money in this society of the privileged! Even if it’s not everything, it is the solution to many problems! A solution to which we are not entitled, are we?

 From one moment to the next, Rebeka heard the front door open and close.

“I’m here,” said Omar, announcing his arrival.

‘Maybe, on his way out, he has taken care of fetching the medicines for my mother’s pain?’ thought Rebeka. That brought relief to her mind and heart.

She came out from inside the room and saw her boyfriend carrying a bag. He had the face of someone who had done something wrong and had broken a promise. Rebeka, ignoring her boyfriend’s worried expressions as quickly as she could, took the package and, after giving him a warm hug of thanks, carried the bag back into the room to place it on the bed next to her mother, who was cowering.

 ‘A bottle of alcohol? Pain pills and sleeping pills, which they sell without a prescription?’ thought Rebeka, somewhat worried, more about the bottle of alcohol than about the other pills, which her boyfriend had surely stolen.

After pretending to wake up, Soe settled on the bed and looked surprised at the pill containers.

“Umm,” Omar cleared his throat, put his hand over his head, and looked away. “I had extra money in my pocket,” he said, intending to justify the extra purchase.

Although they were regular medicines, they definitely cost ten times more than low-grade alcohol. So cheap was the liquid; it even tasted as strong as it smelled, and had it not been in a different colored bottle, it would have looked cloudy in its contents.

“Thank you, Omar. You didn’t have to do that,” Soe said, then glanced at his daughter and continued talking. “No, my baby, not yet. When the pain is unbearable, I must take it.”

  “When the pain is unbearable... and you’re not sad, are you?” said Rebeka, putting aside the bottle, while Soe responded with a warm affirmation on her face. “My mother is one of those who says that drinking is better when you are happy and not when you are sad. If you’re happy, it will give you more happiness, but...”

“If you are sad, it will give you more sadness,” said Omar after continuing his girlfriend’s words, pretending to understand the situation. “The pills might help you a little.”

Soe looked at the containers of pills he had not expected to receive and thought twice about whether to take some or not.

After looking at the condition of her mother, who took five pills of each type, Rebeka could get to the point of wanting to take all the pain out of her mother’s body, transfer it to herself, and duplicate it if necessary.

“My child,” said Soe, as soon as she swallowed all ten pills. “Don’t worry about me; today is Sunday, and I’m sure you still have schoolwork to do. I’ll be fine.”

 “No, I don’t want to leave you here alone,” said Rebeka. “I want to accompany you for the rest of the afternoon.”

“Daughter, I don’t feel lonely. We are in the same house. Don’t see me suffering; it won’t be good for you.”

Rebeka kept silent; it would not be considerate of her to continue arguing, less so if she did it with a person in pain who had already made her decision, but she did not want to leave the room either.

 Omar could understand that swallowing ten pills along with a bottle of alcohol might not end in a pretty scenario. He also understood that his girlfriend needed someone to support her and that Soe was not entirely wrong. After filling himself with the necessary courage, he took her by the hand, and with that gesture, he managed to make his girl leave the room.

Once outside the room, with intentions of changing the topic of conversation, Omar said:

“I imagined your mom as a much more strict person.”

Rebeka paused in place and, turning around, added:

“There is nothing more severe than disappointment on a noble face.”

She sat at the dining table located in front of the kitchen, ate rice soup for breakfast, and looked at the clock.

Omar was silent as he devoured his meal It tasted like glory to him, perhaps because of hunger or because it was a novel dish he had never tasted before.

“This is the first time I’ve ever sat in a situation like this,” Rebeka said aloud, frustrated and tired at the same time. “I don’t know how to process it. I don’t know what to do; I can’t stop feeling guilty.”

“Maybe... you should occupy your mind with something productive. Sometimes, I feel like I’m going to drown in the present if I don’t stop worrying about what’s out of my control.” Omar said it in a soft tone, not trying to persuade but with the intention of solving the problem.

 As if the light bulb of a novel idea went off in her head, Rebeka looked up and flashed a smile on her face.

“Let’s go up to my room! As my mother said, I have chores to do.”

“I’ll walk you up,” said Omar, without letting go of the plate of food.

“Why are you still wearing your clothes?” asked Rebeka somewhat quizzically as she walked up the stairs with the laptop in her hand.

“You talk like it’s not a normal thing to do,” Omar replied, looking down at the beautiful view his girlfriend was giving him. “Your mom’s home.”

“As if she doesn’t walk around naked.”

  At Omar’s comment, he almost spat out the spoonful he had put in his mouth, so surprised was he. Imagining his mother-in-law walking around the house naked would be a very uncomfortable situation.

  On the second floor of the house, inside Rebeka’s room, Sunday wore on a little at a time, until night fell. She had remained in front of her desk, finishing the last remaining tasks. Omar lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling, with many doubts about his future.

  “Don’t you have homework to do?” said Rebeka, who then warned him. “Just because you’re my boyfriend doesn’t mean you have the privilege of copying my notes.”

Her words were intended to annoy. Having her mother in pain and with almost no money to eat, her approach to doing the tedious chores she had pending had not been the best, and it was taking her much more work than usual to concentrate properly on her homework.

“I don’t have homework. No one in our class does, unless they need extra help with specific content,” said Omar.

Rebeka backed up on the chair and turned around.

“Tell me more about that.”

  “Seeing you there, answering questions that don’t go to any exam, shows me the way the instructors make your life in school impossible and miserable.

“I don’t believe you,” assured Rebeka, as shocked as she was disappointed.

“That’s probably the answer to why you have the highest grades. I guess it’s better to focus on things you can fix. You know, for the first time today, I’ve seen you laughing and having a good time, doing something other than sex. As if giving you an answer to every exercise made you feel like you accomplished something and you have less left to finish.”

Along with her beloved’s words, Rebeka put her hands to her face in frustration. Seeing reality for the first time, she wondered if life was an irony.

As difficult as the after-school jobs were, they were problems that were solvable, and solving them gave her a fleeting sense of relief, which brought her well-being. After all, what she did was hard to learn and very easy to forget if she didn’t put it into practice from time to time. What was the point of studying so much if her pleasant sensation was put aside?

‘Every subject, exercise, and class was crammed with empty compliments,’ she analyzed.

It was curious and interesting information, but it only served to program his behavior and distract him from reality. The educational system was set up to make individuals lose their sense of direction and stay in the background.

  ‘In the school where I am, no one fails because of a lack of knowledge, but they fail because of a lack of discipline. They are expelled for not fulfilling the tasks required of them. The grades are: A+ for those with more than 100. A for those from ninety-one to one hundred. B for eighty-one to ninety, C for sixty-one to eighty, and E for... expulsion. Arriving early, knowing your place, knowing how to listen, respecting elders, not complaining, being polite, doing what you are told, and leaving school when you are told are the rules that measure student performance. That is something you can see in society on the way to the train every day in the morning. No one is happy, but everyone is programmed to meet certain parameters and follow orders, even if they are unhappy and miserable.’

“What’s wrong with you, my love?” asked Omar in a worried tone. He even got up from the bed and put his hand on Rebeka’s shoulder to repeat the question about the strange attitude of his girl, who was behaving as if she were experiencing the biggest headache of her life.

Rebeka opened her eyes as wide as she could. The answers to what everything she knew was like were unbelievable, and the more she thought about it, the more it made sense. Who wants what they have, and who has what they want? The answer was that they became rats programmed to live chasing happiness who didn’t realize that it all revolved around the purpose of eating, getting fat, and defecating in a world controlled by someone else.

‘It’s not good for people’s souls to know that their freedom, what they know as being free, is actually the prison of the limited knowledge they have,’ thought Rebeka, as if it were a revelation.

“I can’t help but laugh,” replied Rebeka wryly. “It is not to cry and want to destroy everything. I’m not going to cry... I’m not going to break; I’m not going to give the privilege to this society.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Omar, not understanding her.

“Being the only one doing homework, no wonder those conceited people could point out every spelling mistake, every little grammar error, every period, and every number. They devoted their time and effort to exclusively reviewing my work. To make me see that I could not meet the requirements to join this society and graduate.”

More relieved to understand his beloved’s behavior, Omar proceeded to focus on the bed.

“Being just another rat in this society is not living a life worth living.” muttered Rebeka.

After placing her hands on the table, she ended up leaning back on the chair and stretching her body as much as she could to turn around and lift her legs, intending to rest them on her beloved’s lap. Then she said to him:

"Darling, can you pass me the laptop?”

"Yes,” replied Omar, who, stretching out his arm, reached across the bed and took the device.

The laptop was next to the empty pot of rice he had eaten for breakfast in the morning.

 As soon as Omar recovered from the bed, he complied with his beloved’s suggestion. Dedicated to his task, he used his hands with the intention of massaging his beloved’s feet.

Rebeka placed the laptop on her thighs, as she was curious. After all, the night before she uploaded a video, she had spent quite some time editing.

‘If it’s not that popular, I’m going to delete it. Not because I imagine myself having a child and that video is still on the internet, just for the purpose of making him or her a victim of criticism, being the child of a mother who indecently exhibits herself, but because I don’t plan to make public something that is not appreciated. As an artist, I have to keep some dignity; it’s not good to give away my work either,’ she thought. As she opened the device and navigated through the windows, fear began to affect the speed with which Rebeka moved through the website. After swallowing dryly, she looked up and noticed Omar, who was entertainingly stroking her feet and making her feel good.

Once inside Heaven, Rebeka entered her username and password.

It took a few seconds for the page to load.

 A warning banner popped up.

  [You have a balance of $32 in your account.]

 “Mmm, thirty-two dollars. Even if it was a video and not a camera show, it looks like the app pays for views.”

 “What?” asked Omar, after raising his head.

“Oh, did I speak out loud?” rectified Rebeka and then continued. “Remember the video we made together in the kitchen? I took the trouble to edit it and upload it. Here, watch this.”

Rebeka lowered her legs and naturally moved from the chair to the bed next to Omar.

With curiosity in his eyes and attitude, Omar paid much more attention than usual to the inside of the screen. He was worried and not very happy about something he didn’t know. After all, he didn’t remember any video being taken, which made him ask:

“A video?”

“Yes, I uploaded it with the intention of trying my luck. I used the strategy of providing a sample, intending to see how many people liked it. I didn’t know that the app pays a dollar for every thousand views a normal video gets. We got thirty-two dollars.”

 “You’re saying thirty-two thousand people saw us having sex? What did they see you doing?”

“Well, thirty-five... oops, thirty-six. It looks like, because it’s nighttime, visitor traffic is increasing. Don’t worry; in the video, I just appear to be touching myself. My hair is a different color, and I have a mask covering my face, while you can only see my back. Are you angry?”

“How can I not be angry?” exclaimed Omar, getting up from the bed. “You didn’t count on me... How could you, Rebeka?!”

‘The situation is escalating; he is angry; I have never seen him like this,’ thought Rebeka, shocked by what was happening since, from her point of view, there was nothing wrong.

“My love, calm down. Breathe.”

“Give me the laptop,” he said after holding out his hand. “Let me see the video.”

 Without a word, she relented. Omar sat down on the desk chair, and after placing the device on the table, he quickly clicked on the video and began to watch her with a hand on his forehead, while her ears and face turned red to the point of almost exploding.

‘I’m scared; I’m scared of losing him,’ Rebeka thought, in the midst of a panic attack, due to the realization of what she was overlooking. ‘I’m afraid of how he’s reacting. One of the rules was to talk everything out between the two of us, and I was the first one to break it. Not only did I take the video of him, but I also edited it and uploaded it without his consent. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what I was thinking when I uploaded the video without asking him. I betrayed his trust, but why is his member getting hard? I can hear his heart beating. My scared heart is also heard in this room. Why am I getting so wet? Right now, I’m a bad girl, and I feel worse for being turned on... I know offering him sex won’t fix things, or will it? I can also turn the situation around and make him think it was his fault and say, I thought you knew...’

After watching a little over ten minutes of video in silence, the playback came to an end, and still, the two lads remained silent.

After a while, Rebeka was the one who decided to speak. Seeing her boy cry gave her courage.

“Baby... I’m sorry I broke the trust you had in me. The video is well-edited, and nobody should have recognized me. We can delete it as soon as possible; I am still yours and nobody else’s. Talk to me, please.”

“It’s not that you broke my trust,” said Omar, as one who takes responsibility for what happened. “Because of my inability, you were forced to do this. But why did you decide to carry everything alone? Was it because I was sleeping? and I have no conscience and show no concern for our situation.”

   "No,” replied Rebeka. “I did it because you belong to me; I want you only for myself, and I do not wish to share you with anyone else.”

The answer was unexpected for Omar. Rebeka got up from where she was with the intention of hugging her beloved’s head against her chest and not letting him go.