"Pa, can I talk to you?"

"Mirabú! Sure, come here! I was about to start splitting some firewood."

"Huh… Okay, put the ax down."

My father put the ax down with the care that experience had taught him to use and sat down on the grass.

"Tell me."

"Uhm… I've fallen in love."

It was the best. The faster, the best. I had already waited too long to have that conversation.

My father raised his eyebrows for a moment and then smiled easily.

"I know, amor."

"I'm… scared."

"Of being in love?"

"No… It's just… the person I'm in love with… I don't think Abuela will accept him and… I'm afraid of messing up my relationship with Abuela and his relationship with… his mother."

"I see."

"He… he just got her back after a long time and… and I don't want him to lose her again. I do not want to hurt him. What I can do?"

"Well… the way I see it… I guess you'll have to find out if that man needs her more or needs you more. Personally, I think that you can always try to reconcile and try not to give up either of the two, but… you can't always have everything; sometimes you have to choose. And, maybe, that decision is not up to you."

"But…"

"Only he knows what can make him unhappier, what makes it up to him, and what he can live with."

"But, he… he has already made his decision."

"Thinking of himself or thinking of you?"

He was right. If I gave him up, I would be making his decision for him just like he was doing for me. I wanted to make my own decision and I had to let him make his.

"Pa…"

"Hm?"

"You know who I'm talking about, don't you?"

"Do you know, hija? When your mom and I fell in love, your abuela didn't like it at all. I don't know exactly what she wanted for your mom, but it certainly wasn't me. I was clumsy and weird, younger than her, and I didn't have the grace that tío Félix has to charm Abuela."

"Really? And how did you get her to accept you?"

"She didn't. She settled because she wanted her daughter happy and that's what she was with me. She didn't choose me; she chose Julieta. Do you think it would be different this time?"

"It's not the same, pa… This is so much more complicated."

"You are right, but… Just as I can accept the situation because it makes happy two people I love with all my heart, I'm sure Abuela can too. You already opened her heart once; don't be afraid to be who you are. Be proud of that heart full of love that occupies your chest and take care of it as it deserves."

"So… you are okay with… this?"

"As long as he keeps making you smile, he will be the best man on the planet for me. After your abuelo, of course. I owe everything to Pedro."

I threw my father to the grass from the hug I gave him and showered his face with kisses.

"Thanks, pa. I can understand why mom took the risk for you."

"Thanks to you, mi niña. And now, shall we unnail this stone from my elbow and split some wood?"

"Ay… go see mom, come on. I got this."

My father stood up, offered me his hand to help me to my feet, and brushed off his clothes elegantly.

"I see you at lunch. Don't forget to take your time and stack the firewood little by little. It is important to give it a good base so that it does not fall."

My father was not the king of metaphors, but that was enough to make me understand.

"Okay, papi. I will."

He was right. I'd do things calmly, but in my own way.

With the firm conviction of building a solid relationship with Bruno that would not turn our actions into absolute madness, I made sure to maintain stable and close contact with him but without aggressively invading his space. I gave time to time and made sure not to complicate things further, and so, in an apparent calm charged with that electrical tension that always circulated between us, the months followed their course, and my seventeenth birthday arrived.

When I left my room that morning, a colored festival had invaded every corner of the house.

"Where did all these flowers come from?"

"Surprise!"

"Isa!"

I threw myself into my sister's arms with all my strength and squeezed her until she called for help.

"What are you doing here?!"

"We weren't going to miss our little sister's birthday, were we?"

"We? Are the three of you here?!"

"More than the three of us."

"What?"

"You will find out soon. For now, tell me, have you been good these months? Do you have succulent things to tell me?"

"Nah… nothing succulent. Everything remains as it was."

"So, didn't you take my advice?"

"Oh, that thing…"

"So you did?!"

"No, well… he rejected me."

"What?! Are you kidding me?! It was crystal clear that he was crazy about you!"

"It was?"

"I'm going to fill his door with carnivorous plants…"

"No! No… He did it for me, you know?"

"Hm… That suits him… Fucking teddy bear of a man… I'll teach him."

"Leave him alone, Isabela, please. Leave things as they are."

Isabela looked at me between furious and doubtful, but agreed to my request.

"And how has it been for you? How's the world out there?"

"Meh… There are places that are a real nightmare, others that are wonderful, and others where heartless women live who steal your soul and then turn it into a block of ice to make it a thousand pieces because they are more interested in the feeling of freedom that their filthy, icy forest give them than in the love they can feel for you. Oh, and I caught a cold and I had to heal by myself. Seven days with a runny nose and a headache! Can you believe it?! Seven! I don't think I'll ever get out of the Encanto again."

"Wait, I think I've missed something…"

"Virus, Mirabel. There is no one out there to heal you with an arepa con queso."

"No! The ice thing!"

"Oh, let's say that I've been rejected too."

"You?!"

"Right?!"

"It's okay for me to tell you, but it's not so nice of you to tell yourself, you know?"

"I don't care. It's the truth. It's her loss."

"Her?"

"Ah, yeah. Elisa. A blonde goddess with blue eyes and a diabolically angelical smile."

"She suits you…"

"Tell that to her."

"I'm afraid I won't get the chance."

"I guess not, but you can meet her sister."

"What?"

"We've brought company. I told them a lot about the Encanto and my family and they wanted to meet you, so her little sister Ana, Ana's fiancé Cristóbal, and their friends Renaldo and Eugenio have come to visit. So you are going to have the liveliest birthday party of your life. This way we will compensate you for the previous one."

"New people? That really is… different."

"Who knows? Maybe your heart finds among them the carnivorous plant that destroys tío Bruno."

"Isabela!"

"Fiiine. You'll tell me when you see them."

Isabela wasn't lying: her guests looked like something out of a fairy tale; of a hot fairy tale, in fact.

"Are you Mirabel? So nice to meet you! I've heard a lot about you!"

Ana was a beautiful, cheerful, lively, spontaneous, and with the appetite of five jaguars redhead.

"Ah, yeah? Badly, isn't it?"

Isabela arched her eyes in protest.

"No! Your sisters adore you! They only speak wonders of you."

"They do?"

"Of course! I mean, sometimes they had a little too much alcohol in their veins, but…"

"How about you let the girl meet everyone before you start telling her how you got her sisters drunk?"

"I didn't get them drunk! I thought they would have more endurance, that's all…"

"Whatever you say, princess."

"Mirabel," Dolores interrupted. "This is Cristóbal, Ana's fiancé."

"Actually, it's Krist… bah, whatever."

Cristóbal was a gigantic, hunky blonde who seemed to be made of stone, but his movements were sweet and careful, and from the way he looked at Ana, you could see that he would give his life for her.

"I am Renaldo, Cristóbal's lifelong friend."

That man shaking my hand energetically was joy personified. A tall, tanned brown man with unruly hair and an affable smile.

"Ah, pleased to meet you. And, you…" I said addressing the only man left to be introduced. "You must be Eugenio."

"That's me," that sexy dark-haired man with a marked jawline and dreamy nose said as he took my hand and bowed to me. "And, apparently, I'm on my lucky day."

"You are…?"

"It's not every day that one can attend the celebration of the birth of a savior. How you doing?"

Iugh… So he was one of those…

"Yeah… ehm… fine. What do you think if we sit down for breakfast and you guys tell us about your trip?"

"I will gladly follow you, my lady."

That cheeky guy arched an eyebrow at me repeatedly letting his intentions be seen and, immediately afterward, he kissed the back of my hand without asking permission.

"Okay, enough, Don Juan," Luisa snapped, lifting him off the floor and carrying him over her shoulder to the table under Renaldo's amused gaze.

I discreetly wiped my hand on my skirt and turned to rejoin the whole family, but what I found behind me was Bruno, slightly hunched in on himself, staring straight ahead but with his head slightly bowed and, again, rubbing his arm like a shy child who doesn't know how to start talking.

"Bruno! Good morning!"

"Uh… Good morning, Mirabel. Happy birthday."