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Chapter 2: A Slut, Full of Desire, and Not Sorry
Part 1
Some words were never created to describe people.
They were created to judge them.
To point fingers.
To make someone feel ashamed for simply having lived.
Slut.
Crazy.
Promiscuous.
Witch.
Toxic.
Funny, isn't it?
Those words almost always end up being thrown at women.
Because when a man has shared his bed with half the city...
he's a legend.
An experienced man.
A guy who's "lived."
But when a woman has lived that very same life...
she suddenly stops being a woman.
She becomes an insult.
I've never understood that logic.
And honestly...
I don't think I ever will.
Because desire doesn't have a gender.
Neither does loneliness.
And the need to feel loved...
certainly doesn't.
We've all looked for love in the wrong places.
We've all mistaken desire for affection.
We've all held on to the wrong person simply because the soul gets cold too.
The difference is...
some people get applauded for it.
Others get condemned.
What a twisted way to measure a person's worth.
As if someone's entire life could be reduced to the number of people they kissed.
As if a body were somehow worth more because of everything it hid...
instead of everything it dared to feel.
That's when something finally clicked.
People aren't really judging a woman's sex life.
They're judging the fact that she owns it.
Yes.
A lot of men have walked through my life.
And if that makes me a slut...
promiscuous...
or whatever label people need to sleep better at night...
so be it.
I'm not ashamed.
I don't owe anyone an explanation.
And I'm certainly not apologizing.
Some men passed through my bed without leaving so much as a footprint.
Others got tangled up in my desires.
Some I truly loved.
Others I simply held close because I didn't want to sleep alone.
With some, I laughed until my stomach hurt.
With others, I cried until my soul did.
And there are a few I honestly can't even remember anymore.
My teddy bears.
With names.
Without stories.
Full of empty promises...
and recycled hugs.
Not everyone who walks into your life is meant to change it.
Most people are just passing through.
A train stop.
A short chapter.
A memory time quietly erases.
But there were four.
Four men who weren't just another story.
They became turning points.
Not because they were the best.
Not because I loved them more.
But because each one left a different version of me behind.
One taught me that falling in love isn't enough to build a life.
Another showed me that love can become a prison when it's confused with control.
One proved that promises made at an altar don't guarantee loyalty.
And the last one...
The last one taught me the hardest lesson of all.
That you can love someone with everything you have...
and still end up alone.
But...
not yet.
I'm not ready to tell you that story.
First, I need to tell you how all of this began.
Because, like most tragedies...
mine also started the day I believed I had finally found the right man.
Part 2
Some loves last a lifetime.
Others last just long enough to change it forever.
Your first love rarely arrives with experience.
It arrives wrapped in hope.
In that ridiculous certainty that this person will be there forever.
Because the first time you fall in love, you honestly believe love is enough to fix everything.
You don't know yet that love can run out.
That people lie.
That cowards exist.
That someone can promise you forever while they're already planning their exit.
I was seventeen.
And like most people at that age, I still confused intensity with love.
He was a Second Lieutenant in the Colombian Army.
And if life taught me anything later on, it's this:
A uniform can make a lot of men look brave...
right up until the moment they're expected to take responsibility for what they've done.
We fell in love.
Or at least...
that's what I believed.
He was transferred to another military base.
And like the hopelessly lovesick idiot I was, I walked eight blocks every single day just to call him from a public pay phone.
Today that probably sounds romantic.
Back then...
I called it love.
Or at least I thought I did.
He made promises.
I believed them.
It was really that simple.
When he came back, I felt like every mile I'd walked had been worth it.
Then life—with its incredibly twisted sense of humor—decided to remind me that goodbyes can leave you with much more than memories.
He was transferred again.
That last night...
there were drinks.
There were tears.
There were goodbye kisses.
And there were a couple of decisions made with our hearts...
instead of our brains.
A few months later, on the day I graduated from high school...
the pregnancy test came back positive.
My mother was walking proudly beside me.
I smiled for every picture.
While inside...
my entire world was falling apart.
She didn't know yet.
Or maybe mothers always know...
they just wait until you're brave enough to say it out loud.
Because mothers have this strange gift.
They always seem to discover tragedies before their children do.
I walked around the house pretending everything was normal.
Smiling.
Making plans.
Celebrating graduation.
While inside me...
a war was raging that nobody could see.
And him...
He was far away.
Or at least...
that's what I thought.
Then came the senior graduation trip.
According to our teachers, it was supposed to become one of the best memories of our school years.
They were right.
Just...
not for the reasons they imagined.
Our bus stopped at a military base.
The very base where he had been stationed.
My heart nearly exploded.
I remember thinking,
"See? God hasn't forgotten about me after all."
God...
I was so unbelievably naïve.
I asked one of the soldiers where he was.
The man answered with the calm voice of someone who had no idea he was about to destroy another person's world.
"He's not here."
"He's on leave."
"He went to visit his girlfriend."
...
His girlfriend.
I still remember that sentence.
It hit harder than any gunshot ever could.
I didn't cry.
I didn't scream.
I didn't make a scene.
Some pain is simply too big to come out through your eyes.
It just empties you from the inside.
And there I was.
Pregnant.
Believing I was the only woman in his life...
while he was off visiting someone else.
Funny, isn't it?
You spend months imagining the hardest conversation you'll ever have...
only to discover the truth from the mouth of a complete stranger.
The next day...
he came back.
And despite everything...
I still had hope.
Because when you're in love...
hope is always the last stupid thing to die.
Part 3
A Blue Crib
There's something that's always made me laugh.
People think motherhood begins the day a baby is born.
That's bullshit.
Motherhood begins the moment a woman stops thinking only about herself.
I was still a kid.
And yet, there I was...
doing the math.
Where was the baby going to sleep?
How was I going to earn a living?
How was I supposed to provide for him?
What was my mother going to say?
Almost overnight, I stopped thinking about the man who had left me.
Everything suddenly revolved around a tiny little person I hadn't even met yet.
Love is a strange thing.
Some people spend years learning how to love.
A mother falls in love before she even knows the color of her baby's eyes.
While I was putting that little blue crib together, I realized something.
I didn't have time to die of heartbreak anymore.
Now I had to learn how to live.
Because someone depended on me.
And that changes everything.
From that day on...
I was never just Yenny again.
I was somebody's mother.
And I honestly believe no one is ever the same after hearing the word Mom for the very first time coming from a tiny little voice.
He hadn't even been born yet...
and somehow...
he was already saving my life.
If I could sit down today with that seventeen-year-old girl...
I wouldn't tell her,
"Don't fall in love with him."
No.
Because then I would never have met the son I love with every piece of my soul.
The only thing I'd tell her is this:
"Take it easy."
"Cry every tear you need to cry."
"Feel every ounce of anger you need to feel."
"But don't be afraid."
"You don't know it yet..."
"One day you'll look back and realize that the worst day of your life..."
"...was also the beginning of the greatest love you would ever know."
And somehow...
that makes even heartbreak...
worth surviving.
Part 4
Hell Had a Name... and a Rank
For a long time, I thought that story had ended there.
With a letter.
A little blue crib.
And a heart shattered into a thousand pieces.
God...
I was so wrong.
Life was only warming up.
Because just when you think you've finally learned your lesson...
someone shows up to test you all over again.
That's when he came into my life.
I was still pregnant.
Seventeen years old.
Still trying to accept the pregnancy.
Carrying more questions than answers.
Smiling on the outside...
while doing everything I could to hide the fear inside.
He didn't walk into my life talking about love.
He talked about peace.
He became my friend first.
And honestly...
I think that's exactly how he found his way into my heart.
Friendship lowers your defenses.
You stop expecting danger.
You begin to trust.
After taking so many hits, you finally believe someone good has come along.
He listened.
He stayed.
He worried about me.