Chapter 3 In A Serious Relationship With

• A few more days passed and no sign of Luiz. Helena called, texted, looked on Facebook and nothing. She even asked Samantha if she saw him at the gym, but she couldn't say anything either. Which on the one hand was in vain, since their schedules don't match.
• She was already thinking the worst. "Bad news always comes first!" she said to herself.
• On a hot January morning, Helena was getting ready to go to work, when she heard the noise of something breaking. It was her evil eye, made especially for her by her grandmother, that hung on the living room wall.
• In Greek culture, this artifact symbolizes the Eye of God, protecting a person from envy and the evil eye. When it breaks, it's because it protected the person from some harm...
• Or is it because something very bad is about to happen to her.
• But her evil eye broke in such a strange way that it startled her. The object broke into a thousand pieces, which scattered around the room. It was as if someone had thrown him to the ground or smashed him with a hammer.
• She was still studying the broken Greek eye when her cell phone rang. It was Samantha calling desperately.
• — Hi.
• — Have you seen your boyfriend's Facebook?
• — No, why? — She felt a tightening in her heart with that question.
• — Then see now with your own eyes, it already has more than a hundred likes!
• Still with her cell phone in her hand, Helena went to her notebook, entered Facebook, looked for Luiz's profile... and refrained from freaking out with the following sentence:
• "Luiz Santos is in a serious relationship with... Núbia Alves!"
• — WHAT? HOW? WHY? — She read and reread the sentence, but did not believe what she saw ... or did not want to believe. Luiz, her boyfriend, posted on Facebook that he was with another girl. And with a photo and everything. She went to look at that Nubia's profile and was horrified to see her, posing with the mug she had given him on New Year's Eve, with the following comment:
• "Look what my tiger gave me! Meow! I have to be a cat for him..."
• — Oh, what disgust, oh what horror! — Helena screamed at the top of her lungs in front of the laptop. That's because she still hasn't seen the comments about her on his profile:
• "Hey Luiz and the girl who reads?" asked one of his friends. His answer: "Did not work."
• — "DID NOT WORK?" — She repeated incredulously: — what do you mean "it didn't work?
• The worst part was reading Nubia's comment:
• "She's a card out of the deck! My tiger was just doing her a favor! Who wants an ugly nerd like her? She thinks she is! My tiger only bought books to win you over..."
• Helena cried a sea of tears at that horrible attitude on her part. After all she's done for him and for them, is this how he repays her? At the time, she felt like crap. It got so bad she forgot about Samantha on the line.
• — Lena, are you okay? Hi? Don't do anything, I'll come to your house! — Samantha hung up and ran to her house to avoid a disaster.
• Meanwhile, she desperately started calling Luiz, wanting an explanation about all those antics, but it went to voicemail. That cretin didn't even have the courage to go up to her and tell her what was going on. In a fit of rage, she threw a vase against the wall. The impact was so strong, that just like her Greek eye, the vase also broke into a thousand pieces, causing them to fly towards her face, causing her a huge scratch. The pain was so bad that she screamed several profanities, both in Portuguese and in Greek.
• Alone and abandoned, she once again burst into tears on the living room floor.
• *
• As soon as she arrived at Helena's apartment, Samantha saw her lying on the living room floor, amid the porcelain shards of the vase, still crying:
• — Lena... I'm sorry to tell you, but one hour you would end up seeing it.
• — Alright..., but I would have preferred that Luiz had come to me to finish everything and not post on Facebook that he was with someone else and say that "we didn't work out".
• — You didn't suspect anything?
• — No... I mean, after the new year, he sent me a message, telling me not to look for him for now, for an unforeseen or setback that I don't know... I sent another message asking what happened, but I I didn't answer, I called the dorm, but no one there could tell me anything, I called the mother's house and she said he stopped by to get some of his things that were still there... Don't tell me if he was supposed to be brought here ...and by the way, it wasn't. — She related in tears.
• — Either they didn't know or they didn't want to tell you the truth! — replied Samantha, always suspicious of everything and everyone. She didn't want to say anything, but at that moment Helena needed to face facts.
• — Do you believe that Luiz gave to the one from Núbia, the Heavy Metal mug that I had bought for him at Christmas?
• — Serious? But what a son of a bitch! Did he really do it?
• — And there's more... she posted both on his profile and on hers, that she won his mug, that I was a card out of the deck, that I was ugly, that he was doing me a favor by staying with me...
• — What? — Samantha asked, indignant with the situation: — She didn't do that... or did she?
• — See yourself with your own eyes... — Helena pointed to the notebook with bitterness. Samantha went to look at Luiz and Núbia's Facebook and didn't believe what she saw. Those two spotted their friend on social media for all to see.
• — Stupid girl! How could she say that bunch of insults about you if she doesn't even know you? And then Luiz is even dumber, how can he do such a bitch, after all you've done for him?
• When she looked back, she saw Helena crying once more. Really, she must have been very much in love with him, to the point of being shaken like that. And to see her suffer for that scoundrel was heartbreaking.
• — Calm down friend... I'm here. — Samantha knelt between the shards of porcelain very carefully not to cut herself, to be able to hug her.
• — You don't have to go to work?
• — I sent an audio to the staff of my WhatsApp group and to the board, canceling today's classes and replacing another day. I will spend the day with you.
• — I don't think I'm going to work today either... By now, everyone should know.
• — Oh, but it won't. You won't be able to work shaken like that. I'll call your office and say you're not well. Don't worry, I'll take care of everything.
• — Thank you Sam, thank you very much.
• — You're welcome. You were always by my side when I needed it most and when I least deserved it. And I would never let you get into this depression because of that idiot. Now it's my turn to take care of you.
• Samantha remembered how many times Helena was with her, especially in the most difficult moments of life. Since she was little, she has had a complicated family. She was the daughter of divorced parents, but still married on paper, as they were partners and owners of one of the most important construction companies in the state, Ferreira & Duarte S/A. Her father, a renowned engineer, and her mother, an important architect and socialite, lived a marriage of appearances. She was a witness to her parents' farce and betrayals.
• In fact, small is just a way of saying it, because she has always been very tall for her age. In fact, she was gigantic. The brunette with medium brown hair, full lips and beautiful green eyes drew a lot of attention wherever she went because of her great stature.
• And it was with the Petropoulos family that she learned what the unconditional love of a father and mother really means. They were employees of her family and Helena was her older "little sister", as she was the tallest. And several times she accidentally called her friend's parents mom and dad.
• Now it was up to Samantha to be her older sister at this point.