[Spirit of Lust 2] Chapters 560 & 561. (Patreon)

Chapter 560: Intermission - Fernanda Santos (part 1).

Her body felt heavy and her head was a mess. She had too many things in her head and none of them made any sense to her. Her head hurt, and yet that was her best workday so far. What did that say about Fernanda Santos?

A failure.

She returned home after closing shop. Not her apartment alone close to her university, but rather her parents’ home. She had come back with her tail between her legs and they welcomed her with open arms and big smiles.

Pathetic.

“Ah, Fern! Welcome back! Dinner’s almost ready,” said her dad from the kitchen, speaking in that loud, cheerful voice of his. “Come, tell us how work went today.”

“...” Fernanda felt a knot in her throat. She forced a smile as she looked at him. “I’m not hungry right now. I’ll eat later, I promise.”

He would worry even more if she didn’t eat at all, and Fernanda was at least smart enough to know not eating was bad for her. Her dad was the cook in the house, making sure to prepare meals that satisfied all of their nutritional needs. He put an ungodly amount of effort into them and her mom ate them somewhat begrudgingly because she would rather have pastas and hamburgers, but Fernanda actually really liked her dad’s meals. She wasn’t lying when she said she wasn’t hungry. Her stomach just… felt like it wasn’t even there.

Ungrateful child.

She went up the stairs and locked herself in her bedroom. She lay down on her bed, eyes closed and shut hard to stop the itching. Her lips curved down against her own will, inner turmoil forcing a facial expression on her even as she consciously tried to stop it.

Fernanda Santos was an utter failure of a human being.

She lacked nothing. She had a loving family that worked hard for her; they weren’t filthy rich but were very well off;  when she said she wanted to get a degree in something related to arts, her parents supported her; when she said she wanted to live alone, her parents worried but found an apartment for her. Fernanda had everything she needed… Which made it all feel a lot worse.

She had no excuses and wouldn’t make any. She was just a plain and utter failure.

She wanted to live on her own to prove to herself and her family that she was capable of doing it, that she could take care of herself. It was way harder than she thought. Managing groceries, cooking, cleaning and laundry along with her studies and her personal projects… Her apartment was a mess; she ate quick, high-calorie meals instead of her dad’s perfect dishes; she messed up her laundry too many times and sometimes had no choice but to go out with either an old shirt or a clean but wrinkled one. She lost more than one set of underwear in the wash just because she didn’t read the instructions.

Classes were also harder than she expected. She had decided to major in fine arts because she believed it would help her with her own projects, but her teachers didn’t take classes into any practical direction, instead focusing on historical aspects and theory. It was hard to keep up with for someone who had spent most of high school doodling in notebooks instead of paying attention.

Six months of that and Fernanda was on the verge of losing it. At first she tried to keep herself to a routine, but she didn’t have the energy for it. She then tried to focus on what made her happy: drawing. That had the effect of lowering her grades even more. Nothing was working.

To top it all off, Fernanda felt utterly alone. She was away from her family and had failed to make any meaningful connections with her classmates. She’d always been an introvert and more than a little awkward at school. She kept herself to her two close friends that were very much like her, but after graduation one moved to France and the other left to study in another city.

Anxiety, stress, awful academic results, no progress in her own projects, loneliness, failure to even function as a proper adult and putting the weight of it all on her own shoulders, Fernanda Santos fell into a deep depression.

She broke down when talking to her parents about it. She cried and she apologized, feeling more worthless with every word. Her family comforted her and asked her to come back home. She did.

She went to the psychologist one time at her parents’ behest. His words still echoed in Fernanda’s head, loud and painful.

“You’re too pretty to have depression.”

It was further proof that Fernanda had it all, yet continued to fail at life. She had a good body and a pretty face. Girls like that didn’t have to work for anything. That was what the psychologist implied. She had never seen her dad angrier than when she told him how that appointment went. That felt good, at least. Despite being a failure, her family loved her.

She didn’t deserve it.

Her dad dropped everything, had Fernanda freeze her semester and they made a two-month trip back to Brazil to see the rest of their family. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins… It was good. It made her feel better, if only a bit.

It… It recharged her. The warmth and comfort of family did her well. It was a temporary escape, but not having to think about classes was freeing. But that couldn’t last forever.

Fernanda felt pathetic, a failure and undeserving of everything she had. She didn’t want anything, she didn’t wish for her problems to magically disappear. She just wanted to be able to stand on her own two feet, and she was failing.

Unlike him.

************

Chapter 561: Intermission - Fernanda Santos (part 2).

It was infatuation, plain and simple.

After running some errands in town, the delightful smell of coffee drew Fernanda into a shop she hadn’t seen before. She went in and found a seat only to feel her heart nearly stop when she saw him.

Wavy black hair, gray eyes, black glasses that perfectly fit his cute face and a lean, muscular physique noticeable through his shirt. He came to wait at her table and left her speechless. She forced herself to keep her eyes on the menu, but after that she could NOT look away.

He was beautiful, handsome, sexy, cute… Perfect. Fernanda had never fallen for someone so quickly in her life. She managed to overhear that he was a senior in high school, so a year younger than her, two at most. It was a little awkward, but… She couldn’t stop herself. She got to indulge in fantasies for all of ten minutes before everything came crashing down.

Fernanda wasn’t the only one who fell for the hot waiter. Girls from his own school all came to the shop just to ogle him, but worse than that… his friends… They were gorgeous, stunningly sexy, and they seemed very close.

Fernanda never had a shot, and… maybe it was better that way. She didn’t even have her own life together. Having a boyfriend would be a disaster. And yet, even after leaving the shop and through the days that followed, she couldn’t get him out of her mind.

She came back to the coffee shop again and again. She had become a regular to the point he knew what she would order. It was… an escape. A small rest stop from… everything. Just looking at him replaced the anxiety in her chest with butterflies in her stomach, and it was far preferable.

She never thought she would end up working with him. Oliver.

If Fernanda hadn’t been a regular at the shop, if she hadn’t paid an unhealthy amount of attention to him, she wouldn’t have believed what he told her just earlier that day.

Scared shitless of people getting mad. Having recently just learned that people didn’t care about his mistakes.

…

It sounded like bullshit to her. She had heard it all before. Genuine words of advice that rang hollow from the mouth of people who didn’t understand what she was going through.

…

But Oliver understood.

Fernanda watched him in his awkward days of being a waiter. He scowled, he barely spoke, he moved with stiff steps, second-guessed his every action. Some time later he moved with more confidence, made small talk and showed a smile that melted hearts, hers included.

How? How did he manage that? He was getting better at his job in no time. It made her believe it was only initial nerves, that he was always a well of confidence. But then she discovered his music channel.

Fernanda stiffened on her bed and tried to suffocate herself with a pillow on her face, all to forget that embarrassing moment. She overheard his friends talking about his music channel and she immediately looked it up on her phone. She found it, and believing her earphones were on, she played the video. Her earphones weren’t on. The whole shop heard her play the video, Oliver included.

In the following days, she left for Brazil. That was her last appearance there in a while. Not the best last impression, and she still curled up in shame thinking about it.

Back in Brazil, however, she started listening to his music. His covers helped her find new things, but she really liked his originals. She absolutely loved that his cat was always there, sitting by his side when he played.

She saw the progress there, too. He wouldn’t show his face at first. He was stiff, nervous. But video by video, song after song, he became more confident and comfortable.

The guy was a prodigy, a virtuoso. He was 18 years old and played the guitar like a professional. He then picked up the bass and the ocarina like it was nothing. A guy younger than her could do all that, while she…

…

Listening to his music was likely the only thing that kept pushing her to continue her own… creative works, though nothing felt very creative lately. She didn’t feel like drawing, and that was the worst of all. The most she did were very basic exercises, like drawing circles and straight lines of different thickness. It was hard to find the energy and motivation to do it when she felt like she didn’t have the basics of her life figured out. Why spend time drawing when she had to study? Why try to create dumb art when she didn’t even know how to do fucking laundry!?

Oliver inspired and put a damper on her at the same time. A young man who was working hard in a creative area, like her, but also someone with true talent, someone who had the ability and the courage to pursue his goals, unlike her.

For a while she thought he struggled in the same way she did, but soon realized she was wrong. He was nothing like her. He was too good for her, out of her league.

But this last workday… Being with him, following him, listening to his instructions, his advice… It felt so good. He understood. He really, truly understood what her struggles were, almost as if he had felt them himself before. He guided her gently, helped her yet didn’t coddle her. He forced her to do her part, pushed her to do things on her own. She was being helped, yet also treated like an adult.

…

Fernanda couldn’t stop the feelings swelling her chest. She knew she didn’t have a shot. He had girlfriends already, plural. Even if numbers weren’t an issue, there was no way he would pay attention to a screw up like her.

…

Although… appearance-wise, at least… Fernanda did seem to fit his type.

…

Oh, forget it, woman. You have more important things to focus on. High time you stop feeling sorry for yourself and get out there and start gaining control of your own life.

If only it were that easy.