F*cked-Up Stories, Brutally Honest Words

Part 1

Do you know what's more exhausting than working?

Trying to make someone understand what you're trying to say.

Work wears your body down.

Explaining the same thing over and over again...

that wears down your soul.

At some point in life, you stop explaining yourself.

Not because you get tired of talking.

No.

You get tired of repeating yourself.

And repeating yourself is far more exhausting than explaining.

When you're explaining, there's still hope.

You think maybe they didn't understand.

Maybe you didn't say it the right way.

Maybe the timing was off.

Maybe you simply chose the wrong words.

But repeating yourself...

that's something else.

Repeating yourself means realizing they understood perfectly well.

They just couldn't care less.

And that pisses you off.

Because now it isn't a communication problem.

It's a willingness problem.

There's a huge difference between someone not hearing you...

and realizing they never wanted to.

It happened to me.

And if I'm being honest...

I'm almost certain it's happened to you too.

Because we've all had conversations with a brick wall.

You explain.

You make your case.

You take a deep breath.

You explain it again.

You look for different words.

You soften your tone.

You swallow your frustration.

You even put on that enlightened, spiritually evolved face—you know, the kind of people who post Buddha quotes on social media, drink lemon water every morning, meditate for ten minutes, and swear they've healed.

And the other person?

They don't even blink.

That's when you start wondering if maybe you're the problem.

Maybe I came on too strong.

Maybe I was too harsh.

Maybe it wasn't the right moment.

Maybe I should've taken a deep breath.

Counted to ten.

Grabbed a Coke.

Who knows...

Maybe I should've spoken with more love.

All those excuses we invent because admitting the truth is much harder.

The truth is...

the problem isn't the way you speak.

The problem is that some people only ask questions after they've already decided which answer they want to hear.

And if you don't give them exactly that...

they pretend they didn't hear you.

Or worse...

they get offended.

It's really that simple.

People love saying,

"Just tell me the truth."

And every time I hear that...

I hesitate.

Because that sentence always comes with a trap.

It's just like when someone says,

"You won't get mad... right?"

The moment you hear that...

you already know a bomb is about to explode.

"Tell me the truth."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Okay..."

So you take a deep breath.

Say a silent prayer for their soul.

And then...

you tell them the truth.

Five minutes later...

you're the villain.

The cruel one.

The dramatic one.

The insensitive one.

The one who's always starting arguments.

The difficult one.

The sarcastic one.

No, sweetheart.

You didn't want the truth.

You wanted me to stroke your ego.

You wanted me to confirm the bedtime story you'd already written in your own head so you could sleep peacefully.

Because truth has one very inconvenient problem.

It doesn't always make us the hero.

Sometimes...

it puts a mirror right in front of us.

And some people would rather smash the mirror...

than face what they see staring back at them.

Part 2

I've never been very good at swallowing whatever people hand me.

Never.

And believe me, in this society that almost qualifies as a personality disorder.

I wasn't raised to keep my mouth shut.

My mother wasn't one of those women who said,

"Be quiet. The adults are talking."

Quite the opposite.

My mother made a terrible mistake.

She taught me how to read.

Most people think learning to read means putting letters together.

Not even close.

Learning to read was the beginning of every problem I've ever had.

Because reading wasn't about words.

It was about learning to doubt.

Reading a headline and asking,

"Who wrote this?"

Listening to a speech and thinking,

"What does this person really want?"

Let's be honest.

Almost everybody wants something.

Hearing someone say "I love you" and wondering,

"Is that love... fear of being alone... or are they just horny?"

You start out reading books.

Before you know it...

you're reading people.

Books can be closed.

People can't.

And that's when life gets complicated.

Because you stop listening only to what people say.

You start noticing what they don't say.

What they hide.

What they fake.

What they carefully avoid.

People speak with their mouths.

But they also speak through silence.

Through glances.

Through promises.

And, most of all...

through the promises they never keep.

Maybe that's why I was never easy to fool.

Not because I was smarter than everyone else.

Let's not get carried away.

I simply paid attention.

And paying attention...

is a dangerous habit.

You start noticing who's genuinely happy for you.

Who's clapping out of politeness.

Who's smiling because it's expected.

And who's secretly waiting for you to fail just so they can say,

"See? I knew it wasn't going to work."

My mother—the troublemaker that she was—also taught me to question things.

That was the final nail in the coffin.

Once you learn how to question the world...

you never swallow stories whole again.

Ever since I was little, I had this annoying habit of asking,

"Why?"

Such a tiny little question.

Yet it made people more uncomfortable than a well-placed insult.

Then my mother taught me something even more dangerous.

She taught me how to think.

And that's how she completely ruined me.

Because people who think...

eventually start making their own decisions.

And someone who makes their own decisions...

is a problem.

Society loves independent people...

as long as they don't become too independent.

It loves confident women...

as long as they don't become too loud.

As long as you smile...

nod your head...

and go along with everyone else...

people are perfectly comfortable.

The moment you dare to have an opinion...

the party is over.

Come to think of it...

thinking isn't the problem.

Asking questions isn't the problem.

Having opinions isn't the problem.

The real problem...

is doing any of those things without waiting for someone else's permission.

Questions are manageable.

People can dodge them.

They'll give you some meaningless answer and move on.

But an opinion...

An opinion stands up, looks everyone in the eye, and says,

"I've been thinking too."

And that...

makes people deeply uncomfortable.

Because now they're expected to think as well.

And let's face it...

thinking takes effort.

It's much easier to repeat whatever everyone else is saying.

Much easier to obey.

Much easier to stay quiet...

and later call that silence maturity instead of what it really was.

Cowardice.

I tried it too.

More than once.

I told myself,

"Yenny... stop giving your opinion."

"Stay out of it."

"Keep your mouth shut."

"You don't have to say everything you're thinking."

I honestly tried.

I swear I did.

But with my personality...

that experiment lasted about five minutes.

Pretending not to notice things requires a talent I simply don't have.

Part 3

While other little girls were playing with dolls...

I preferred listening to grown-ups talk.

Not because I was nosy.

People simply fascinated me more than toys ever could.

Dolls had nothing to hide.

Adults did.

They would say "yes," while their face screamed "no."

They'd say, "Nothing's wrong," while the silence in the room was telling an entirely different story.

That's when I developed a habit I've never been able to shake.

I learned to listen beyond words.

To watch people's expressions.

Their pauses.

The way their voice changed halfway through a sentence.

The silences that sit in the middle of a room as if they had their own Social Security number.

Sometimes a single sigh tells you more than a thirty-minute speech ever could.

I never enjoyed pretending to be somebody's mom.

I wasn't interested in serving imaginary tea to imaginary guests.

I didn't spend hours talking to dolls.

That bored me to death.

What I loved was observing.

Listening.

Thinking.

Trying to understand.

And whenever someone asked a difficult question...

that's when I came alive.

Over the years I realized that strange little girl never disappeared.

She simply grew up.

I'm still the same person.

The one who overthinks everything.

The one who asks uncomfortable questions.

The one who can't pretend not to notice what's right in front of her.

The one who would rather have an uncomfortable conversation than live inside a comfortable lie.

Some people call that a flaw.

I call it the only way I've found to stay loyal to myself.

Some people are born to fit in.

Others are born wondering why the hell the mold exists in the first place.

I obviously belong to the second group.

Funny enough...

people almost never called me a liar.

That one never really stuck.

Because even the people who got angry with me usually knew I was right.

And that was exactly the problem.

Truth doesn't make people uncomfortable because it's false.

It makes them uncomfortable because it's accurate.

Eventually I realized that thinking comes with a price.

Sometimes that price is becoming unpopular.

Losing relationships.

Feeling alone.

Discovering you no longer belong in places where you once fit perfectly.

But I also discovered something else.

Fitting in comes with an even higher price.

Because fitting in often requires giving up pieces of yourself.

And that's a deal I was never willing to make.

Call me intense.

Call me toxic.

Complicated.

Sarcastic.

Crazy.

Or even a slut.

I'd rather hear every one of those words...

than wake up one morning, look in the mirror, and fail to recognize the woman staring back at me.

So yes...

if thinking makes some people dislike me...

they can get over it.

Peace doesn't arrive the day everyone finally understands you.

Peace arrives the day you stop apologizing for being yourself.

The day you stop trying to become someone else just to make everybody comfortable.

This book wasn't born because I stayed silent.

It was born because I spoke.

Because I warned people.

Because I shouted.

Explained.

Reasoned.

And still watched everything fall apart.

Writing doesn't heal me completely.

I'm not going to sell you that cheap fairy tale.

But it keeps me from dying in silence.

And honestly...

that's already enough.

Here, I don't have to measure every word.

Nobody interrupts me.

Nobody rolls their eyes.

Nobody tells me to lower my voice.

Here, I get to say everything.

And whoever wants to read it...

is welcome.

Whoever doesn't...

can simply close the book.

So...

who the hell am I to write any of this?

I was born on July 25, 1976, in Medellín, Colombia.

Do the math.

According to society, I'm not young anymore.

But I'm not some obedient old woman either.

I'm too young to give up...

and too old to let anyone walk all over me.

I'm a woman who's lived long enough to stop needing approval...

and just crazy enough to write the things other people only dare to think.

My name is Yenny Astrid Londoño.

I'm a mother.

A grandmother.

A businesswoman.

A modern-day witch.

Sarcastic by nature.

A creator of ideas most people don't understand...

yet somehow those same ideas have kept me alive.

And above all...

I'm one stubborn badass who never learned how to keep her mouth shut.

No, not every idea I've ever had made me money.

Not all of them worked.

Most of them would never fit society's definition of success.

I still gave birth to every single one of them...

with love, madness, and faith.

If this were about recognition...

I would've quit a long time ago.

But it isn't.

I keep going because this isn't about money.

It's about existing.

In this absurd world, some people get paid to talk nonsense...

while others get punished for telling the truth.

I wasn't born to play a role.

I came here to break the mold.

I'm not a writer because of a diploma.

I'm a writer because my soul refuses to stay quiet.

Because once I can no longer hold it in...

the words come out like raw truth.

I didn't write this book to be liked.

I wrote it because I couldn't carry it inside me anymore.

This book was born from exhaustion.

From anger.

From every time I swallowed my feelings to keep someone else comfortable.

From every day honesty felt like a battle against myself.

And if someone had to tell these stories...

these f*cked-up stories...

it had to be me.

Because I've survived more than I'll ever tell.

Because I know what it's like to swallow the truth until it burns your throat...

and still get up the next morning with your head held high.

Because I still have questions.

I still make mistakes.

Some parts of life still hurt.

I don't write to close wounds.

I write so women like me understand that being perfectly sane in a crazy world...

is an act of rebellion.

Being a woman, free, and impossible to silence...

the world has never known what to do with that combination.

Writing is how I stay alive...

without killing anybody.

It's how I tell political correctness to go to hell...

without ending up in jail.

This chapter isn't a confession.

It's a warning.

I've always spoken up.

My voice was never the problem.

The problem...

was the echo.

And if you've ever felt like you talked...

explained...

cried...

screamed...

begged...

or wrote your heart out...

hoping someone would finally understand you...

let me tell you something.

Maybe your voice was never the problem.

Maybe you were trying to be heard by people who only wanted you to lower the volume.

Because once you finally learn to listen to yourself...

you never ask permission to be who you are again.

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.

He even put me on his health insurance so I could get prenatal care.

When you've just been through a heartbreak that big...

small acts of kindness feel enormous.

I wasn't looking for another man.

I wasn't even thinking about falling in love again.

All I wanted...

was to stop feeling alone.

And he appeared at exactly the right moment.

That's what makes broken people so vulnerable.

We don't see new people with clear eyes.

We see them through our need.

And need has a terrible habit...

of disguising warning signs as hope.

For months...

that's all he was.

My friend.

The person I called whenever I felt like my world was falling apart.

The one who could still make me laugh after I'd cried myself empty.

The one who always seemed to show up when I needed help.

Little by little...

without even noticing...

I got used to him being there.

That's how affection usually works.

It doesn't kick the door down.

It quietly moves in.

One day you realize that person has become part of your daily life.

You wait for their calls.

You miss them when they don't show up.

And somehow...

without realizing when it happened...

they've taken over a place in your heart you swore nobody would ever occupy again.

Eventually...

we stopped being just friends.

And I believed again.

It's easy to swear you'll never fall in love again...

right until someone gives you a reason to hope.

And I was only seventeen.

What the hell did I know about love?

I still believed good people came into your life to stay.

I had no idea...

some people only come to teach you a lesson.

At first...

everything looked beautiful.

He was thoughtful.

Responsible.

Hard-working.

He made me feel safe.

And after being abandoned while pregnant...

that feeling meant more than any I love you ever could.

I wasn't looking for Prince Charming.

I didn't need a hero.

I just wanted someone who wouldn't run away.

And in the beginning...

he didn't.

He stayed.

And that's exactly why I trusted him.

Because trust isn't built with three little words.

Trust is built through consistency.

Through small acts.

Through knowing someone is there when you need them most.

I never imagined that the same man helping me get back on my feet...

would one day become the man I'd have to run away from.

And the hardest part...

was that it didn't happen overnight.

People rarely show you who they really are in the beginning.

First...

they make you fall in love with the version they want you to see.

The other version...

the real one...

doesn't show up until they're convinced you're not going anywhere.

And I had no idea what was coming.

I didn't know that love can become a prison.

Or that some prisons aren't built with iron bars...

They're built with guilt.

Fear.

And manipulation.

Part 5

When Love Started Looking Like a Cage

As time went by, we built a life together.

And for the first time since everything had fallen apart...

I felt like I could breathe again.

I was still just a girl.

But I already felt old.

Some pain ages you faster than time ever could.

He met my son before he was even born.

And when my little boy finally came into the world...

he was there.

That's why I never saw what was coming.

Because you never expect the blow to come from the same hand that was holding you up.

At first...

it was the kind of thing you barely notice.

"Who were you talking to?"

"Where are you going?"

"What time will you be back?"

And you answer.

Because you think that's just what love looks like.

Then, little by little...

they stop being questions.

They become decisions.

And before I even realized it...

my life no longer belonged to me.

But there was one thing that, even today, I struggle to understand because of how incredibly cruel it was.

I was taking birth control pills.

Or at least...

I thought I was.

He was the one who handed them to me every single day.

With a smile.

Like a man lovingly taking care of the woman he adored.

"Sweetheart..."

"Here's your pill."

And I took it.

Without a second thought.

Because when you love someone...

you hand them your trust too.

It never crossed my mind that someone could use that trust...

to trap me even further.

Years later...

I finally understood what he'd been doing.

The pill packs contained twenty-eight tablets.

Twenty-one were actual birth control pills.

The other seven...

were nothing more than vitamins.

He knew exactly which ones were which.

And every single day...

he handed me the vitamins.

While I believed I was protecting myself...

he had already made the decision for both of us.

Even now...

when I think back on it...

it's hard to believe it really happened.

Because not every form of violence leaves bruises.

Some leave questions.

How can someone claim to love you...

while making decisions about your body without ever asking you?

How can someone talk about building a future together...

while quietly stealing your right to choose your own?

That wasn't love.

It wasn't protection.

It wasn't even fear of losing me.

It was control.

And control has never—not once in history—been another name for love.

Never.

When the pregnancy test came back positive again...

it felt like the ground disappeared beneath my feet for the second time.

I couldn't understand it.

I'd done everything right.

I took my pills.

It was impossible.

Until the truth finally surfaced.

And with it...

another version of him appeared.

One I'd never met before.

A much darker one.

Because controlling my decisions was no longer enough.

Now he wanted to control my entire life.

That's when the shouting started.

Then the hitting.

Then the fear.

And finally...

the silence.

At first...

you always find excuses.

"He's just stressed."

"He's had a rough day."

"He's worried about something."

You defend the indefensible...

because accepting the truth hurts even more.

Then something strange begins to happen.

Without even noticing...

you start changing.

You stop wearing certain clothes because he doesn't like them.

You stop talking to certain people because they "make him uncomfortable."

You stop going out.

You stop giving your opinion.

You stop laughing too loudly.

And one day...

you realize you've spent months slowly disappearing...

just to keep someone else from getting angry.

If he'd hit me on the very first day...

I probably would've run.

But nobody builds a prison by showing you the bars first.

They decorate it.

They fill it with flowers.

They call it home.

And by the time you realize what's happening...

the door is already locked.

From the inside.

The worst part wasn't the fear.

The worst part was that I still believed I could change him.

Because when you love someone...

you develop an incredible ability to negotiate with reality.

You convince yourself tomorrow will be different.

That this time...

he finally understood.

That it won't happen again.

Hope becomes incredibly dangerous...

when it's invested in the wrong person.

And while I kept waiting for him to change...

the one who was slowly disappearing...

was me.

Every day I spoke a little less.

Laughed a little less.

Dreamed a little less.

Until one day...

I looked in the mirror...

and didn't recognize the young woman staring back at me.

I wasn't living anymore.

I was surviving.

And surviving isn't living.

It's breathing...

while waiting for a better day to arrive.

Then one night...

I realized something.

I wasn't afraid of being alone anymore.

I was afraid of staying.

And that difference...

saved my life.

Because there comes a moment when your body understands...

what your heart is still refusing to accept.

That was the day I stopped asking myself how to save the relationship.

And finally started asking...

how to save myself.

Part 6

The Woman Who Always Came Back for Me

Some people grow up with a hero.

I grew up with my mother.

My poor mom lived with her heart permanently tied in knots.

Every time the phone rang, part of her already knew something was wrong.

And most of the time...

she was right.

I'd call her crying.

She never wasted time asking a hundred questions.

She'd simply say,

"Where are you?"

And she'd come.

It didn't matter what time it was.

It didn't matter if she was exhausted.

It didn't matter if she barely had enough money for the bus.

She came.

Again.

And again.

As if her entire life had become an endless mission to put out the fires I somehow kept ending up in.

And me...

Being the stubborn daughter that I was...

I'd go back.

Because he always found a way to convince me.

Sometimes with tears.

Sometimes with promises.

Sometimes by swearing that this time...

this time...

he really was going to change.

And I wanted to believe him.

Not because I was naïve.

But because nobody wants to admit that the person they love...

can also become the person who hurts them the most.

That's how the months passed.

Maybe years.

Honestly...

I don't even know anymore.

When you live in fear...

time stops being measured by calendars.

You measure it by crises.

By screaming.

By silence.

By sleepless nights.

By waking up every morning hoping today will somehow be different.

Then one day...

my mother stopped trying to convince me.

She looked straight at me.

Her face was calm.

Her voice was firm.

"Enough."

"We're leaving."

It wasn't a question.

It wasn't advice.

It was a decision.

And for the first time in a very long while...

I didn't argue.

I just cried.

Because deep down...

I'd spent far too long waiting for someone to make the decision I didn't yet have the strength to make myself.

We packed what little we had.

A few changes of clothes.

The kids.

And a life that had fallen into pieces.

We stuffed everything into a couple of suitcases...

and walked away.

No idea what tomorrow would look like.

No money.

No guarantees.

But carrying something I hadn't felt in a very long time.

Hope.

I still remember closing that door behind me.

I didn't feel relief.

I felt terrified.

Leaving is never easy.

Even when you know staying would destroy you.

That night I learned something I'll never forget.

Running away isn't always an act of cowardice.

Sometimes...

it's survival.

And sometimes...

it's the bravest decision you'll make in years.

A long time later, I finally understood something else.

For years, I believed my mother had rescued me.

And she did.

But she didn't rescue me from him.

She rescued me...

from the woman I was slowly becoming.

Because one more year in that house...

and this book...

would probably never have been written.

Part 7

After the Storm

Life went on.

The years passed.

The kids grew up.

So did I.

And one day, I realized something I never thought would happen.

I wasn't afraid of him anymore.

And I wasn't carrying resentment either.

Not because what he did had been right.

And not because I had forgotten.

Scars don't erase memory.

I simply understood that holding on to resentment meant staying tied to a past I could no longer change.

And I had already wasted too much time living backward.

Life took many turns.

A lot of them.

Enough that, one day, we started talking again.

We became friends.

Yes...

I know how strange that sounds.

But life has a very twisted sense of humor.

Eventually, we both understood there was no point in continuing to fight a war that had ended many years before.

He was still my son's father.

And I was still the mother of our son.

That never changed.

Then, just a month ago...

life surprised me one last time.

He died.

When I heard the news, I didn't feel anger.

I didn't feel relief.

I felt sadness.

Because underneath all our mistakes, all our fights, and all the pain we caused each other...

he was still someone who had shared an important part of my life.

And he was still the father of one of the two greatest gifts God ever gave me.

I stayed by his side for as long as I could.

As one human being to another.

As the mother of his son.

Because many years ago, I learned that what had happened between us...

and the kind of person I wanted to be...

were two completely different things.

I don't regret it.

Quite the opposite.

It gives me peace to know that when life gave us one final chance to treat each other with respect...

we took it.

Today, when I think about him, I don't remember only the pain.

I remember the good moments too.

The laughter.

The conversations.

And above all...

the wonderful son he left behind.

Because if life has taught me anything, it's that people are never completely good...

or completely bad.

We are all made of light and shadow.

And he, like the rest of us...

was exactly that.

Part 8

The White Dress, the Church Applause... and the Lies Wrapped in Wedding Vows

After everything I had been through, I swore I would never fall in love again.

That promise lasted exactly as long as it took life to place another man in my path.

Funny how quickly promises fall apart when the heart still wants to believe.

He was a widower.

I was a woman still gathering the pieces of herself.

We both arrived carrying scars.

We both had children.

He had two.

I had two.

And without even realizing it, we began building something that looked very much like a family.

There was never his children and my children.

Inside our home, there were six of us.

Period.

I have never known how to love halfway.

So I became a mother of four.

As if they had always been mine.

We fell in love.

We made plans.

We built a life.

And one day, I found myself wearing a white dress.

I still remember the applause.

The pictures.

The church.

The congratulations.

The happiness on the faces of the people who loved us.

And I remember my own face too.

Because yes...

I was happy.

And I need to say that.

It would be deeply unfair to pretend everything was a disaster.

It wasn't.

There was love.

There was laughter.

There were days when I truly believed life was finally giving me a second chance.

And maybe that was exactly the problem.

I lowered my guard.

I trusted again.

I believed that this time...

it was finally real.

Hope can be dangerously persuasive when you have spent years doing nothing but surviving.

Then came the parties.

The gatherings.

The weekends filled with music, dancing, and drinks.

And honestly...

we enjoyed them.

After so many years of pain, dancing again felt like learning how to breathe.

We gathered with friends.

We drank.

We laughed until dawn.

I felt like I was finally living the youth that life had postponed for me.

I never imagined that many of those nights...

would later become some of the bitterest memories of my life.

Because while I slept peacefully, trusting the man I had married...

he was already writing a completely different story from the one I believed we were living.

At first, I didn't notice anything strange.

Or rather...

maybe I noticed.

I simply chose not to give it importance.

Because when you're in love, you learn a very dangerous skill.

Justifying.

You can always find an explanation.

"It wasn't that serious."

"I'm overreacting."

"I probably misunderstood."

And little by little...

you begin betraying yourself...

before the other person has even finished betraying you.

Part 9

The funny thing about lies is that they almost never unravel because of evidence.

They unravel because your intuition gets tired of being ignored.

At first...

it was just a feeling.

Then it was a look.

A comment that didn't quite fit.

A laugh that lingered a little too long.

A silence that lasted a little too long.

None of it was enough to accuse anyone.

But all of it made me uneasy.

And that's when a version of myself I thought I'd left behind came back.

The suspicious woman.

The one who asked too many questions.

Where were you?

Who were you with?

Why?

What time will you be home?

For a long time, I convinced myself that I was the problem.

That I was seeing things that weren't there.

That my jealousy was simply the baggage I'd carried from my previous relationship.

And if I'm being honest...

part of that was true.

I'd spent years learning to survive by expecting betrayal.

So I kept telling myself,

"Don't ruin this relationship because of your past."

And I tried.

God knows I tried.

I'd take a deep breath.

Stay quiet.

Force myself to believe.

But intuition...

that stubborn little bitch...

never shut up.

It stayed there.

Like a tiny pebble inside your shoe.

Never big enough to stop you.

Just impossible to ignore.

Eventually, I found myself doing things I'd always hated.

Watching.

Waiting.

Asking.

Looking for answers where trust used to live.

I'm not proud of that version of me.

Because she wasn't the woman I wanted to be.

But I refuse to judge her now.

Today...

I understand her.

Because once you've been betrayed enough times...

you stop reacting from a place of peace.

You start reacting from fear.

And fear...

is a terrible advisor.

We fought.

A lot.

Some arguments started over nothing.

Others...

I can't even remember anymore.

I raised my voice.

So did he.

I accused.

He defended himself.

Little by little...

we stopped having conversations.

All we knew how to do anymore...

was argue.

The saddest part?

While we were busy hurting each other...

our children were growing up.

And when I think about that today...

it breaks my heart.

No child should learn what love looks like...

by watching two adults slowly destroy each other.

There's another part of this story that belongs to me.

And I have to tell it.

Because I didn't write this book to make myself look innocent.

I made mistakes too.

Plenty of them.

There were moments when I was cruel.

Words I never should have said.

Shouting.

Accusations.

Even moments when I reacted physically.

I'm not proud of any of it.

But I'm not going to hide it either.

Because that was me too.

Not the woman I am today.

The broken woman I was back then.

A woman who was exhausted.

Worn down.

Trying to raise four children.

Working nonstop.

Trying to hold together a home that seemed to grow heavier on my shoulders every single day.

No...

none of that excuses my mistakes.

But it does explain where they came from.

Because when you've been carrying the weight of the world for too long...

eventually...

the smallest drop is enough to make the glass overflow.

That's when I learned one of the hardest truths of my life.

I had left one relationship as the victim.

And without realizing it...

there were moments when I became an aggressor too.

Not because I enjoyed hurting someone.

But because wounds that never heal...

eventually start speaking for us.

That lesson hurt more than almost anything else.

Realizing that pain doesn't only destroy us.

Sometimes...

it reshapes us.

And if we're not careful...

we can slowly become the very thing we once fought so hard to escape.

Part 10

There came a day when I stopped fighting.

Not because everything was suddenly fine.

But because I was exhausted.

Completely exhausted.

I realized something most people learn far too late.

You can win every argument...

and still lose your peace.

And I'd already lost too much to keep sacrificing the one thing I had left.

That's when I started letting go.

Little by little.

First, I let go of needing answers.

Then I let go of needing to be right.

And finally...

I let go of trying to save a relationship that had stopped trying to save itself a long time ago.

One night, I realized I wasn't fighting for love anymore.

I was fighting for pride.

And pride is every bit as terrible an advisor as fear.

I wanted him to change.

I wanted him to understand.

I wanted him to see everything I was doing for our family.

I worked.

I raised four children.

I kept the household running.

I made sure nothing was missing.

And without even noticing...

I slowly became the manager of everyone else's life.

I watched the money.

The bills.

The responsibilities.

I even found myself making sure he didn't spend his paycheck before he got home.

Then one day...

I asked myself a question I'd spent years avoiding.

When did I stop feeling like a wife...

and start feeling like the mother of another grown man?

That question hurt more than any affair ever could.

Because I realized love hadn't disappeared overnight.

It had slowly worn away beneath unpaid bills, endless responsibilities, and one disappointment after another.

And once a marriage reaches that place...

no kiss in the world is powerful enough to fix it.

Years later, I accepted something that had been incredibly hard to admit.

I wasn't the same woman who had walked into that marriage.

But he wasn't the same man either.

We had both changed.

We had both hurt each other.

We had both made mistakes.

The only difference...

was that some scars are easier to see than others.

Then came the day we finally understood something.

Sometimes holding on...

is just another way of hurting each other.

So we let go.

Without screaming.

Without turning our lives into a battlefield.

Without becoming enemies.

Because after everything we'd shared...

it would've been a shame to end our story pretending we were strangers.

And here's one of the most beautiful ironies of my life.

People assume that marriage left me with nothing but painful memories.

They're wrong.

It also gave me a son.

He didn't come from my body.

He came into my life as a little boy.

And somewhere along the way...

without either of us noticing...

he started calling me,

"Mom."

Today he's a grown man.

And almost every day...

he calls me.

Not to ask for money.

Not because he needs a favor.

Just to ask,

"Mom... how are you?"

"Are you okay?"

Every time I hear those words...

life reminds me that love isn't always born through blood.

Sometimes it's born from a choice.

The choice to stay.

To show up.

To love.

And that's motherhood too.

If you asked me today about that man...

I couldn't answer with hatred.

That wouldn't be fair.

Yes...

there were things that broke me.

But there were beautiful moments too.

We shared years together.

We built a family.

And even though the marriage didn't survive...

our affection did.

It simply found a different shape.

Today...

we're still friends.

We still laugh together.

And after all these years...

we finally learned something that took us far too long to understand.

Some people stop being husband and wife...

but they never stop being family.

And somehow...

that's a form of love too.

Part 11

The Man I Thought I'd Grow Old With

There was one thing I never thought I'd do again.

Get married.

Yep.

Me.

The same woman who had spent years saying one marriage was more than enough.

The same woman who swore a legal document guaranteed absolutely nothing.

The same woman who used to say,

"Get married again? Hell no."

Well...

life, with its wicked sense of humor...

decided to laugh right in my face.

Not only did I fall in love again...

I got engaged.

Yes.

With a ring and everything.

I could hardly believe it myself.

The idiot proposed to me...

inside a stationery store.

Can you imagine the romance?

Some women get proposed to in front of the Eiffel Tower.

I got mine surrounded by printer paper, pens, and receipt books.

And you know what?

I wouldn't change a single second of that memory.

Because while he was down on one knee...

I wasn't looking at the store.

I was looking at the man I wanted to grow old with.

Of course I cried.

Who wouldn't?

I was the one most surprised by all of it.

Life had just pulled the greatest prank of all.

It had convinced me to believe in marriage again.

Then came the wedding bands.

And that's when the real Yenny showed up.

The second I saw them...

I weighed them.

Yes.

Literally weighed them.

Turns out his ring was heavier than mine.

Absolutely not.

I looked at him and said,

"If we're both getting married, then we're both carrying the same weight."

"Not more for you..."

"and not less for me."

He just laughed.

Poor man.

I honestly think that was the exact moment he wondered,

"Can I still make a run for it?"

But he didn't.

He laughed.

Changed the rings.

And we kept making plans.

Looking back now...

it still makes me smile.

That little moment says a lot about us.

But it probably says even more about me.

I've always been a pain in the ass.

But when I love...

I love beautifully.

People think love is measured by butterflies in your stomach.

Not me.

After everything I'd lived through...

butterflies made me nervous.

Butterflies flutter too much.

And by then...

I was too old to spend my life chasing butterflies.

What I wanted...

was peace.

And without realizing it...

that's exactly what I found.

It wasn't that desperate urge to check your phone every five minutes.

It wasn't anxiety.

It wasn't jealousy.

It wasn't the fear of losing someone.

It was something much stranger.

And much more beautiful.

It was peace.

The kind you can't really explain.

One day...

you simply lie down...

and fall asleep.

Imagine that miracle.

Me.

Sleeping.

Now that alone was almost enough reason to get married.

After that, I found myself doing something I'd sworn I'd never do again.

Making plans.

Not plans for Christmas.

Or the next vacation.

Real plans.

The kind that scare you.

A home.

A marriage.

A business.

A future.

A life.

And for the first time...

those dreams filled me with excitement instead of fear.

Because until then...

I hadn't really been living.

I'd been surviving.

Always putting out fires.

Always waiting for the next disaster.

Always asking myself,

"Okay... what goes wrong next?"

With him...

it was different.

For the first time, I caught myself thinking,

"Maybe peaceful lives really do exist."

Funny thing about peace...

It lowers your guard.

And that's usually when life finds the perfect place to hit you.

If someone asked me today what made me fall so deeply in love with him...

my answer would probably disappoint them.

It wasn't the ring.

The trips.

New York.

The thoughtful gifts.

It wasn't even him.

It was the woman I became...

when I was with him.

That's who I fell in love with the most.

I liked myself again.

And that had almost never happened before.

I laughed more.

Worked harder.

Dreamed without feeling ridiculous.

I believed in people again.

I believed in love again.

Hell...

I even believed in myself again.

And that...

felt like a miracle.

Because after spending years gathering the shattered pieces of yourself...

there comes a point where you can no longer remember who you were before everything broke.

Without even trying...

he gave me back a version of Yenny I thought I'd lost forever.

A peaceful Yenny.

A hopeful Yenny.

A woman who could make plans again...

without assuming everything would eventually fall apart.

And that...

was worth far more than any engagement ring.

Part 12

If soulmates exist...

I think I met mine.

Not because our story ended well.

But because while it lasted...

I felt like someone finally understood a language the rest of the world had never learned.

We didn't have to talk about everything.

A lot of the time, just knowing the other person was there was enough.

And feeling truly accompanied...

that's a powerful thing.

Not accompanied because someone happens to be sitting beside you.

Accompanied because someone makes distance stop mattering.

We lived in different countries.

And strangely enough...

that was the relationship in which I felt the least alone.

Some people sleep next to each other every night...

and have been emotionally absent for years.

He lived thousands of miles away...

and still found a way to make me feel like we were walking through life together.

You can't buy that.

You can't promise it either.

It simply happens.

And when it does...

you understand that love isn't always loud.

Sometimes...

love looks a lot like peace.

I was never one of those women who needed to be glued to someone to feel complete.

In fact...

I've always worked too much.

I've always had a thousand ideas at once.

One business.

Then another.

One website.

Then another.

I don't know how to sit still.

And he understood that.

He never tried to dim me.

He never asked me to dream smaller.

Quite the opposite.

Whenever I showed up with a new idea, one of those ideas most people would call completely insane...

he was always the first to say,

"Go for it."

And off I went.

Like a little girl opening a brand-new notebook on the first day of school.

Because some people, when you tell them about a dream...

immediately start looking for problems.

He looked for solutions.

And that difference...

can change a life.

Because sometimes you start believing in yourself...

after someone else believes in you first.

We worked together.

And working with the person you love can be dangerously beautiful.

Because you start dreaming while wide awake.

One business.

Then another.

And then one more.

And before you know it...

you're no longer making plans.

You're building a life.

I stopped saying my projects.

I started saying our projects.

Even that word changed.

Ours.

Such a beautiful word...

and such a dangerous one.

Because when we disappears...

you have to learn how to conjugate your whole life in the singular again.

And let me tell you...

that is one hell of a difficult subject.

He had a hard childhood.

Life hadn't been kind to him either.

Maybe that's why he understood my scars so well.

I never felt judged by him.

Not for my past.

Not for my mistakes.

Not even for my madness.

And believe me...

I gave people plenty of material to work with.

But he never made me feel less than.

Quite the opposite.

He made me feel admired.

Respected.

Heard.

And you have no idea how addictive it can be...

to be truly listened to.

Not by someone waiting for their turn to speak.

But by someone actually listening.

I think that was the most beautiful thing we had.

The friendship.

Before we were a couple...

we were a team.

We laughed constantly.

We teased each other.

We bullied each other with affection.

We even made fun of ourselves.

And maybe that's why I never felt like I had to perform.

With him, I didn't have to pretend to be the perfect woman.

Thank God.

Maintaining a character twenty-four hours a day sounds exhausting.

With him, I could be the messy-haired Yenny.

The one who swore.

The one who fought with the computer.

The one who laughed alone.

The one who cried one day...

and made jokes about the same tragedy the next.

In other words...

me.

And that felt wonderful.

Someone once asked me,

"What did you see in him?"

And I had to think about it.

Because the answer was never simple.

It wasn't his looks.

It wasn't money.

Money comes and goes.

It wasn't New York.

The trips.

The ring.

It was something much simpler.

With him...

I could rest.

And only people who have spent years surviving truly understand what that means.

There comes a point when you're no longer searching for excitement.

You're searching for peace.

And I had found it.

That's why losing it hurt so much.

I didn't only lose a man.

I lost the one place where my mind finally stopped racing.

If you asked me today whether I'd live that story again, knowing how it ended...

my answer would probably surprise you.

Yes.

A thousand times, yes.

Because even though the ending shattered me...

the journey introduced me to a version of myself I had never known.

And for the chance to meet that woman...

I'd pay the price again.

Without hesitation.

Because with him, I learned something nobody had ever taught me.

Love doesn't always arrive to last forever.

Sometimes...

it arrives to bring you back to life.

And once it has fulfilled that purpose...

even if it leaves...

it has already left a mark no one can erase.

I was happy.

It was that simple.

I wasn't suspicious.

I wasn't waiting for disaster.

I didn't feel the relationship fading.

Nothing like that.

One day...

I had a future.

The next...

I had questions.

It happened that fast.

Sharp.

Cold.

Like a door slamming before you even realize someone was about to close it.

Then the rumors started.

The lies.

Other people's voices forcing their way into a place they never belonged.

And he chose to believe them.

That was what broke me the most.

Not that people talked about me.

People talk.

That's nothing new.

What destroyed me was that he trusted a version of me told by strangers...

more than he trusted the woman he'd already built a future with.

There was no conversation.

No confrontation.

Not even a simple,

"Explain this to me."

Nothing.

He just disappeared.

And that was the cruelest part.

I wasn't allowed to defend myself.

I wasn't allowed to speak.

I wasn't allowed to have closure.

I was left alone...

holding a broken story in my hands.

And two wedding rings that, overnight...

meant absolutely nothing.

But listen...

you do heal.

Not overnight.

Not because of some pretty quote on Facebook.

And definitely not because someone tells you,

"Just get over it."

God, I hated that sentence.

You heal when you can.

When your soul finally stops bleeding.

And that doesn't follow a schedule.

I made a complete fool of myself.

A spectacular one.

I cried.

Begged.

Insisted.

Waited.

Humiliated myself.

Invented entire movies in my head.

Asked questions that still don't have answers.

And you know what?

I'm not ashamed.

I was in love.

And when you truly love someone...

you do things that look ridiculous from the outside.

Until one day...

the people judging you have to live through it themselves.

Then suddenly...

their speech changes.

Over time, I realized that the goal wasn't to stop loving him.

The goal was to stop suffering.

Those are two very different things.

There are people you may always love.

But you no longer need them in order to be happy.

And that difference...

can save your life.

I don't need anyone to rescue me anymore.

Never again.

I don't need anyone to complete me either.

Life taught me that people arrive.

People leave.

And you have two choices.

You can spend the rest of your life living inside the memory...

or you can build a life where happiness still has room to exist without them.

I chose the second.

And it has been one of the best decisions I've ever made.

Today, I don't want another relationship.

Not because I stopped believing in love.

But because, for the first time in my life...

I'm building something beautiful with the only person I'll live with until my final day.

Myself.

And honestly...

I really like that woman.

Part 13

A Bed, a Clear Conscience... and No Regrets

After everything you've just read...

do you know what the craziest part is?

I believed in love again.

Yep.

That's how ridiculously hopeful I am.

And you know what?

I don't regret it.

Because I'd rather have my heart broken a thousand times...

than spend my life too afraid to ever give it away.

I lived.

I made mistakes.

I loved good men.

I loved men I never should have loved.

Some loved me well.

Some lied to me.

I lied too.

I betrayed.

I was betrayed.

I made people laugh.

I cried.

I made other people cry.

And yes...

I made a complete fool of myself.

The deluxe edition.

Trust me.

I survived.

And in the end...

that's the only thing that really matters.

I don't need to convince anyone that I was a good woman.

Or a bad one.

I was simply...

a woman.

And that's enough.

Because life isn't meant to be lived so you'll look good in someone else's memories.

It's meant to be lived so you can sleep peacefully with your own.

If someone finishes this chapter thinking,

"Damn... this woman is crazy."

They're probably right.

If they think,

"She's intense."

Absolutely.

If they think,

"Honestly... I probably would've done the same thing."

Welcome to the club.

Around here...

we hand out tissues.

And every now and then...

we hand back a little bit of the dignity life stole from us.

I look at the Yenny who used to cry over men who were already gone...

and I don't feel embarrassed anymore.

I feel tenderness.

Because she did the only thing she knew how to do.

She loved.

Sometimes badly.

Sometimes beautifully.

But always...

for real.

And that...

will never be a flaw.

So yes...

people called me crazy.

A witch.

Promiscuous.

Toxic.

A slut.

And tomorrow...

they'll probably invent a brand-new label.

Honestly...

I'm too tired to keep collecting them.

I'm busy living.

Because I learned that lesson much later than I should have.

Life doesn't reward the people who feel less.

In the end...

life embraces the ones who, despite everything...

still have the courage to feel.

And me?

After four men...

Four goodbyes.

Four completely different definitions of love...

I'm still here.

I still laugh.

I still cry.

I still believe.

And most importantly...

I'm still me.

Now that's a dangerous woman.

And honestly...

I wouldn't have it any other way.

*

I was never the perfect woman.

But damn...

what a beautiful way to live—

never asking life for permission.