How could she have forgotten it? How had an experience that should have made her doubt the whole of reality been substituted by another? Perhaps it had been so fantastic that she’d assimilated it into a dream. Perhaps its singularity had prevented her from processing it. Of the days after the visit, she remembered only pain. A hard, unspoken suffering. The next morning, when she boarded the school bus, Tamara was already there, sitting next to Juana; her friend didn’t even look in her direction. Juana, a thin, grubby girl, who managed to avoid being ostracized by inventing gossip, gave her a malicious smile. From her seat, she spied on the two girls and was met with the spite of that bitter kid who wasn’t content that Tamara had chosen her as a companion, but needed to rub it in. Her friend’s metamorphosis seemed incredible: surely she had the right to pretend it hadn’t happened. The way Tamara walked resolutely out of the classroom at recess, without once speaking to her or detaching herself from the huddle of other girls, the way she shared her chocolate croissant with them, should have been enough. But it wasn’t. She tried behaving as if her friend were making a mistake. Couldn’t she see that the others were just getting between them? Watching that pack of kids chewing their chocolate-filled croissants gave her an excuse for pulling Tamara away from those frauds. The words faded as they issued from her mouth: “They’re using you.” Only the “you”—a sort of pitiful grunt—was audible. The children fell silent and, in a loud, clear voice, Tamara said, “Can’t you just go away and stop bothering me? You make me sick.”

For months that “You make me sick” hung over her like a disgusting, shameful halo. In the past, she’d always been tough, but now she started to hide away, even trembling when her classmates pointed at her and whispered. Tamara’s betrayal sank her in the typically sullen depression of girls who will never admit they are in the wrong. “Me, badly behaved? What the fuck are you talking about?” she shouted at her mom one day. And she got a slap across the face for that “fuck.” For the rest of the school year she traveled alone.