·36·

"Tulip and Gossip"

The following day, Estella was found awake early, as usual, doing her everyday chores:

✪ ᗯᗩTᗴᖇIᑎᘜ Tᕼᗴ ᑭᒪᗩᑎTՏ✪ ᗪOIᑎᘜ Tᕼᗴ ᒪᗩᑌᑎᗪᖇY✪ ᑕᒪᗴᗩᑎIᑎᘜ Tᕼᗴ ᕼOᑌՏᗴ✪ ᖴOᒪᗪIᑎᘜ Tᕼᗴ ᑕᒪOTᕼᗴՏ

The only thing she never does is cook. Why? Because she has a knack for burning things somehow. If you could burn water, she probably would have done that already. Multiple times.

And due to the fear of eventually burning their house down, she vowed never to cook anything without any parental supervision.

Or just with any competent person's supervision, really.

Estella's mother, Tacita found her daughter at their salas, folding their dried clothes already because usually, the first thing Estella does in the morning is the laundry so when she's done with everything else she'll only have to wait for the clothes to dry – something which isn't that hard to do if Pepa is in a good, sunny, mood. And she's miraculously in a very good mood today.

"Estella, mi Corazon," Tacita spoke, catching her daughter's attention and sitting beside her to help with folding.

"I know you may think I'm upset," She continued, looking at her daughter, and adds "Which I am," making Estella look down.

Sighing, the woman strokes her daughter's hair. "But I know you thought that even if you asked for our permission, we'd say no – which is also right."

Tacita bit her lip nervously, noticing her husband's scrunched-up face in the distance. 

I don't think this is going well, He meant to say with his facial expression.

"Look, Mija. What I'm trying to say is that even if I'm a bit upset now, I can never stay mad at you. I know you just wanted a bit of adventure, meet new people, see new things and that's great 'cuz I love that you're curious about a lot of things," Tacuta admitted, "I just worry, you know?"

"I know," Estella smiled, looking at her mother before remembering something. "Wait," She gasped, standing up, "I forgot to give you something," The girl says, running up the stairs.

Tacita and her husband look at each other surprisedly. Shrugging, the woman decides to follow her daughter upstairs and finds her in her bedroom, rummaging through her things.

"What are you doing, Vida?" Tacita asked, furrowing her eyebrows at Estella confusedly.

Smiling, Estella quickly hide something behind her and rushed in front of her mother. "Show me your palms," The girl asked with a wide smile, making her mother become a little suspicious but mostly just confused.

"Okay," The woman laughed, putting up and opening her two hands, her eyes widening a bit as she took in a sharp inhale due to shock from what she was holding.

Estella put her sea shell on her mother's palms, and says: "I don't really know how to get to the sea, but, someone else went there and..."

"Well," She chuckled weakly, "got this. I–I just bought it because I thought that it would be nice to get us one."

Sniffling, Estella's mother holds back some of her mixed, happy-sad tears. "Oh, Estella," She whispered, placing the shell on a table and giving her daughter a hug.

"What did I do to deserve you?" She muttered, smiling as the two of them have each other in a warm embrace.

Five minutes haven't even passed as the two have their small, wholesome, mother-and-daughter moment when all of a sudden they felt two arms wrap around them.

Laughing, Tacita wipes off some of the tears that managed to escape her eyes and hits her husband's shoulders lightly. "Benito, we were having a moment!" She said, pretending to be angry.

"How come I never get any moments?" He pouted, the three of them laughing, as the whole family start hugging each other again, this time with Benito.

★ ★ ★

Since Estella was grounded for two weeks, she had a difficult time finding out how to kill time inside the house.

She helped her dad build her siblings' cribs, helped her mom sew some clothes, made art on a canvas, deep cleaned her room, she's helping Benito paint the nursery, and even sewed toys for her siblings too.

Estella looked at herself in the mirror, thinking if she should put more effort into tying her hair in a different way. She opens one of her vanity desk's drawers, grabbing the bow Ines and Isabela used to tie her hair while she was in Enrique's town.

After settling for a simple ponytail, she puffed and grabbed a needle and a thread to do what she does best other than become a nervous and awkward wreck.

For the past few hours in the afternoon, Estella just spent time making cute, duck stuffed toys for her siblings.

Knock knock

"Come in," She said, not taking her eyes off of what she was doing.

"You busy?" A voice asked, the door closing behind them, making Estella accidentally prick herself due to surprise.

"Camilo?!" She whisper yelled, not wanting to actually yell and make unwanted noise that would attract her parents' attention.

"Your one and only," He smiled, taking his one hidden hand away from his back only to reveal a red flower.

Estella, feeling a mix of emotions that were mostly embarrassment, panic, and joy, simply blinked at him, opening her mouth but not uttering a single word.

Unless there's a hidden code behind the mess of words: "Wh– I– You–?"

Camilo laughs amusedly at the girl whose face is turning as red as the flower he was holding.

"You surely get flustered a lot, don't you?" He grinned, walking towards her to hand her his gift, only to notice that her finger was bleeding.

Camilo quickly sits beside her on the bed and examines her index finger, snapping her out of her little trance.

"Oh, no, don't mind that– I mean, this," She says nervously, taking her hand back, pinching her fingertips to let the blood out. "This is normal," Estella says, that feeling of having difficulty to breath creeping up to her as she avoids looking or even just noticing Camilo's caring gaze.

"You tied your hair," He pointed out, fighting the urge to tuck some of the loose ones behind her ear to avoid the possible awkwardness he might cause if he does. All of the confidence he had when he snuck into her house and her room, was gone. Reduced to atoms.

Ka-poof! Where'd it go? I dunno, I'm just the narrator here.

"Yeah, I did. I got," The girl paused forgetting what the opposite of lazy was. "Unlazy – if that word exists," She said, a smile crawling up to her face, still not turning to look at Camilo. Instead, her eyes drift off to the flower he put down at her bedside table, a pretty, red tulip.

"Oh, right," Camilo blurts out, noticing the fact that the girl was looking at what he brought. "That's a... uhm," He said, his mind going blank as he starts blushing as well.

"It's a tulip," Estella finishes for him, picking it up and looking at it with a smile. She always found tulips pretty.

"...yeah," He breathed out, clearing his throat and looking away to avoid staring so much to the point that he might look like a creep now.

"I may or may not have struggled with a few vines, negotiating with Isabela," He joked, the two of them laughing a bit before their eyes were finally able to meet. 

"Look, 'Stel, about the night..." Camilo trailed off, his fingers anxiously tapping on his lap. "From last week," He finally managed to say, referring to the time when she started rapping out a confession, making her look away again in embarrassment.

"I just, uhm," Camilo struggled, he doesn't know how to explain anything, especially how much he's loved her all these years, which is why he always struggled to confess. Hence, why he always just tries showing his affection towards her all this time.

The boy sighed, running a hand through his hair frustratedly. "I asked Isabela for a tulip because when you said you thought they were pretty a long time ago, I may or may not have found out that they meant pa– err, pass–, uh," He hesitated, cutting himself off.

"passion and admiration, and all cheesy stuff," He whispered, his voice getting more hushed with each syllable.

Estella noticed how Camilo was looking so red as he kept his head down, she turns her head in his direction and catches a glimpse of herself in her vanity mirror looking as red as he is.

"I just thought it would be romantic," He confessed, not looking away from the floor.

"Pft," Estella lets out, a few laughs slipping out from her lips, making Camilo bolt his head up to look at her in surprise.

"No, no, wait. I'm sorry," She said, worrying that he might think she isn't taking him seriously since she was laughing.

"It's just cute," She smiled, catching him off guard, and causing him to involuntarily stand up from his seat.

"Now who's flustered?" Estella managed to say, teasing him also as a form of payback for always making her blush. Camilo scoffed and smiled, the two of them laughing like lunatics afterward.

"So," Camilo started, the two of them sitting on the floor, beside Estella's bed. "What now?" He asked, wondering how they'd see each other after today since they technically aren't friends anymore because they have romantic feelings for each other.

"I don't know," Estella answered truthfully, twirling the flower in her hand. "I like you, and you like me. But aren't we a little too young to date?" She questioned, asking him something back.

"I guess so," Camilo mumbled, pouting a bit.

"Maybe we should think about that some other time..." Estella said while Camilo nodded in agreement.

It's not like they were in a rush.

"I don't think I want to go home yet," Camilo tells Estella which shocks her and piques her curiosity and a bit of concern. "What, why?" She asked.

"Dolores," He said, her name serving as an explanation of its own.

"Oh, right," Estella winced, "Maybe it wouldn't be that bad?"

A Few Minutes Earlier...

"OH, MY GOD! That's why he wouldn't stop bothering me about the flower!" Isabela squealed in realization, jumping up and down with Mirabel and Dolores.

"Did he seriously just confess in her room?" Luisa asked. The fact that her secret ship is finally sailing is still not "sinking" in.

★ Lmao, see what I did there? No? Okay, let's just ignore that– ★

"He did!" Dolores answered, "He did!" She repeated, laughing, not giving a care to the loud squealing and yelling they were all making.

"Finally! Now I can let my head take a break from all of their oblivious, frustrating flirting," Mirabel said dramatically, making them laugh, and catching the attention of their other family members.

"Whoa, what's going on over here? Is there a party I wasn't invited to?" Agustin asked jokingly, the first person out of their CamiElla gossip group to arrive just in time for their eager tea spilling.

After Agustin, it was Julieta. Then, Antonio, who was with his Papa Felix, and not a moment later, Pepa comes along – as if she'd miss out on gossip. And even Bruno and Abuela overheard their loud voices along the halls.

Bruno was mostly surprised about the fact that CamiElla was a thing that started way longer before than he thought, but he was still pretty supportive of it.