La Vida Loca Ch. 03: Final

After a moment of silence, Vida started to tell her story. Her voice was flat. "She has been ill for almost my entire life. I don't know when exactly she started to have it, but I believe she had first symptoms while we were still living in Colombia. I was about six or seven then. I'm pretty sure that was the reason why my father left her... Even though mom told me later that they just argued and decided to split. I knew that she didn't want me to hate him, in case if... something would happen to her and I needed to seek his help or something. But I figured out that he was a coward who abandoned his wife because she became a burden.Sólo un malparido hijueputa!"

Her jaws clenched. "We were struggling to make ends meet. My mom's parents passed away, and the family from my father's side didn't want to have anything in common with us. Our only relatives were living here, in the States - aunt Rita, uncle Hernan and Adriano. So, my mom decided to sell everything and move. It was even harder at the beginning, but at least we had help and could start over."

Vida cleared her throat and wiped her cheeks, but tears kept coming. Initially, I wanted to say something, but decided against it. I didn't want to interrupt her.

"Mom found a job as a teacher and I went to school. It wasn't easy to be a new kid, let alone an immigrant knowing only a few words in English, but I was learning fast, with Adriano's help. Well, if not for him, Rita and Hernan, we most likely wouldn't survive. In particular, when my mother had her first severe episode at work..." Vida's voice cracked again, and she went silent for a moment.

I was still sitting motionless, letting her speak.

"Soon after that, she was forced to take an unpaid sick leave and aunt Rita had to almost drag her to the doctors for a diagnosis. I think that my mother already knew that she was mentally ill, but was still living in denial or... I don't know what she was thinking. But they confirmed severe paranoid schizophrenia." Vida looked at me for a moment with a sad expression.

"You know how cruel kids can be, right? If you have anything different, even something small like, I don't know, protruding ears or crooked bite, they can pick on you forever and ruin your life. So imagine how the perfect target for bullies was a girl whose mother was crazy. I had no life in school, no friends whatsoever. Only fantasy books in a library were my sole companions..."

I reached for her hand and wanted to hold her, but she only squeezed it back once and let go.

"It became a bit better when I went to high school, as no one knew me there. But I was aware that it was impossible for me to have a truly fresh start. Things would have come up eventually. So, I was isolating myself from everybody. My only friend was my cousin. And my aunt and my uncle... they basically adopted me. They raised me... well, uncle only until he died."

Vida put a loose strand of her hair behind her ear and continued.

"The state of my mother's health was gradually deteriorating. She couldn't keep any job, the drugs she was taking were shit and we couldn't afford anything better. The meds were making her either numb or agitated and aggressive." Vida laughed bitterly. "You know that even the fact that I started working out and became so muscular was due to my mother? Not only because that rigid training brought some order into the chaos that my life was, but mostly because I had to be physically strong to be able to lift my mom's unconscious body from her own vomit! Or to restrain her when she had violent episodes! She once stabbed me with a fruit parer! And then, when she regained clarity, she tried to hurt herself because of remorse!" Vida sniffed, and hid her face in her hands.

I touched her back, her body was shaking. She took a big breath.

"And that's how it looked, Gunnar. You asked me after the party about my ex-boyfriends and were surprised when I told you that I had none, remember?" She asked and I nodded. "Well, I promise to tell you everything, so... I was with only one guy before you, Gunnar. His name was Nathan. He was a good kid from a rich family and even though I was guarded and leery like a wild, cornered animal back then, he still wanted to date me. Till today, I don't know what he saw in me, maybe had a thing for broken, miserable girls. Most likely. However, it felt so good to... finally be liked. To have someone who would appreciate my company. But like every fairy tale, it was short and felt not real. Nathan's parents somehow found out about my mother's condition and forced him to break up with me. They couldn't stand that their son was dating some Latino 'peasant' girl, burdened with a bad gene pool from her insane mother. As it would be a mésalliance..."

"I'm very sorry to hear that, Vida," I said in such a cliché way, but what else could I say, really? There were no sufficient words to wisely summarize such a tragedy. I was thinking intensely how I could react to that, what to say, and how to soothe Vida's suffering. Suddenly, all of my hurt feelings and anger disappeared. They seemed to be really meaningless or even petty compared to what Vida came through.

"So, I'd wish that my mother was fine too, but she isn't. And she won't be ever," she said quietly and raised her eyes at me. They were full of tears. "And neither will I,lindo..."

"What? What are you talking about?" I asked with a faint voice. Please don't say this, Vida, please...

But the Universe, God or whatever were deaf to my prayers. Vida smiled in the saddest way and said: "Gunnar, what else possible I could be trying to say? You probably know that schizophrenia is highly hereditary. And it usually strikes when someone is between twenty-six and twenty-eight. You know how old I'm now."

"But...?" I wanted to say something, to deny and protest that somehow, but words stuck in my throat.

"I'd like that there would be a chance for any 'buts'", Gunnar. I have it,lindo, I just have it too! I'm doomed to have it! The first symptoms..." Vida burst in tears and words were spilling out of her mouth in an uncontrollable way. "I have them, Gunnar! Mood changes, emotional instability, paranoid thoughts, memory losses! And these fucking migraines!"

"But there must be a way, Vida, to work this through. The treatment..." I tried, but she didn't let me finish.

"No, you can't work through schizophrenia!Es imposible! And the treatment either makes you into a brainless zombie or a wild animal! You can't live normally with this illness! Or with a person, who has it! I know that first hand! My life... was... is... a misery, Gunnar! I couldn't go to college even though I had really good grades! Fucking straight A's! But I couldn't just dump the whole care of my mother on aunt Rita! She already had a lot on her plate! And we didn't have money for a caregiver. I was also unable to find a normal day job because I had to take care of her, and take long leaves during her episodes! I couldn't have anything at all, what other girls had. Friends, meetings, going out with a boyfriend! Everybody knew that I would become a burden in the future! There is a fucking time-bomb in my head!"

"Vida...!" I touched her forearm, wanting to calm her down somehow, but she leaped to her feet. I stood up too.

"I'm so sorry, Gunnar! Please! Please forgive me for dragging you into my madness! You see now why I didn't tell you earlier? You know now what choices I had? I chose to be selfish,nene, because I wanted to see you! To be happy with you! To have at least an ersatz of normal life! Even if that would be an illusion, I wanted to have it!" She was bursting out these words in one breath, with a wailing voice. The dam for her emotions she was holding for years was now broken.

I was standing in front of her, shocked and devastated. In hindsight, I knew that I should say something, but as most humans I tend to have clever answers only after a situation, not during it.

"That's why I can't do that anymore, Gunnar. I can't do that to you! I'm so sorry. You don't deserve to be treated that way. You're a great person, a wonderful, funny and smart man who should have a normal, stable woman in his life. Not a worthless mess like me!"

"Stop saying things like that!" I yelled and tried to embrace her, but she blocked me, putting her forearms on my chest. She was strong, but I was pulling her decisively and she finally let me hug her, crying and sobbing.

"Please, Gunnar, let me go..."

"Vida, calm down for a moment. After all we can..." I tried to reason with her, but it was impossible.

"We can't! We can't, Gunnar! It would only damage you! I'm so sorry if I hurt you,corazón. Please, forgive me. And forget about me." She pushed herself out of my embrace. Her wide open eyes locked into mine.

"Vida, please..."

She shook her head slowly. Her facial expression was a mix of despair and determination. "Thank you, Gunnar, for these few weeks of joy you gave me on my borrowed time.Siempre serás mi Vikingo. Goodbye," she said, turning away and she walked off.

"Vida, wait!" I called her, but then she quickened her pace. And I knew that there was no sense in chasing her. There was no sense in anything anymore.

I did what I thought could happen only in overly dramatic movies - I slumped to my knees, feeling completely powerless and crushed.

Soon after I heard the engine starting and Vida's motorcycle screeching away.

It was over.

***

I don't know how long I stayed on the beach, sitting numbly and staring into the darkness, but it had to be almost till dawn. When the first beams of sun were emerging on the horizon, I strenuously got up and went back to my car. The sunrise probably was beautiful, but that was the last thing I could care about.

I felt as if someone kicked me in the head, then a few times stomped on it, just to be sure that I was stunned enough. In the car, Cyndi Laupher tried to sing her True Colors, but I shut her up by turning off the radio. For me colors vanished, everything seemed to be dark gray.

The next days were excruciating - I wasn't able to focus on anything but what Vida had told me. All this news utterly crushed me. I knew that I couldn't do anything about it and that was the most depressing part. An absolutely powerless feeling.

I spent sleepless nights thinking about the tragedy Vida has been living through her entire life. It was breaking my heart when I tried to imagine how she must have felt rejected by almost everyone. How she felt judged and shamed every day. And how lonely she was... How devastating it was for her to know that every opportunity for a better fate was taken away from her. Just because of the fact that she had no influence nor was it her fault.

After all these revelations I felt nothing but compassion for Vida. My previously hurt feelings now looked detestably petty. Finally, I came to understand why she was behaving that way. And I forgave her. 'I, me and my' seemed to be no longer important in that equation. But it didn't make me feel any better. Would I be another person in her life who abandons her? Even though it was her choice in our case, I still would turn out to be yet another one who gave her up. Like a quitter.

I was questioning if I really was going to let her go. To just forget about her as she asked me. Of course I didn't want to! I fell in love with her! Who would I be to reject a woman because of illness?!

At the same time I couldn't pretend that mental disease was a trifle for me. I knew that Vida was right. Living with someone mentally ill was truly a nightmare. A relationship with such a person would eventually turn into taking care of her 24/7 and that inevitably led to frustration and exhaustion. Was I ready for that?

But besides thinking purely emotionally, I was trying to approach it in accordance with my character - calmly and meticulously. I was reading about schizophrenia and other mental illnesses, digging deeper and deeper into the PubMed database. It didn't make me much wiser, but I found one thing which seemed off.

Migraines weren't mentioned as schizophrenia's symptoms. Of course, I wasn't certain as I was light years away from being an expert in this topic, but I read multiple articles about diagnostics of mental diseases and there was nothing about strong head pain. My research indicated though, that migraines can be caused by strong and prolonged stress and Vida was under such stress for years, so that could be it. It also could mean that she had both migraines and schizophrenia. I had no way of telling what else was or wasn't possible.

As I didn't even know if Vida was diagnosed, these were only my speculations, but it was something. A little glimmer of hope. When I assured myself that it may be a clue, without much thinking I grabbed my phone and tried to call Vida. But it was turned off again. Dammit...

Suddenly realizing that I wanted to see her again so badly, I logged into my rarely used Facebook account in order to see if Vida had her profile there. There were several Vida Diaz, some with 'z', some with 's', but none of them was her. Or her profile was one without any photo? No luck with Facebook and I saw no sense in checking other social media, as she most likely wasn't there or was but under an alias.

I knew that with her body Vida could have a huge fan base on Instagram, but I doubted that she had an account there. Not with her secretiveness. Instagram was a natural habitat for extroverts or should I say - exhibitionists.

Then I recalled about her streaming games on Twitch. But how could I find her there? I was certain that she wouldn't be doing that under her real name, but still tried to search for a couple of phrases involving 'Vida'. Unsurprisingly, no results.

But I wasn't willing to give up. I decided to approach it differently and inserted the phrase 'muscular girl Twitch' directly in Google. And I was quite shocked by the number of results!

Apparently amateur female bodybuilders and fit girls streaming games or... just themselves, was a big thing on Twitch.

I searched Google graphics and videos sections and there were hundreds of images, either pics, GIFs or short clips. But after countless mouse scrolls, there was no trail. However, I encountered a Reddit discussion run by female bodybuilders enthusiasts. They were posting materials from streaming platforms, usually asking other users if they can provide a particular girl's name or links to her Twitch, Instagram and other media.

And there I found Vida! My heart almost stopped, when I realized it was really her. It was only a short clip, about 10 seconds or so, showing her in quite a dark room, sitting in a gamer armchair. She was talking to the camera, but I didn't know what, as the audio was muted.

Vida looked different in that clip, both due to the dimness of the room and her outfit - she had black bandana on her head and much stronger make up than she usually used. That's why I had trouble recognizing her at first. Perhaps she wanted to slightly disguise herself, not to be recognized? That would be very typical for her.

But the most important thing - it was her! My heart rapidly sped up, as I watched that short clip multiple times. Next I started to read the discussion below - there were about a dozen comments. For some weird reasons, I found it a bit pleasant that no one seemed to know anything about Vida's identity, except her Twitch account name - LunaGaming.

Bingo! Excited, with shaking hands, I launched Twitch's main site and searched for Vida's account. To my surprise, she had scheduled a stream in an hour. So, I left Twitch open and just waited. There was a counter of viewers in the corner, and I noticed that there were about fifty other users waiting for Vida's stream too.

The thought of seeing Vida in real time caused mixed emotions. An unusual combination of simultaneously being elated and depressed. Yes, I'm going to see her, but I won't be able to tell her how important she became for me. Maybe even never, if I had not done something. But what could I possibly do? Vida made up her mind, thinking that it will be best for us to stop seeing each other. She did that because of me, to not let me be hurt by her disease in the future. It was heroic of her, but at the same time tragic. She didn't deserve such a fate. And there was me, who could change that, yet I was sitting in front my computer and waiting for her stream, knowing that it would be torture for me. Eh, I felt as if I had only bad choices available.

A sudden brightening on my screen woke me up from my chaotic thoughts. The static picture faded away and instead the same room appeared that I saw on that clip. Then the camera was adjusted and Vida emerged into the frame.

I leaned toward my screen too and watched Vida closely, as if I didn't want to miss any detail. Seeing her made me feel a longing tightening of my chest. Again, she had a bandana, this time red and her eyes were painted heavily, giving her a Goth look. She was wearing a violet sleeveless tank top, exposing her bulging muscular arms. But she looked beautiful and sad, as always. It only squeezed my heart more. By an impulse, I pressed the print screen button and took a few screenshots of her face.

"Hi guys!" Vida sat down on the armchair and started to read the chat and answer messages. "Yeah, I'll wait a couple of minutes for more people to come up. I know, there was no stream for almost two weeks, sorry," she shrugged and winced almost unnoticeably. "But life caught up to me a bit. What will I be playing today? Well, since I have been in a bad mood recently, let's ruin it further because why not? I have had Blair Witch on my Steam for some time... so now will be a good time for a little scare." She read more comments, laughed softly and stuck out her tongue. "Sorry, boys, no biceps flexing until the hundred bucks limit. C'mon, you know the rules."

I was sitting on the edge of my seat and watched her every move, every grimace, smile and look of her eyes. Soon she started to play the game and the view of her face was now in the corner of the screen - the rest was filled with the gameplay, but I didn't care about it at all. I was looking only at her, feeling like a creep, like a voyeur or a stalker. But I couldn't help it. I missed her so much.

There was a counter of donations Vida was receiving and people were sending her two, three, sometimes ten dollars. After an hour of playing she already had 80 bucks, which was a nice profit. She was getting a lot of messages, they were mostly funny or kind. The viewers were commenting on her game and complimenting her look. Some of the messages were provocative, and even a few were straight offensive, but Vida was dealing with them smartly and wittily. One dickhead sent her one dollar (which probably destroyed his home budget) and asked 'Luna, when do you finally show us your pu$$y on OnlyFans? We've been waiting way too long'. Vida just laughed and answered "Right after you'll move out of your mama's basement and stop jerking off into your socks."

There were a lot of requests for her to flex her muscles, like really a lot! It made me realize that there was quite a big market for women with muscular bodies. Vida could have a much different career if not for her burden. She could be a full-time model, bodybuilder, trainer, there were so many possibilities for her...

But still, I admired the way she found to monetize her look without exposing herself on OnlyFans or other adult sites, like that creep suggested. And I understood why she chose streaming games. There was no need for involvement nor attachment, like every normal job would be. If her life eventually forced her, she could disappear from Twitch and no one even would have known who she really was. It was convenient for her, but I found it very sad.