You lose your journal in a coffee shop in Madrid two days before you leave. You get excited and distracted for just a moment when they bring out your jamón tostada, setting it down mid-sentence beside you, and forget to pick it back up. It is only an hour before you realize it is missing and go running back, but the journal is already gone. You give your number to the woman in charge and tell her to please, please call if they find anything. “Tiene todo mis secretos,” you tell her, “Tiene todo…” but you can’t figure out how to tell her what the journal means to you, so the sentence just withers off.
You sit on the sidewalk out front with your head in your hands and cry. “RIP, My Journal,” you post on Instagram. You’re really losing it. You wonder why you’re crying over this. It was just one journal. It was just a few weeks of your entire life. You have so many other journals full of terrible secrets, and you tell everyone all your secrets anyway. But you think of what was in that journal, what happened on this trip, and you feel embarrassed and like your deepest desires are exposed. You feel like you lost everything and start crying all over again.
The journal started during the final week of a year-long, on-again-off-again “thing” with an Englishman. You rant about him endlessly. The first hundred or so pages are dedicated to sending him up in flames. You concoct a plan to fake an abortion. You’re not going to actually do it—you’re just daydreaming about being financially compensated for all this distress. “I could be pregnant right now,” you write, “He doesn’t know.” You underline the words twice. This is the embarrassing sort of thing you fear someone could read—that they might not understand what you are trying to say. The words don’t convey what you actually feel.
Out of nowhere, you meet this guy from Paraguay. It’s good because you can actually kinda understand the Spanish he speaks—unlike everyone else in Spain who talks way too fucking fast. He is the kind of man who sees you looking lost under all the neon lights at a show, mid-panic attack, and hits on you.
When he tells you his birthday, you can’t help but laugh because it is the literal day after your dad’s. They are both Capricorns. You find this funny because you’re constantly referring to your Capricorn Dad Trauma like it is a limited-edition designer handbag you’re still carrying around. Your relationship with your dad is like a beat-up old Birkin in the sense that it’s kinda fucked up. But it’s a Birkin. But it’s your dad. Some people are lucky to even get one.
You make jokes with your friend that Capricorn men LOVE their wives—just not always the rest of their family members. The thing about Capricorns is they choose a select few people to include in their circle, and you can’t really choose your children.
“Mira, mi hijo,” The Capricorn says as he shows you pictures of his son on your first date. He asks if you want kids.
You tell him it’s not really that important to you. “Si pasa, pasa.” The English version of you that’s still stuck in the U.K. thinks, “I’m not too fussed” would be a better way to describe the feelings you have. You are struggling to find the words in your broken Spanish and give up. You put air quotes around the English words as you say them, “Everything happens for a reason.”
“Yo entiendo,” He says. You think he does.
You write about the Capricorn a lot in that journal. You write about making out in the back of a museum that used to be a slaughterhouse. About how he calls you “Nena” or “Azules.” About how he asks if you know how beautiful you are. About how when you tell him “a veces,” he leans down and cleans the dust off your Docs. About how all of it is really healing for you. “And not to sound weird,” you write, “sometimes I feel like he is re-parenting me.” It is another embarrassing conclusion you’ve come to after psychoanalyzing yourself through writing, but there is just something about the way he looks at you when you have to ask him, “Qué significa?”
You feel like a little girl when he says, “Nada Nena. No te preocupes.” Sometimes it seems like he is protecting you from things it’s best you not know. Like he is all the things you have been looking for in a man.
Except that he doesn’t speak any English at all, which causes a lot of seemingly insignificant communication issues. You’re not sure what he thought you were upset about that day in Retiro, something about being late, but you hadn’t ever really made a plan. Either way, he apologized so profusely you kinda just let him think you were mad about whatever it was. Because it was nice forgiving him and laying together in the grass with the sun and his hands in your hair. “Perdóname mi Nena, perdóname.” For what, you still don’t know.
When the Capricorn breaks his foot playing soccer, he invites you over to his place. You’re supposed to be going on a day trip to Toledo, so at first you say no. You walk to Atoche, but they won’t let you buy a ticket without your passport for some reason. And by the time you get your passport, all of the tickets are sold out. He tells you about a bus you can take, but you don’t want to force it. You tell him you don’t think you were supposed to go to Toledo—that it’s a sign—you go to his place instead.
He’s excited to cook for you because he thinks he’s going to show you how. The Capricorn doesn’t know that you’re actually, secretly, a very good cook. He doesn’t know that you’ve just made a vow to never cook for a man again. As you walk to the supermarket nearby, you’re not sure if he’s leaning on you for support, or if he’s really just milking the whole broken foot thing so he can wrap his arm around your waist. You let him do it either way.
You know the Capricorn speaks Spanish and Portuguese, but you’re surprised to see him speak to the butcher in a third, unknown language. His face lights up brightly. He laughs differently, somehow.
You’re talking about this language as you walk back to his place. He asks if you want to know how to say, “Te quiero,” as he hobbles into the other room. He comes back with a piece of paper, where he’s written something in neat handwriting. Everything he does is so orderly and planned out. You sound out the word, “Ro-hay-hu.”
The Capricorn gives you his most mischievous grin. By saying it aloud, you’ve fallen for his trap. You sorta melt at the sparkle in his eyes when he teases you. He jokes that you should have let him say, “I love you” first.
He stands there making an earnest face. He wants you to say something back, but you can’t be as clever in Spanish as you are in English. Ultimately, you don’t say anything at all. And for a second you stand there wondering, would you? Even if you could? Does the fact that “te quiero” translates to both “I love you” and “I want you” make it easier to say?
The Capricorn seems so unafraid, while you are somewhat hesitating. But you come to the conclusion this is only in Spanish because the English version of you never shuts up. The English version of you overshares and posts too much on Instagram. The English version of you is always making things weird. But the Spanish version doesn’t know the words, and maybe it’s better that way. Maybe that’s why you actually get what you want when you’re this alternate version of you. What would happen if you just stayed?
You spend what is maybe a perfect Saturday with the Capricorn. He cooks every single meal for you and takes the time to fill your plate. And in between, you are of course, fucking for dessert.
When you go to the bathroom and find a single square of toilet paper left, the Capricorn opens the door behind you and places a fresh roll on the countertop without a word. “I feel like I am at The Whatever I Want Factory,” you’ll write in your journal the following morning, as he brings you coffee in bed.
“Demasiado dulce, no?” The Capricorn asks. You tell him it’s perfect.
You sit in bed, scribbling away in your journal with the Capricorn’s arms wrapped around behind you. He is looking over your shoulder as you write freely and without any shame. You know he can’t read the paragraph you write about how when you came together he said, “Joder” at the same time you said, “Fuck” because his jizz shot all the way up the wall. You’ll write, “No wonder he has a kid,” and look to your left at the shrine he has for his son on the other wall. The little drawings, the photos of the two of them, the glittering stickers that spell out “Papá.”
As you get dressed to leave, the Capricorn tries to throw away the little piece of paper where he’s written “Rohayhu,” but you stop him.
“Yo lo quiero,” you say, and tuck the note inside your journal with all the rest of it.
Part of you knows it’s time to end things with him, but you’re not ready, or aren’t mature enough, or don’t know how. You go to museums and sit criss-cross applesauce in front of one of the exhibits for an hour just watching it all. “Estoy ocupada,” you tell him. Doing what? You don’t know. People step past you on the floor.
You go on long runs in Retiro. You eat a McFlurry every single night. All of this has very great spiritual meaning to you that you can’t really remember anymore, but at some point, you did write it all down.
You make friends with a bunch of Brazilian girls over tapas. One of them asks if you’ve ever been pregnant. It seems like a strange thing to ask a person you’ve just met. You ask her to repeat the question, slowly, because surely you’ve misunderstood. You always handle the word “embarazada” with caution because it sounds like “embarrassed” in English. It’s an easy mistake to make, but no, there’s not been a mistake. That really is what she’s asking.
You tell her you haven’t ever been, even though you’re not as safe with those kinds of things as you are about Spanish words. The Brazilian girls share a look that makes you squirm uncomfortably in your seat. You wonder what they know that you don’t?
You finally end things with the Capricorn. There’s a very long-winded rant about this in your journal, of course. About how he wanted you to come over to his place and just hang around. He doesn’t have any money since he can’t work on his broken foot. You have very mixed feelings because even though it was nice hanging around that one Saturday, you’re only in Madrid for a month! You’re tired of waiting around for men who can’t move at the same speed, so you break up with him—and do a shit job.
“No sé cómo decirlo en Español,” you tell him when you find yourself reaching for words again.
He wants you to put it in Google Translate, but when you try, you realize you don’t know how to say this feeling in any language at all. The best you can come up with is, “When someone says to come, I always go. I want someone to come to me where I am for once.”
The Capricorn says, “Yo entiendo.” You’re skeptical, wondering if Google has really gotten it right. He promises to take you out once more before you leave. You wonder again why you seem to be better in translation. What happens when all the words are washed out?
Somehow he figures out how to get the money to take you out on your final night in Madrid. You never ask how he did it because when you see him skipping across the crosswalk on one foot you feel kinda like a huge ass bitch. You try to pay for the coffees, but he won’t let you.
“No, Nena,” he waves his card in front of yours, “En serio, no.”
“Entonces,” You pick up the little plastic tray of coffees, “Voy a llevar esto.”
You carry the coffees out front and think, this is maybe how it’s supposed to be. This is precisely what the Englishman never understood, even if it’s because you never told him what you wanted in the first place. The Capriorn takes care of you, while you carry the little, precious things. But you overestimate the height of the table and plunk the coffees down a little too loud. The plates and cups clatter around. And when you pull out your chair, it makes an awful, loud sound. And you somehow trip on your way to sit down. Your face is burning because everyone turns around and stares.
The English version of you would like to play it off with a joke, but you don’t know if the translation works. So you just give the coffees a pathetic wave. The Capricorn laughs, anyway. You’re still embarrassed and wonder why you can’t even do this one, very simple thing right.
You hear yourself saying, “Soy una persona completemente differente en Español.” You wish he could know who you really are.
The Capricorn says he can see it in your smile, hear it in your laugh. You wonder if that is true. You wonder what it takes to really know someone. Is it so simple as a feeling? You want everything to be defined and set before you in fine print.
You’re mourning for the journal you lost by this point, so you talk for a long time about the things you’re worried you’ll forget if they aren’t written down. But you believe everything happens for a reason, and you’re ready to go back home. You tell him maybe there was something in that journal that was meant to stay in Europe. There is a lesson in this. You’re just not sure what it is yet.
You find it very strange on the flight back home that you pre-purchased not one, but two meals, because you never even eat airline food. But it’s for the best since you’re so, so hungry. You’re grateful to the past version of you—who seemed to just know, somehow.
There are other things you seem to just know. Like, you’re pregnant. You knew that, right? Isn’t that what everyone says when they’re knocked up? And weren’t there so many signs?
Even though you knew the test would be positive. You take another one. Two tests sit on the bathroom counter in front of you, both with two pink lines. Two… possible dads?
The last thing you remember writing in your journal was, “I already know everything because I exist in multiple timelines at once—” but you didn’t get to finish the thought. You can’t remember now what you were going to predict about your own future.
You see the doctor, who thinks you’re having a chemical pregnancy—two words you don’t understand—based on your HCG levels. They’re too low for a pregnancy with the Englishman to be viable, another new word that means “successful,” but maybe your cycle got messed up because of all the traveling. It’s possible that it was the Capricorn, and in that case, the doctor tells you to come back if you haven’t miscarried in a week.
“You could still be pregnant, it just might be too early to know.”
You’re sent home in this pseudo-pregnant state, and finally, as if they are two cells expanding in your body, the English and Spanish versions of you split off into separate selves. They are the different futures extending out in front of you. Every day that you don’t bleed, you get a little bit more confident. Every time you feel something damp in your underwear, you run to the bathroom and let out a little exhale when there is no blood. You think, yet again, the Spanish version of you is better.
You look up the due date for your baby. You’d have a Capricorn, of course. You start daydreaming about trips to Spain in the summer, so your child could know their dad, their language. Maybe this time, you could get it all right. You think your kid could go to school here, you’d put a bassinet over there. You are making a plan. You’re writing it all down in a neat to-do list in a new journal, and it feels good to do multiple things at once—
You get excited and distracted for just a moment. This time when you rush to the bathroom, you do find something there. It is a small amount of blood.
You show up to the doctor’s appointment in the morning, but the pregnancy is already gone. The doctor takes one look at you in the waiting room and says, “I’m sorry.”
You think about how the direct translation of “I’m sorry” from Spanish to English is “I feel it.” You think about what it was that you felt, but it slips through your fingers like the language you cannot really speak. Like the journal you lost. You wonder sometimes if it even happened at all.
You Google, “Is a chemical pregnancy a miscarriage?” Google doesn’t give you a clear-cut answer. It tells you a chemical pregnancy is not medically considered a miscarriage, but at one point you were pregnant. How can both things be true? Google tells you most women don’t even know they’ve had a chemical pregnancy; they just assume their period is a little late or heavier than usual. So you wonder, why did you even have to know? What is the meaning of all of this? And even though it doesn’t matter, you wish you knew who the father really was.
You feel fairly certain it was Englishman, which makes you think sometimes you were only ever beautiful to the Capricorn because of your pregnancy pheromones. You mash up your faces to look at your “could have been” children. There is something about “could have been” that you are always reaching for and never finding. Because you’ll never know whose baby it was—besides yours. You start crying all over again.
You’ll never be able to put into words why it was so upsetting. It was just a few weeks of your entire life. You were hardly even pregnant, but it was everything. And you feel embarrassed and like your deepest desires, the ones you might even try to keep from yourself, are exposed.
One day, you’ll trace back through the origins of the English word “embarrass” and the Spanish word “embarazar” and find that they both come from the Portuguese word “embaraçar,” which stems from a word meaning “to hinder or block.” You think about the two very different meanings of these words, even though they come from the same root.
You think about the ways that language itself blocks you. The things that cannot be translated or even verbalized. But if you put “pregnancy” and “hindered” and “embarrassed” on the same page, it does make sense. You see how some people take a little this way, some people take it that way. Things get lost in the spaces between, but you choose what to carry with you. Language evolves. It grows. It becomes something more than just words. It becomes an essence—a feeling on a page.
You are constantly writing in a journal, trying to find an answer to the question, “Qué significa?” Which Google will tell you translates to “What does it mean?” But really it asks, “What significance?” In English “significance” is defined as “worthy of attention” or “importance” or “weight” or “consequence” or “a quality having great worth.” It comes from the Latin word “significans,” which is a combination of the words “a sign or mark” and “to make.”
To make a sign. What does it mean?
Don’t you worry. So many different things.
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Kassie Rene lives and writes in Brooklyn. Mostly. Her poems and stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Thimble Lit Mag, Hobart Pulp, other literary journals. She is currently querying her first novel, which is complete at 79,503 words. If you’d like to spontaneously give her a book deal, that’d be really great.
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image: Kassie Rene’s writing has appeared in Coffin Bell Anthology, Parentheses Journal, and other literary magazines. She is the author of “what’s worse? me or ai?” and the zine “i’m not insane! (a zine for insane people).” She lives and writes in Brooklyn. Mostly.
Rejection Letters 