Episode 1

Eduardo

My name is Eduardo Cardoso, I'm 28 years old, and I'm a nurse. I've been working in public health since I graduated 4 years ago.

I was always a chubby and effeminate kid, an easy target for all the bullies at school. It was very difficult, and it's in my childhood that I have the worst memories of being assaulted, humiliated, ridiculed, and offended.

In elementary school it was just nicknames and some shoves. In high school it was worse, they beat me more, called me offensive names because of my weight, called me "big bag," "fluffy cake," "fat slob," and so on. They also called me "little fag," "fat queer," and "obese faggot." They excluded me from everything. Anyone who tried to be nice to me became their target, so everyone walked away. There was one year when they pretended I didn't exist for a month. It was horrible. They hit me in the face, held my head in the toilet, and painted my face with lipstick.

At home, things weren't much different. My mother died when I was born, and my father kind of blamed me for it. He hated the fact that I was fat. He didn't understand that I developed this compulsion for food because of the abuse I suffered at school, and even though he knew, he never did anything. He believed that it would make me a man. It didn't work, nor did soccer, judo, karate, running, and swimming. In short, I was a klutz at any sport.

My older brother ended up becoming a great player, which distracted my father from me and from trying to make me a "man."

When I started college, my brother was called by a scout to play at a big team's training center. My father was so proud it was almost funny. I continued to be invisible.

When I went to college, things got better. No one cared if I was effeminate or gay. I even found a crush. He was beautiful and was studying physiotherapy. One day he asked to take me home. He kissed me in the car. It was my first kiss, and I really liked it. When he dropped me off at home, he got out of the car and kissed me again. Just then, my father arrived with my brother, who had hurt his foot, which is why they both came home early. My father made a scene, yelled, cursed, ran after the boy to hit him. The poor guy left there desperate, leaving me alone with the beast!

"How could you do this to me? Rubbing yourself on another guy at my front door? What do you want the neighbors to think?"

"Dad, I didn't do anything wrong. It's no different from what everyone else my age does."

"Normal couples, not two men. You bring me so much shame. I don't ever want to see you doing this again!"

"But Dad, this is who I am..."

He raised his hand and slapped me hard across the face, leaving the mark of his fingers on my cheek.

"Not while you're living under my roof."

"If that's how it is, I'm moving out tomorrow."

"That will be a relief, not having you around reminding me of what a failure you are."

I left and ran from there, went to the beach, spent the night there looking at the sea, walking along the beach, and looking at the stars. I thought about everything that had happened and thought about a plan for when I left my father's house. I decided to call my best friend, Manuela. She lives in the Morro da Piedade favela. The owner is married to another guy, so it's cool for me to go there. But she told me that she had received an offer to work in another favela. My friend is a teacher, and she's going to teach tutoring there in this favela, and she was going to see if they needed a nurse at the clinic there too. It turned out they did. I left my father's house and moved to the favela with Manu.

As soon as we arrived, we had to ask to enter, explain what people were doing there, and wait for the favela owner's authorization to go up. When he authorized it, a young woman of about 18 years old at most came and said she was the favela owner's sister-in-law and that she was going to show us where we were going to live.

The house was at the top of the hill. We walked like hell. The house was simple and small, a living room and kitchen, two bedrooms, and one bathroom. There was no backyard or patio, the door opened directly onto the street. I had always lived in a poor neighborhood, but never in a favela. I thought it was strange, but not that much. The house was close to the clinic and the school, and there was a market nearby too, and a court where the dances took place. A place where I'll never go, of course. What's a fat, clumsy guy going to do in a place like that?

But anyway, this is my new life now, and I'm super excited. I hope this is a fresh start for me and that everything finally works out.

I pick up my phone, open the app, and start reading a new story from my favorite author. She writes gay romances, and through her stories, I find a little bit of happiness. I feel like I'm the protagonist living an intense love, even though I know this is all the love I'll ever have, just the illusion of fictional romances.

I look at myself in the mirror and I don't like what I see. I wish I was skinny, maybe then someone could love me. But nobody wants to date a fat guy, no matter how caring, faithful, and true he is. If you don't fit the beauty standard, it's like you don't deserve to be happy.

I've been on several dates, people I met through the app, and it all ended the same way. Either they liked me a lot, but as a friend. Or they tried to help me lose weight, showering me with diet and gym tips, I even got a recommendation for a bariatric surgeon. And lastly, and saddest of all, there are those who arrive and look at me, and don't even sit down, they just turn their backs and walk away and say that I'm not what they were looking for.

That's why I don't do that anymore. It wasn't me who gave up on love, it was love that gave up on me.

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