Dear María

It's been a month since I met All Time Low and came back to Barcelona, I moved back to Spain before going to San Diego and I was heading Sant Cugat, a little town where the equestrian center was.
Jack and I have been texting each other almost every day, around 2-3am. I didn't tell him, tough, because (1) I can't sleep by myself, I have lots of problems to sleep, and (2) I admit I just really liked talking to him.
He once mentioned seeing my scars at the bar when we met, so I had to tell him a cheap excuse. Like the typical 'it was the cat' thing because I didn't want to talk about my life.
I never really liked myself; five-year-old me stepped into the bathtub, breathing in until my ribs were visible, and saying "I wanna be like that" every day; seven-year-old me started calling herself a stupid and fat piece of shit; eight-year-old me started considering suicide and eleven-year-old me started harming herself with rubber wristbands but stopped a bit after my twelfth birthday. I relapsed when was thirteen, this time with a blade, and hadn't stopped since, I attempted suicide (15 times, as far as I remember). I had an abussive relationship with Mikel Iglesias that started when I was almost seventeen, and my father and I hated each other since he cheated on my mum with a prostitude and told her he was 'in love' with the prostitude, when I was twelve. I also had quite an obsession with couting calories and throwing up after meals when I was almost fifteen.
I had my own guidelines with my diet so I wouldn't fuck up my digestive system completely and didn't look suspicious. I set myself some rules: I had a small breakfast (mainly an orange juice and a small, normal cupcake or Special-K cereals), I had sushi for lunch (because of its carbohydrates, fruit, fish, etc) but only if I had horseback riding next, so I wouldn't faint. I never had dinner but I had two glasses of milk, I brushed my teeth a lot, but never after throwing up, as it only spreads the acid more. Any food intake that wasn't in those guidelines had to be throwed up.
This method helped me to get a nice and lovely thigh gap and other 'sick' things being skinny gives you. But I didn't have an unhealthy-looking thigh gap as horseback riding required having strong legs. Which brings me to Stella.
You may have heard a lot about her lately. She is my all time best friend. She was a present for my sixteenth birthday; my father was trying to win me back so he could show other people he was a good parent again, and one of his friends' andalusian mares was having a foal. My father, knowing my obsession with PRE (Pura Raza Española) horses, bought me the horse before it was even born.
The day we went to see Stella's mum, Aphrodite, I went with Ruben (a spanish youtuber I met when I was sixteen, in a meetup, and became my best friend), he was filming me stroking Aphrodite's neck when she suddenly took a step back, pinning her ears back and kicking something behind her, then she collapsed to the floor and when some of the people at the centre came to help her she started having contractions, my father's friend told me to help as well, so I did.
It was disgustingly beautiful to see and help with Stella's birth, I pulled her out by pulling her feet, which were the first thing that came out. It sounds weird and disgusting, I know, but I just find it too beautiful and the fact that I actually saw her during her first days of life was amazing. Now I can say I know her since she was born!
Since she was a year old, she's been living in a paddock in a different equestrian center from her mother in Sant Cugat, and I slowly started to tame her with a rope.
When she was near her third birthday, I started to get her used to wearing a loose-fitting and bitless (a "bit" is the part of a bridle you put into the horse's mouth) bridle.
When she was almost 4, using a tighter bridle, and when she finally turn to her five and a half years old, Oriol told me to start slowly taming her with a normal bridle. Sometimes I'd put her a saddle on, which she normally tried to buck off at first.
When she got used to the saddle, Oriol started to tame her, sometimes he let me ride her a bit, until she calmed down and by the age of 6 she was fully ready to be ridden.
When she was 7, her mane started to become blonde at the ends. It started off black and then gradually changed to blonde. That's one of the reasons my fans think Jack and I were the best couple ever, although it was pure coincidence.
I must confess that she was a bitch to me when she started to do classes with me, until she bucked me off for the 16th time, after jumping over a 1m obstacle, and pushed me against a fence causing me to break several bones, but I somehow managed to get up again and canter one last circle with her before I was sent to hospital.
Some of my fans, back then, did a video of a collection of falls, because they were all filmed, and even put the video of my 'last' fall, and putting That Girl by All Time Low as background music, I found it quite ironic, to be honest.
I think that the fact I didn't give up on her after that made her change a bit because since then she's been a bit over-protective, more each year and she has never failed me since.
One night I couldn't sleep I drove to her paddock (I live five kilometres away from her, but bleh) and slept next to her, she curled up on the floor beside me, I woke up at, 4am, I think, from a nightmare and feeling the urge to cut, when I started to see blood coming out, Stella got up and grabbed my blade with her teeth, and threw it who-knows-where, when I got up and tried to run to get it, she pulled my shirt, making me collapse to the floor, sobbing, she curled up next to me again, rubbing her head against my chest to let me know she was there.
Guess why her name's Stella? Well, I'm gonna tell you anyways.
Because in the song of Stella, by All Time Low, it keeps saying "Stella, would you take me home?" and when I met Stella, the few places I considdered a real home, were the stables because they were the only places I felt safe and the people there seemed so familiar.
In a meet up in London, a fan asked me why I named my horse Stella and when I explained, they started to ship me less with lots of band members and started focusing on Jack and I.

Speaking of the devil, Jack just texted me after I thought through this again.

Jack: Hey, wanna hang? ;)

Hmm, ok. I mean, he's in the US, probably in Baltimore again, and I'm in Spain, yeah, I mean, we could actually hang around. I rolled my eyes, sometimes I thought I only spoke sarcasm and not spanish or english.

Me: Yeah, that'd be nice, there's one problem, though... :/

Jack: What's that? D:

Me: We're not even in the same continent xD

Jack: I don't think so...

I froze a bit, but relaxed. Wait, what? Did he mean- My thoughts were cut off by a new message.

Jack: Nice boots, by the way ;) Where are you going?

I looked around, smiling and heard someone chuckle. I spun around and saw Jack Barakat leaning against a wall, holding a laugh.
This was going to be one hell of an afternoon.

Notes

This was some sort of a filler chapter so you get to know María and Stella a bit more. I'll be probably updating again soon :)

Title credit: Blessed with A Curse by Bring Me The Horizon.