Yaniel Ayala Velez
February 12, 2023 3:10 PM
Working on things (tag Cole) by Yaniel Ayala Velez
Yarielis sat at one of the back most tables of the library. It was a cosy, hidden little workspace, nestled between some bookshelves.The Crotalus did not particularly want to be here. But when you didn't actually want to be anywhere at all, one place was as good as another. After a couple of hours crying in Crotalus, the room had started to feel claustraophobic; Yarielis had managed to reign all the horrible feelings in, and didn't want to risk being in the place where they'd been let out in case they got ideas. The library was the path of least resistance because Yarielis had claimed to have homework - did have homework. The potions essay wasn't finished, though it was close enough that a couple of hours playing games wouldn't have hurt. Which was lucky, because not a lot was getting done now... After being stirred up by Lenny, the feelings all seemed to have changed size or shape, or just gotten restless. They didn't want to stay in the box. The library had vaguely made sense, both on the grounds of talking to Cole (it was technically possible it would happen as this was a public place) and on being demonstrably not a liar, because here Yarielis was, doing homework. Though still tucked away in the back, hoping that no one actually noticed. Which made it a broken way of getting an alibi. Which, thanks to Lenny, now had the question 'why?' pounding on repeat.
Yarielis took a deep breath. 'Why' did not matter right now. How strong a part accidents played in the discovery of two different potions of your choice did... But before Yarielis could fail to focus yet again, someone stepped out of the nearby shelves...
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Yaniel Ayala Velez
Working on things (tag Cole)
1554
1
5
Cole Pierce
February 24, 2023 10:23 PM
This is a good place for that by Cole Pierce
OOC: Lenny is also mine, so the flashback conversation is not god-modding. BIC:
I made your friend cry.
Cole packed up his LEGOs from the Teppenpaw table in the Cascade Hall, deciding Yarielis must be skipping lunch today. He'd chosen a seat facing the Crotalus table around brunch time and now it was well past the main lunch crowds and he was pretty sure Yarielis had decided the Hall was just not for her today after Lenny's breakfast confrontation. He felt pretty sure - or rather Lenny did - that she wouldn't be in MARS either (because that was where Lenny told her he'd be, though that had been hours ago).
You should talk to her.
He also packed up some snack foods and a sandwich, because she'd probably be hungry. He just needed to find her. Not the Hall, and not MARS. Probably someplace quiet without a lot of people around. It was a nice day so there was probably somebody on the Pitch trying to pull together a pick-up game, and bunch of Pecaris wandering the Gardens. Library then. Nobody wanted to study when the weather was this nice, not with the colder season coming on soon. This was probably one of the last nice days before the weather turned miserable.
She's upset but she needed to be upset. I just hope she'll open up to you. You need to get her to *talk* to you, Cole.
Cole looked out a window as he passed it, and briefly wanted to be outside, too, but Yarielis was more important, and he continued on without pausing.
Open up about what, Lenny? What do we need to talk about? What did you *say* to her?
She needs to tell you herself.
He didn't know if he was supposed to be mad at Lenny or not. On the one hand, making his friends cry was not cool, and Cole frowned on that very severely just on principle. On the other hand . . . Lenny seemed to care about Yarielis, seemed to want to help her . . . but also seemed to think poking at her until she cried was what she needed. But also Lenny had told Cole that she really needed a friend right now, and if he hadn't said something, Cole wouldn't know, and Yarielis would be alone to deal with whatever Lenny had stirred up. So Lenny couldn't be the bad guy entirely, could he?
Cole walked among the shelves, half-pretending to look for a book, but not really processing any of the titles he looked at. Finally he came around another set of shelves, near the very back, and breathed out a sigh of relief. Yarielis. He'd found her.
"Hi," he greeted softly, because this was the library and that was how you were supposed to talk, not because his sort-of brother had traumatized her. "I was hoping to find you," he added, because Lenny had told him she needed a friend, so he was making sure she knew he was that. He tried a reassuring smile. Should he mention Lenny? Or let her bring him up? "Is something wrong?" he asked carefully, deciding to keep it open-ended. Then she could decide what topic she needed to talk about, Lenny himself, or whatever it was Lenny had poked her with.
He came over and sat at her table. "You're my friend," he added, making that explicit. "I'd like to help."
1
Cole Pierce
This is a good place for that
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0
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Yaniel Ayala Velez
February 25, 2023 9:24 PM
I don't know where to start by Yaniel Ayala Velez
It was Cole. The only person Yarielis could even vaguely class under ‘would like to see’ right now, and even then, the Crotalus’ stomach dropped about a mile when he actually appeared. Apologising to Cole was important, and very high up the to do list. That didn’t mean being confronted with the task any easier. Especially when Yarielis couldn’t fix any of the problems…“Hi,” Yarielies said, even more softly than Cole. The instinct to curl in and be as invisible as possible was kicking in strongly, even though that was literally impossible given that Cole was looking specifically at Yarielis.
His first question indicated that he knew. Lenny had said something. Of course he had, that wasn’t a surprise… They’d had hours to talk. Yarielis swallowed down the questions of what they’d discussed, deciding that not knowing was much safer. Yarielis’ default answer of ‘I’m fine’ wasn’t going to fly either. If he’d talked to Lenny, he would know that was a lie. That fraction’s hesitation gave Cole a chance to throw something else into the equation.
’You’re my friend. I’d like to help.’
“Why?” It was the first word Yarielis could think of, and to Cole’s Teppenpaw mind, he had probably just answered that question. “You shouldn’t want to be. I’m being a bad friend right now—first Quidditch,, now Lenny—I know you’re mad at me. And I’m sorry—I want to say I’m sorry,” Yarielis corrected, “But people talk about like… when you say ‘sorry’ you should fix it or do something different the next time, but I can’t. I can’t fix any of it, and it’s not that I don’t want to or I won’t but I can’t so I can’t start being a good friend again. You should just give up on me,” Yarielis concluded. It was probably not proper to be wearing a hoodie with the hood up inside, but Yarielis was doing so. It was probably also very rude to pull the draw strings so that it closed as tightly as possible around your face, but that meant there was objectively less reality available to your senses, and right now reality sucked. “I’m sorry.”
13
Yaniel Ayala Velez
I don't know where to start
1554
0
5
Cole Pierce
February 25, 2023 10:53 PM
How about Quidditch? by Cole Pierce
Right. Lenny said she needed a friend right now and . . . yes. Clearly she did. Okay. He could be a friend. He was good at that, he liked to think. But he was also very confused. What did Quidditch have to do with anything? What in Merlin's name had Lenny said?"Okay, breathe," he said quietly and calmly, the instruction as much for himself as for Yarielis. Stay calm. They couldn't both be panicking right now and clearly Yarielis had a better to claim to being the one upset. "First, if I'm mad at anyone, it's Lenny. I don't know exactly what he said to you, but he said he upset you and you probably needed a friend to be with you right now, and obviously you do, and I'm not sure how much I need to blame that on him."
"Second, I'm not going to give up on you. I don't know what's going on, but I don't just give up when it gets hard. That would make me a bad friend. So I'm going to try to help you as best as I can. I've got Legos with me, if you need to just do something with your hands and calm down for a bit, but I think we do need to talk about whatever is going on." He shifted his bag onto the table between them, but didn't open it up yet, not sure if she wanted to taint Legos with the emotions of whatever was going on. "Or I have some lunch for you, if you'd prefer that. Just PBJ and some snacks. Figured that would keep all right if you didn't want it right away."
"And third, what about Quidditch?" Obviously, she hadn't been there. Cole had thought maybe she was sick, but it must be more than that if she was feeling guilty about it.
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Cole Pierce
How about Quidditch?
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0
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Yaniel Ayala Velez
February 26, 2023 1:29 AM
I can't... by Yaniel Ayala Velez
Yarielis took a deep, audible breath. Both because it was good advice, and because it was something Cole wanted right now that it was actually possible to give him.“Don’t be mad at Lenny,” Yarielis begged. “You can’t be. He’s… he’s like family to you, and you have to live with him. I’m… I don’t want to be the reason you two end up fighting. That isn’t fair to you.” But here it was, happening anyway. Cole was a good person, so of course he didn’t want to ditch Yarielis, but that put him in an impossible position. “I don’t want you to get stuck in the middle. I mean, I know you’d have to choose him, if it came down to it. And he’s a Teppenpaw. You know he didn’t do anything wrong or mean, he just… He just…” He just existed so hard and so loudly, but how was Yarielis meant to explain that to someone who thought that was a good thing? Someone who, by his own admission, had been lonely until Lenny came along, being the real-life version of all his imaginary friends? “I don’t know how to deal with Lenny. He thinks he gets things, but he doesn’t. He wants to have all these conversations about feelings, even though they’re none of his business but—but he’s your almost-brother, and I’m supposed to like him for your sake, or be nice for your sake, and I wasn’t.”
And I won’t be. I can’t be. If Yarielis and Lenny interacted again, it was going to go the exact same way, and that would keep hurting Cole.
Playing with Legos and ignoring reality sounded pretty good, but that wasn’t exactly what Cole seemed to be suggesting. Cramming peanut butter and jelly in so as to have a reason not to say anything also sounded good, but Yarielis’ tightly knotted stomach didn’t agree. Also, were they allowed to eat in the library? That seemed wrong, and leaving the shielded little corner didn’t sound appealing.
That meant Yarielis was stuck answering Cole’s third question, in spite of probably having said too much already.
“I… I… know you’re disappointed in me for not going,” Yarielis said. “Lenny told me.” Because Lenny was incapable of keeping his mouth shut about anything, whether or not it concerned him. “I wish I could. I want to. But… but I can’t. I’m sorry.”
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Yaniel Ayala Velez
I can't...
1554
0
5
Cole Pierce
March 21, 2023 9:47 PM
Why? by Cole Pierce
Well, Yarielis wasn't holding a grudge against Lenny, which made it a bit easier for Cole to forgive him for whatever it was that had happened. By her own words, Lenny hadn't been wrong or mean, so that was something. He'd just . . . something. Talked about feelings apparently, and it hadn't gone well.Then she answered his question about Quidditch, which was evidently another topic that had come up with Lenny despite Lenny not really having much interest in the sport at all. He hadn't know Lenny even listened while Cole talked about it. Well, obviously, he did, because he was a Teppenpaw and they were friends and what was important to Cole was important to Lenny, too, but Cole sort of assumed Lenny just picked out the highlights when Cole started talking about it.
Which might explain the very wrong conclusion that had been reached, but more likely it wasn't Lenny who had misunderstood this particular point.
"Okay, first, if he said I was disappointed in you, he was wrong," he started there, deciding to blame Lenny anyway, so Yarielis wouldn't feel ambushed any more than she already did. "I missed you because you're my friend and I wanted to hang out with you, and I thought Quidditch was our thing," none of his other friends played, and the two of them often spent most of practice together since they were both junior beaters, "but I'm not upset or angry or disappointed in you or anything because you didn't show. But why can't you play if you want to?" he asked, confused on that point.
"Oh, and second," he added, before she had a chance to answer because he didn't want to forget the point if the conversation moved sideways, "If Lenny makes you upset you don't have to like him, just because I do. That's not a rule, and I'm not going to automatically come down on his side, just because he's a Teppenpaw and family. If Aunt Deidre can marry Aunt Bel and work for Grandfather without going mad, I can be friends with two people who don't always get along. Okay, end of side bar. Why can't you play Quidditch?"
His face took on an expression of worry and concern and he was already half-composing a letter to Gramelia to get some DISCUSS pamphlets sent to Sonora in case it was that stupid thing about Quidditch turning girls gay resurfacing.
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Cole Pierce
Why?
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0
5
Yaniel Ayala Velez
March 22, 2023 7:20 AM
I don't know by Yaniel Ayala Velez
OOC: CW dysphoria BIC:
I thought Quidditch was our thing.
It is, Yarielis wanted to say. Or it was… Hearing the way Cole talked about it was simultaneously so reassuring and absolutely crushing. Cole wanted to be on the Quidditch team. He wanted to play Beater. That meant he was stuck spending multiple hours a week with Yarielis whether he wanted to or not, and it was very easy to imagine that they weren’t real, proper friends, not like the people he chose to spend time with (even though all those people were, by a similar logic ‘forced’ into proximity with him by being in his house but Yarielis was totally capable of the mental gymnastics required to make that different). But here was Cole, in no uncertain terms, spelling out that Yarielis’ presence had been a bonus. And not just in a reserve Beater way but because they were friends. Or had been. Yarielis had trashed it and run out on the main thing that held them together…
Because it was lonely.
How in the heck was Yarielis meant to explain that without hurting Cole’s feelings further?
Luckily, in the time where Yarielis was pausing and panicking about how to answer, Cole started filling the silence with a different train of thought. It was… logical. In a way. Apart from the bit about someone called Deidre which just sounded complicated. It was one of those things that made sense when Cole was here saying it, but Yarielis was pretty sure it would slip away into impossibility when he wasn’t there, and the Crotalus was trying to recreate it.
“O-okay,” Yarielis agreed. But then they looped right back around to Quidditch. Yarielis drew in a breath, and then let it out again shakily, finding no words were ready to come with it just yet.
“I…” Yarielis managed on the next breath. “I don’t feel like I belong there. I know in some ways, it’s Oz and Billy, and you and me, and I know you’re more my friend than theirs so I shouldn’t feel left out. But… it’s also…. There’s the three of you, and then me. It sucks being the only girl and feeling like the odd one out.” An odd one out whose body was doing all these things. Growing breasts (not that that needed pointing out—Cole had definitely noticed, everyone had to have noticed, it was obvious and hideous—Yarielis tugged at the neck of hoodie, willing it to somehow be bigger and to drown out absolutely everything). Periods (not that Cole probably knew about those because lucky him, he had no reason to, and Yarielis hoped he wasn’t realising that because that would be cause to die of embarrassment. “And Lenny tried to get all ‘girls can do whatever they want’ and I know but, I just don’t want— It’s not fair.”
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Yaniel Ayala Velez
I don't know
1554
0
5
Cole Pierce
April 29, 2023 9:36 AM
Co-written Conclusion
by Cole Pierce
Co-written With: Yarielis Ayala Velez
Cole frowned in confusion, not sure why Yarielis wouldn’t feel like she belonged at Quidditch. He didn’t think Billy and Oz treated her any differently than they did him, and the two of them had been the rookie Beaters together since the beginning. Yes, Yarielis was the only girl, but he was pretty sure the Beater who trained Billy had been a girl, too, and so far as Cole remembered, none of the three of them had treated Yarielis like she was anything less than a competent teammate, had they? He hoped not.
The good news was that he now had a little better idea of what Lenny had said to her - and it was very Lenny and Cole could definitely see now why Lenny would have gotten adamant about it and not backed down even when it seemed to be upsetting Yarielis, and Cole was starting to be afraid that maybe Lenny had been right to do whatever he’d done. “You don’t want what?” Cole prompted when she cut herself off. “What isn’t fair?”
What were the ends of those sentences? It was a good question.
“It’s not fair that I’ll always be different. I don’t mean—it’s not to do with skill, or… or stuff like that. But I don’t want… I just wish I was one of you.”
Cole blinked. There were times when Yarielis had remarkable similarities to Lenny, and he wondered if their confrontation today was because they were too alike, or because they were the polar opposites of one another. Neither liked the gender expectations they’d been assigned at birth, but whereas Yarielis wanted to join in and be one of the guys, Lenny rejected conforming to the expectations of being a guy. Also, Yarielis seemed reluctant to actively reject the expectations of being a girl, and he guessed Lenny had probably pushed for that, as that was sort of his thing.
He’d been along to the Cafe enough times to support Lenny, and talked with Lenny about his own personal journey as a demiboy, that he had some limited understanding of the terms involved. “When you say that, like, are you just dreaming about an ideal world where you would have been born a boy? Or are you interested in being proactive about it? Like, transitioning to be a transgender boy? Because that’s a thing people can do, if you really don’t think you fit as a girl and would feel more You as a boy.” Lenny would know more about it, but he didn’t think mentioning Lenny at this point would be a good idea.
"What do you mean?" Yarielis asked, pulling back the hood enough to actually really look at Cole as he asked... Something that didn't make a whole lot of sense. "I can't 'work on becoming a boy' however much I want to. That's not how it works... Even Lenny doesn't think he's actually a girl. And if I did what he did and just dressed up it would still just be pretending and it wouldn't fix things." Yarielis took a deep breath, searching for a tissue to deal with the mess of tears but only finding a sleeve instead. "But I think all girls feel like that sometimes. I don't know why it's been getting to me so much more lately."
Cole wasn’t sure all girls felt like that, but he wasn’t one, so he didn’t feel he was the right person to dispute it. On the other hand, it was apparently okay to talk about Lenny now, since Yarielis had brought him up herself, and that was something Cole could talk about with some authority. “No, Lenny has no interest in actually being a girl. He’s not entirely interested in being a guy either, though. He’s on the non-binary spectrum and strongly against gender roles in general.” Cole was reasonably certain all of that was public knowledge, or at least not something Lenny was trying to keep private.
“Some people, though, do want to change their gender fully, and it’s more than just changing how you dress. There’s hormone blockers to stop puberty and halt the progress of um,” Cole made a two handed cupping gesture in front of his chest, “female development, and hormone treatments that could give you more male body traits. Lenny’s only doing the first part - but for guys, obviously - his voice isn’t going to deepen and he’s not going to be shaving facial hair unless he stops getting the shots.” That was less common knowledge, but Cole felt it was something his pseudo brother wouldn’t mind having shared in this context. Lenny had been the one who shoved Cole out of their room with explicit instructions to find Yarielis and talk to her. “But he knows an actual transgender girl who helped him figure out what he needed to do to get that far. I can try to get you in touch with her, if you want? Sorry, I don’t know anyone personally who went the direction you want to go for you to talk to, but they do exist.”
Cole was saying… a lot of things. Things that Yarielis couldn’t fully process. Three things stood out. The first was the unsurprising fact that Cole had indeed noticed the existence of… certain features of people, perhaps in general but that meant he had almost definitely noticed Yarielis’ because they were big, ugly, and had been fairly obvious even since first year, although baggy sweaters and school robes had done a more effective job back then. That thought had Yarielis staring at the ceiling and hunching back into the ineffective protection of the hoodie, and was filed very firmly under things to try and never think about ever again. The second fact was… almost everything else Cole had just said about medicine. That was too much information, and it was wild, scary and confusing information which didn’t mesh with reality. That went into a pile to think about later. The last thing that stood out did so firmly enough to be dealt with now, and almost caused Yarielis to use a non-library appropriate voice, though the Crotalus was too well-practised in reigning things in to let it actually spill at volume.
“Lenny. Dodged. Puberty?” Yarielis spit out, wondering whether that could possibly be what Cole had just said. “That is so unfair! And so typical—” Because of course no rule of nature applied to Lenny Pierce. Though Yarielis swallowed that down. For all Cole had said that being mad at, disliking or not getting on with Lenny was allowed, that was still a button Yarielis was hesitant to push.
Cole grimaced slightly and shrugged, not entirely clear on how this part worked. “I think it’s more like he’s putting it off? He’ll need to grow up and go through some kind of body maturation process eventually, but I think legally he needs to wait until he’s not a minor anymore to confirm he doesn’t want to be a man? At this point, it’s still reversible if he changes his mind.”
Yarielis’ comment had made Cole make a face. It would definitely be better not to say things like that going forward…
“They can make it go backwards?” Yarielis asked, as Cole talked about things being reversible. “Not that I think I’m definitely… the things you just said. But, while we’re talking impossible, random daydreams… It could all go away?”
They were definitely hitting the limits of Cole’s knowledge on the topic. “Um. I think it just stops anything more from happening? Lenny didn’t need to go backwards, so I don’t know if that works or not?”
“O..kay….” Yarielis nodded, even though that hadn’t been the hoped-for answer. It sounded like further information involved a further conversation with Lenny. Yarielis was not keen on that, but also not about to say so to Cole.
“Thanks.” The world trailed ambiguously through the air. It didn’t necessarily feel like the right word to close out the barrage of information that had just come from Cole. But he had come looking. He had known Yarielis was upset, and he had come. So, maybe it was for that. “I am sorry for ditching Quidditch,” Yarielis reiterated.
“I’m sorry you didn’t feel included,” Cole returned. “If you’re happier without it, then you’re doing the right thing.” A question nagged at him, though, and he had to ask, “It wasn’t, wasn’t anything I did, was it? That made you feel you weren’t a valuable part of the group? It’s not supposed to be a boy’s club.”
“No! Nonono.” Yarilis’ mouth moved wordlessly for a second, trying to find how to dispel all the ways Cole had just got that very, very wrong. Oh gosh. No. Cole wasn’t supposed to feel bad about this. “It wasn’t you. Any of you. It’s not—it’s not that you left me out, or made me feel like I wasn’t valued. It’s not anything you did, it’s just… how it is. It’s not you, it’s me. And I’m not happier without it, or without you—of course I’m not!”
“Then why did you leave?”
“Because….” Because of everything I just said. Cole had talked along with it, like the feelings Yarielis was expressing made sense—like he even had names and words to go with them. “Because I have to stand next to all three of you. And I’m… this. I’m this horrible lump. And it’s bad enough in class. And it’s bad enough when I’m on my own, because I know what I look like all the time but when I’m next to all three of you, it’s like a magnifying glass. And Quidditch used to be the thing that made it better and took my mind off it, and I love playing, but I can’t stand feeling that way.”
Cole frowned in worry. That didn’t sound good, or normal. “First, you’re not a horrible lump.” He wasn’t sure she even wanted to be told she was pretty, partly because that wasn’t a guy thing, and partly because he felt sure she just wouldn’t believe him. Neither was he sure that ‘nothing is wrong with you’ was accurate given how she felt about being the wrong sex - not that she was wrong, but her body did not match her self image and that was a problem - but he felt he was safe with ‘not a horrible lump’. “Nobody else looks at you and thinks that. I certainly don’t, in class, at Quidditch, or ever.”
“Second, um, well, part of the hoops Lenny had to jump through to get the hormone blockers included talking to mental health professionals and um, don’t take this the wrong way, but I think that might help you a lot, too. That sounds like a pretty serious self esteem issue.”
Yarielis had two instantaneous and conflicting reactions to Cole’s suggestion. The first was ‘I don’t want to’ and ‘What are you saying’ and ‘That’s not right’ though this was so quickly suppressed that it barely even registered—after all, that would have been disagreeing. The second, which was much harder to swallow back down, was a ‘Yes, sure.’ It was what Cole wanted to hear. But this whole conversation had started with broken promises, even if only the implicit one—namely, that Yarielis would continue to be Cole’s teammate. Good friends didn’t say they would do one thing and then and then do another. And, for some strange reason, Cole still wanted to be friends.
“Maybe,” Yarielis said, fidgeting over the many doubts—that what he was saying sounded scary, and like making a fuss, and probably cost money. Yarielis wasn’t sure about talking to the kind of adult he was suggesting, but… “I’d like to talk to Coach. I… I didn’t really explain to anyone. And I don’t want—I know it must seem like I just don’t care or… I want to be able to come back, but I didn’t know how to explain any of it, and I wasn’t sure if it would sound like a real reason, and I didn’t want anyone to be mad at me and I know they probably are but—” But they weren’t going to get unmad by Yarielis avoiding them all. The only difference was not having to see it. “Would you help me do that?”
“Yes,” Cole said without any hesitation at all. He wanted to help. Coach wasn’t quite the professional help he’d meant, but it was a start, and they could go from there. “I can absolutely be with you to help and support you through the hard parts.” He smiled encouragingly. “That’s what being a good friend means. And I’m yours.”
“Me too. I mean, I’m yours, if you ever need…” He probably wouldn’t. Cole was normal, popular, and seemed to have his life together like it was as easy as organising your school bag for the day ahead. “Even if I’m not around on the team, I’d still like to help you out if you needed, or just be around.”
1
Cole Pierce
Co-written Conclusion
1546
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6
Yarielis Ayala Velez