The Quince Project

Chapter Thirty

Po rose up and extended her hand, helping me onto my feet. We limped through the sand, across the bike path.

The world of downtown Matteo Beach carried on: families going in and out of restaurants, nighttime joggers zipping by, people taking their dogs on evening strolls down the pier. Except the colors looked muted, the silence between Po and I growing thicker by the second.

Before it got so thick not even a lightsaber could slash through it, I said, “Don’t worry. I’m going to fix this. I swear.”

“What’s done is done, Little Cuchara,” she said through her teeth.

I shook my head. “If you care about Paulina as much as I do about Javi, you’d want to fix this as much as I do.”

She halted, sand crunching under her combat boots. “Tell me you didn’t just go there.” She massaged her wrists like she was gearing up for a volleyball match. “Tell me you didn’t diss my feelings for Pau like that.”

“Look, that came out wrong.” Sweat pinpricked the back of my neck. “All I’m asking is for you not to give in to this tendency of yours to shake things off so easily.” At last, I’d said it.

She leaned against a parking meter as if considering it. Finally.

Shaking her head, she said, “Wow.” Her cheeks flushed a flaming red to match her lipstick. “You are making things soo much worse.”

“I’m trying to make things better.” She should know by now this was what I excelled at, until recently. Why did she want to take this chance away from me? From us? Especially after everything we’d lost already? “Just let me try, okay?”

“Some things you can’t make better, Cas!”

Both of our chests heaved. The heartbroken sobbing from the beach quickly morphed into something I couldn’t quite place.

“Sometimes… lots of times… if it’s broke, don’t fix it.”

Her words echoed against the pavement. Against my hollow places.

No. I tore a hand through my hair. Didn’t give a damn how many fingers got tangled in the frizz. “You’re wrong.”

She shrugged.

Heat shot up my throat, seconds away from spouting fire out of my head like Hades. My eagerness to fix things was probably forged as a result of her constantly breezing past difficulties and Dad constantly hyperspeeding away from them.

What chance did our family have of staying anchored in our past or sailing into the future without someone steering our ship through life’s storms?

I had accepted the role without complaint. Until now.

Until she’d doled out another Poverb as if she were a modern-day Rafiki.

“If you’re so intent on speaking in aphorisms, the least you can do is get them right. It’s ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’” I spit the words out slowly.

Maybe they’d stick in her long-term memory that way.

“I know perfectly well what the ‘right’ way to say it is, okay?” She pushed off the parking meter, charging up the street toward the parking lot edged with bike racks. “I also know, unlike you, that some things can’t be fixed.”

Those words slashed deeper now than when Javi said them inside the Arctic Art Studio. But this situation was not a broken ice sculpture. Or Mom’s death. “This can be salvaged.”

She cracked her knuckles, continuing to bulldoze through the crowd.

I took a breath and chased after her. “You know that’s the whole point of me being event chair. I pretty much have a bachelor’s in planning. And a minor in finding a rain plan when things go south.”

After Mandy’s internship, I could add a master’s degree in “Happily ever afters are our business.”

My feet stopped moving.

Wait.

Now that Paulina had fired me, would Mandy revoke my internship? I shook my head.

Tackle one disaster at a time.

Peeling my loafers from the ground, I went after Po.

“No, that isn’t the point of you being event chair, actually. Much less the point of your obsession with that internship.” The acid in her voice nearly melted the concrete sidewalk beneath our feet.

Right before she entered the lot, I grabbed her by the duster’s sleeve and spun her around. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

She tugged the duster free, flapping her arms to her side. “You really think you can handle the truth, Little Cuchara?” Her voice rose an octave. “I sure hope so because I’m soo sick and soo tired of handling you with kiddie gloves.”

“You—handling me?!” My laughter bubbled over with disdain. “That’s rich.” Where was the Evil Queen’s magic mirror? Po needed it ASAP to take a hard look and see who was handling whom with care. “If I can manage your life on top of mine, bring on whatever crap you’ll spin to sound like wisdom, Yoda.”

She scoffed, started clapping. Each slap stung like a smack to the face. “And there it is.” She stepped forward, the pointy nose she inherited from Dad inches away from the round one Mom had given me. “Ever since my ‘disastrous’ quince, you think everything—scratch that: everyone—is a ‘problem’ for you to fix.”

Although the ocean breeze snapped our hair, not enough air filled my lungs. Not with how fast my breath quickened.

“First off, your party was a disaster! The missing tilde? Happy fifteen buttholes? Hello?!” Perhaps being officially taken under Mandy’s fairy wings was already working wonders on morphing my pencil into a magic wand. Because as I pressed the utility bag into my side, the pencil’s tip poked into my stomach, transforming my contempt into an anger that made the Beast’s fury seem like annoyance.

I unleashed more. “If it weren’t for me always being on your back, no college prep on time.” I stuck out a finger, then another. “No extracurriculars to put on your resume to get into said colleges. Wake up, Po. You are a problem!”

“Thank god I am, huh?” Her breath sped into rasps. “If not, how would you even exist?”

I opened my mouth to protest. What the hell? Did a bee fly into my esophagus and sting it or something? Because my throat swelled, making it impossible to get anything out.

“You can’t escape your own life by fixating on someone else’s,” Po continued.

My skin crawled, her accusation sticking to every inch of me. “I don’t need to take this crap from you. Not when I’ve only ever tried to help you avoid a gap year—a gap life.” I spun on the ball of my loafers, forcing myself to bolt.

Except she dragged me back by the utility bag. “I know you think I breeze past stuff. I don’t.” Her voice softened. “I simply know how to adjust my sails.” A few tears rolled down her face; she did nothing to brush them away. “You, on the other hand, think you can escape what happened with Mandy’s grid.”

Everything she said fell straight into that chasm inside my chest, her words resharpening every jagged edge, making me flinch with every heart sputter. And just when I thought this battle royale couldn’t get any worse, Po unzipped the top of my utility bag. Yanked out the Pikachu walkie-talkie. Pressed the button on the side.

“Earth to Cas: you can’t control the uncontrollable. Collecting all these happily ever afters won’t erase what happened.” Her eyes filled with more tears. I hated that mine did, too. “Nothing will.”

Why couldn’t she stop talking? Every new word felt like vines shackling me in place. Before they kept me there forever, I wrenched the walkie-talkie out of her hands. “That isn’t why…”

Was she right? About all of it?

My attempts to get our past plans back on track, my efforts to make our HEA come true—were they masquerades for control? How could that even be a bad thing? Give into chaos when I could take charge of it? Never. And why did she care if I stocked up on happily ever afters?

She should be applauding—not criticizing—my figuring out how to pack the emptiness inside my heart. Sure, I’d been using some of my own events to stuff it lately… Was that why the void had felt fullest since After Mom? I chewed the inside of my cheek. Dang it.

Maybe Po’s points were a little valid.

Telling her would only set her higher on that self-righteous horse. Not that she looked particularly smug at the moment, wiping her runny nose with her duster’s sleeve.

The same duster she’d wrapped around me at the beach. Flapped around Dad at home. Cocooned around Paulina whenever she thought no one was looking.

“And as far as the quince, it wasn’t a missing tilde that ruined it,” she said. Under the bright lights of the lot’s lampposts, the tears rolling down the sides of her face glittered. “It was a missing mom.”

A missing mom.

Hearing the words out loud was like both the curse and the spell trying to lift it.

The grief I tried my hardest to keep at bay rushed in. The pencil-wand didn’t have enough power to undo this feeling. And the other way curses were typically broken? Slim chance kissing Javi was ever going to happen again.

A flurry of blinking didn’t hold back my tears. More fell when she whispered, “And a missing sister. Instead of being present with me, you went into fix-it mode. You missed the good parts of the party because of it.”

She freed her bike from the rack, hopping on. “You’re still missing good parts now.” Palm trees threw shadows onto the concrete, black slashes dividing us. “Tell Dad I’m staying at Brandi’s tonight.”

She rode away.

Her words floated in the air long after the bike disappeared over the hill.

If this were a fairy-tale realm, I would’ve pegged Po for the court jester, me the fairy godmother. Had she really been the philosopher this entire time? And me who’d acted the fool?

I quietly closed my front door. Shut my eyes at the foot of the hallway. After the havoc I’d wreaked, I couldn’t make eye contact with the framed photos of Mom. For once, I was glad Dad pew-pew-pewed in a galaxy far, far away because—

“Hey, kiddo, another party tonight?” he asked from inside the living room. “Was it the Star Wars quince you’re planning for your friend?”

“No, Dad. I’ve already told you: Paulina isn’t my friend.” Not anymore.

Her relationship with Po and mine with Javi were over. I tugged the utility bag away from me to keep the tip of the pencil-wand from stabbing me in the side. Only the sharp truth kept piercing.

After Hot Goss’s “story,” who would hire me? “And as far as the party goes, that’s dunzo,” I said.

When I informed Mandy about getting fired, would clipping my fairy godmother wings come next?

Dad sucked air through his teeth, not because of the enormity of my troubles. But probably because his character got hit by a laser blaster. “That’s too bad, kiddo.”

Everything I’d worked so hard to get since After Mom—gone in a span of hours. And too bad, kiddo was the best he could do?

That’s it. I stomped into the living room, purposely blocking out his precious game.

“It’s not ‘too bad,’ Dad.” My vision blurred with tears. They didn’t spring from sadness or laughter. “It freaking blows, okay?”

His posture stiffened, like whenever I mentioned my period. Or anything Mom related. Then, his face did that thing that reminded me of blinds shuttering.

For a second, a part of me wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt again. Hiding his feelings was probably his way of shielding us from any more negative emotions, especially pain. But…

I was too exhausted to bury more feelings inside the depths of my heart’s core. Or hide them behind its jagged corners.

“I lost this awesome client. A guy I really liked. Probably the internship I’ve been dreaming about since freshman year.” With every loss, I took a step forward. “I got into a huge fight with Po. I haven’t watercolored in forever.” Everything went quiet except for my pulse hammering against my rib cage. “Not since Mom.”

His mouthed opened as if he wanted to say something, but he closed it. Took his attention back to the game, fingers twitching across the buttons of the controller.

Perhaps my time with Paulina had set me on the Sith Lord path, because my fury eclipsed everything else. “Dad! I’m trying to talk to you about this!” I said, reaching for his controller.

My fingers latched on to its plastic side. He refused to let go. Game on, then. “I’ve been trying to talk to you about a lot of things.” Holding back on the truth got me into this mess. Maybe spitting it out could get me out of it. “I’ve been trying to talk about Mom.”

That only made him tighten his grip over the controller. I clutched the plastic even harder.

We kept playing tug-of-war. Pushed and pulled. The wheels of the gaming chair squeaked in our tango for the controller.

No. For control of this situation.

“At every chance, you hyperdrive off to a galaxy far, far away—” My voice cracked, like glass slippers fracturing. “But you disappearing also means you’ve missed out on so much of what’s been going on lately.”

The words stuck to the roof of my mouth.

Oh no—hadn’t Po just said the same thing?

What if Dad jumping to light speed was the twin of me becoming a fairy godmother’s apprentice? Both well-intentioned but ill-equipped ways to bypass heartbreak?

So much for that working out. I’d only hurt Paulina, Javi, Po—

And managed to crush my already-shattered heart.

Po was right. I couldn’t avoid my feelings. I couldn’t control the uncontrollable. Hell, I could barely keep ahold of this freaking controller.

So I let go. Of everything.

The controller either slipped from Dad’s grasp, or he let go of it, too.

A blur of black flew over his head. Shot straight toward the accent mirror hanging on the wall behind him. Po’s quick reflexes would’ve caught it. But she wasn’t here.

A series of sickening cracks, then pieces of the mirror tumbled from the metal frame. A downpour of glass smashed against the floor.

Dad peeked over the gaming chair.

Busted pieces of plastic. Jagged slabs of mirror. The ceiling lights bounced off the glass, glittering back the destruction we’d caused.

I spied parts of my face in the glass’s reflections. The dark skin passed down from Mom. Her curls. The high cheekbones and wide mouth I’d gotten from Dad. Dark eyes pooling with emotions.

Feelings over what’d gone down tonight… feelings that I’d been holding back since Mom died.

Regret. Anger. Guilt. Shock. Sadness. Everything in between.

Mirror, mirror, on the floor, which one do I feel more?

With so much strewn around me, it was impossible to tell. Not that it mattered. What mattered was that these broken pieces cast back my emotions. Made them inescapable. “I’m so not sorry we broke this,” I whispered.

He blinked, mouth hinging open. I couldn’t tell whether he was gearing up to bemoan the destruction or lay into me for my lack of remorse.

Instead, he laughed.

Had we inadvertently fallen through this broken glass? Only in Wonderland could his laughter build to chortles that doubled him over the gaming chair.

The deep belly laughs cut through some of the tension. Plus, it was so infectious. My confusion gave way to giggles, quickly swelling to cackles.

More tension fell away.

“You know what? I’m not sorry, either,” he said. And that’s when the truly unexpected happened.

He knocked over the kombucha bottle. It tumbled off the tray table. Landed with a thwack and a crunch before splitting in half.

“Dad! What’s gotten into you?”

Our eyes met. Without the usual faraway look clouding his expression, that big face of his showcased everything.

It wasn’t what’d gotten into him, but what he needed to get out. Dad picked up a piece of the bottle. “I hate the way this crap tastes.” He hurled it at what remained of the mirror.

The bottle half hit the biggest chunk of glass. So that’s where Po got her athleticism.

More of the mirror crashed to the floor. He jutted his stubbly chin at the other half of the bottle, inviting me to do the same.

Lifting the other half, I threw it. “I hate the way this smells!”

It bashed a corner of the frame. Dislodged some glass still stuck inside.

Dad grabbed the empty coffee mug from the tray table. Pitched it at the opposite corner. More of the mirror tumbled free.

I chucked the marble coaster next.

We laughed, screaming all the things we hated—Hot Goss, traffic, environmental destruction—until a single shard remained. But what to fire at it?

Dad hurried to the entertainment console underneath the TV. Slid open its drawer. Walked back and handed me an extra controller.

Such a small piece of plastic and metal, yet it felt like a million pounds inside my palm.

I could hardly bear the weight of it, much less the immensity of fixing my family. The burden had never been mine in the first place.

My attempts at controlling situations and people hadn’t helped anyone. And they certainly hadn’t healed me. The time had come for me to let it go.

I took a deep breath, ripping off the final Band-Aid.

“I hate that Mom’s gone.” My voice came out as a whimper. I cleared my throat, projecting louder. “I hate that she’s dead.”

I flung the controller as hard as I could.

Bullseye.

The last mirror piece shattered against the floor, a cue for our last round of laughs to morph into weeping.

The crying cut through the light-years Dad had traveled in a different galaxy. Washed away every filled line cramming my day planner. Wiped out the collection of Mandy-curated happily ever afters I’d used to buffer our tragic ending.

I couldn’t stop my reservoir of sobs.

Even if I could, I wouldn’t. Not anymore.

The grief Dad had been avoiding similarly found its way out of his eyes. His body buckled to the floor. My own limbs grew heavy, like every inch had filled with wet sand. I dropped to my knees, joining him on the floor.

“She was the love of my life.” The crying muffled his voice. “God, how I miss her.” There was now a bright chime to his tone, ringing more magical than the flick of a fairy godmother’s wand.

I couldn’t tell how long we stayed there, holding each other. Long enough for my tear ducts to run dry. Long enough for my heart to explode like the last firework at a pyrotechnic show. The blast ripped me apart. Burned me to the core. But I trusted that one day, the smoke would clear.

Until then, I’d find a better way to help—to heal—myself.

I turned my head to the window. Outside, the clouds had shifted. Stars dusted the velvety sky, two constellations brighter than the rest.

The Big Dipper. And the Little Cuchara.

I tightened my grip on Dad, and for the first time, that hole in my chest didn’t ache for Mom.

It ached for Dad, for Po…

And finally, for me.