Chapter 14
CHAPTER 14
THEN, September: two years and six months ago
I only have a couple of minutes, mami,” I muttered into the speaker by way of greeting. Halfheartedly, I tried to fold the newspaper I’d been skimming with one hand, holding my phone in the other and clutching last week’s edition of the Hall Beck Post under my arm. I rounded another corner and spotted the red brick of Henry’s block with a skip of my heart.
It had been a week since we’d seen each other. And you’d think after a couple of months together, the need to spend as much time with your partner would slowly simmer down. Unfortunately, whenever I wasn’t with Henry, I was thinking about being with him. Whenever he wasn’t there when I fell asleep, I briefly considered getting up in the middle of the night to change that.
Which wasn’t ideal when you had exams to prepare for and papers to research and articles to write. And when he had games to play, practice to attend—all while studying a subject I had been too… dumb for, apparently.
“Paulita, thank God you picked up!” Her accent slipped halfway through the sentence, and she sounded more Spanish than I had heard in a while. I was on high alert right away.
“What is it?” My head turned left, then right before I crossed the street over to Henry’s side, still determined to cut this conversation short. I had exactly an hour and a half before I needed to be back at Daisy’s for the closing shift. Henry had a rare spare hour between class and a strategy meeting for their game next weekend.
The first time our schedules had somewhat aligned since last week.
So yes, I was rushing. Running, almost, until I pressed the intercom. “Mom? What is it? I’ve got to—”
“There’s this article. With your name on it, Paula.”
I think someone buzzed me up. The low hum of it reverberated in my very bones, begging me to push the door open, get in the elevator and forget my mom had just said the word article and my name in the same sentence. “What?”
But this had been inevitable, hadn’t it? Did I really think publishing articles under my real name for six months, wouldn’t make at least one person in my extended family stumble upon it?
I’d never been the lucky kind.
“An article, dios mío. Someone is publishing nonsense under your name!”
And I should’ve latched onto the fact they thought it wasn’t me writing them. That they, for some strange reason, suspected someone had stolen the name and identity of Paula Castillo to write about mental health, student life and their university’s sports highlights.
Instead, I felt another word much deeper. Not with my head, but my heart. Which ached in a way I didn’t know it could. “Nonsense?”
Faintly, I could hear someone over the intercom. One of Henry’s roommates. Heather, most likely asking who it was, after I hadn’t made it upstairs—wondering if the mysterious visitor was someone she knew or just a delivery they’d forgotten about. I wasn’t aware enough to tell her.
All I could hear was the word nonsense in María Castillo’s voice, repeated in my head over and over again until she broke the loop by saying, “Yes!” Sounding outraged on my behalf. “Your cousin found it online. On some website. Buzzweb — Newsbuzz ? I can’t remember now, but—”
I didn’t feel the need to correct her, and she went on too quickly for me to say anything, anyway. I was glad it gave me enough time to find my footing. I might need a few more seconds to make whatever lie I was about to sell believable. I needed a few more just to come up with one.
“We’ve got to do something about this… this impersonator! Did you know about this?” she asked.
My head shook, which she couldn’t see. Perplexed, I blinked. Which she also couldn’t see. “No,” I said.
My mind raced, eyes flickering through the street, hoping to find an excuse behind Henry’s parked Audi or Athalia Pressley’s apartment on the top floor of the opposite complex.
I didn’t notice when the elevator opened behind me. I didn’t notice a tall brunette boy stepping out of it, a little frantic, until his eyes found me pacing up and down the sidewalk. I hardly even noticed him when he’d opened the only door still between us and watched me.
But I flinched once I finally did, stopping abruptly at the sight of him. At least I managed to swallow my gasp, though. “Why didn’t you come up?” Henry asked, oblivious to the phone by my ear.
My head shook quickly, finger lifting to my lips.
It was way too late for that.
“Are you with someone?” Mom’s tone leveled, like just the thought of her daughter’s social life eased any worry she might’ve had, related or not.
I swallowed thickly, seeing an end to the conversation. “Yes.” I nodded again, keeping my eyes on Henry. “I’m with… friends, Mom. Don’t worry about the article. You wouldn’t believe how common my name is!” I didn’t believe it, either. “Lots of Latinas whose parents had good taste. Te quiero. I’ve gotta go. Call you later!”
I hung up before she could protest, but knew she wouldn’t have. Mom might be concerned about the mysterious Paula Castillo writing articles under her daughter’s name that might wound her future career prospects, but she was way more worried about my social life.
“I didn’t know Paula Castillo was that common a name.” Henry stood in the door, brow cocked in that humored way of his. My hand fell from my ear with a loud sigh, and he interpreted the sound exactly right when he simply opened his arms. It took less than two seconds to take him up on the offer.
I slung my arms around his torso, face pressing into the plain T-shirt he wore that still smelled of linen and citrus, the way his freshly washed clothes always did. He planted a kiss on the top of my head, and I almost melted into the touch—maybe into the feeling of safety and care and love after my mom had unknowingly chipped away at a piece of each. “They found your articles?” Henry asked into my hair.
I nodded, and didn’t complain when he threw me over his shoulder, then carried me like a sack of flour to his apartment.