Chapter Twelve
CHAPTER TWELVE
Nerves hit my stomach at the shrill, continuous ringing of the phone on the wall echoing across the bakery. My concentration on the task at hand faltered, adrenaline kicking in. Tense and a whole lot of panicky—but what else was new?—I freed my focus from the tray I’d lined six pastries on a waxed sheet of paper, fixing my tired stare on the trilling, corded phone on the wall.
My heart fluttered, wrenching my knotted stomach with it. Was it him again…?
I didn’t let myself ponder on it for too long. I couldn’t. I never did. It took me back to that night. Besides, I wasn’t allowed to answer the phone—at home or at the bakery. I couldn’t even so much as get caught looking at the phone.
Sucking in a weak intake, the snarl in my chest did the exact opposite of loosening. That was just great, but no surprise. Adjusting my clammy grip on the tongs in my opposite hand, I carried the tray to the waiting dessert box, my plodding heartbeats a soundtrack.
The phone would stop ringing.
It always did.
Throwing myself into carefully arranging the pastries, I tried to ignore the tormenting ringer, the harsh wailing ricocheting off the walls. Tried to, being the operative words. It was hard to when the echo drilled deeper into my brain like a branding iron. There was no answering machine in the bakery, so sometimes, the ringing felt indefinite until the call timed out, the caller lost their patience, or Tina, who was currently too busy talking—erm, flirting —put me out of my misery.
I’d never given the phone all that much thought before—not like anyone outside of Tina ever called me—but Ma had. She thought of everything. Any opportunity to further isolate me from society, she took.
Initially, it hadn’t been that big of a deal to me. No phone? No problem. A drop in the bucket compared to everything else. Hard to miss something you so rarely used.
But much like she made me have all my meals at the kitchen table alone while she monitored from her swivel recliner in the adjacent parlor, or drove us home, to church, or the bakery in complete and maddeningly silence, Ma had lovingly crafted a variety of seemingly harmless and different ways to send a message that while wasn’t irritating at first, once my mind had become aware of the restriction, the chafe set in, getting worse with each step I took until I couldn’t think of much else. Until it consumed me, pushing me dangerously close to the precipice of my breaking point.
I imagined that was what she wanted, anyway. Another infraction, another justification, to torture me in plain sight a little more.
Heat stretched over the nape of my neck, sweat lining the discs in my spine. My prison, I mean the bakery, was stuffier than usual. The air thick with heat and stale air. Or it was me.
Rolling my shoulders, I attempted to covertly loosen the cotton fibers of my baggy black T-shirt from my sticky back. I’d tucked the shapeless material into the single pair of ill-fitted jeans I owned, held in place with a belt I’d punched an extra hole through yesterday. It was the only way the pants were staying upright.
My wardrobe, primarily made up of Tina’s hand-me-downs, my own designs, and the undergarments Ma replaced every Christmas, didn’t fit the way they’d used to. But I hadn’t had much of an appetite lately, so that was an expected consequence that, to Ma’s embarrassment, drew even more attention on me than usual. Funny. She wanted people to know she had a handle on her house, but she didn’t like it when the concern for my wellbeing filtered through. My appetite was always the first thing to go when I was this… what was this, exactly? Stressed? Anxious?
Heartbroken, my mind supplied. The word I reliably defaulted to was heartbroken.
My brows cinched together, aggravation stirring in my veins. No, I fired back. You can’t be heartbroken over what you’d always known was inevitable. That just made me stupid. Na?ve. All the things Ma had said I was.
This wasn’t the first time I’d had this debate with myself. I expected it wouldn’t be the last, either. Out of frustration, I’d poured over an old thesaurus from high school I still had, canvassing for an alternative, but I turned up empty every time. It wasn’t enough for my conscience I’d paid immeasurably for that night. That the battle scars from my punishment still adorned my body, carefully disguised under my styled, overgrown bangs and clothes. No, I had to go and look for a crutch in the form of a word to rationalize how ridiculous I was being.
Because I was heartbroken.
It was a miracle Ma hadn’t broken anything—or at least I thought she hadn’t—it finally didn’t hurt to breathe when I inhaled or coughed. I spent hours every night staring at the flat expanse of the particleboard of my bedroom door, chained shut on the other side. My mobility had always been limited, but somehow, being unable to even sit on the couch in the parlor room with Ma in the evening was something I’d begun to miss. Or it was the chafe.
The irritated reminder that what version of freedom I’d once had and taken for granted was gone until she decided otherwise.
You’d think I’d learn, though.
That I’d be motivated to make things right with her the way I always had before because I hated conflict. That I’d demonstrate a genuine degree of remorse because this time, it was warranted, or at a minimum, stop allowing hope to blister every time the phone did ring, or the wintery draft carried his distinct scent through the bakery like a salve, soothing all the jagged edges in my body and mind that hurt.
But I didn’t learn. That was my problem. Instead of wiping all traces of him away, I rubbed it in.
Could anyone really blame me?
We weren’t even in church right now, but the phantom pinching of Ma’s punishing fingers squeezing the underside of my bicep throbbed. Out of reflex, I nursed the fleshy curve by rubbing it along the arc of my rib cage. It wasn’t my fault he watched me at church. That he was at church at all. I atoned for my sin through repentant compliance, staring dull-eyed at the arched stained-glass window above the reredos behind the altar.
I’d figured out my lack of reaction bothered Ma more. I used to cry when the threat of her violence loomed. I didn’t anymore.
She retaliated by keeping me disoriented and confused. I never knew what Mass we were attending. I’d find out what my day consisted of when she undid the latch on my door in the morning.
Truthfully, I’d expected Felix to give up by now. I’d hurt my own feelings enough times preparing for the inevitable because, eventually, he would. There was too much universal resistance. Too much of that friction. And the moment he realized Ma meant what she’d said—I wasn’t his and I never would be—he’d let me go.
He’d let me go and I’d… spend the rest of my life looking for him in places I shouldn’t.
My chest clenched and I winced. That’s what amplified the grief of losing someone who had never been mine so much worse.
The ugly, scabbing wound adorning the space above my brow pulsed in agreement, and I resisted the urge to run my fingers along the crusty stretch. It was taking forever to heal.
Flipping the lid on the dessert box closed, I sealed the seam with a piece of tape from the dispenser. Tina’s empty laughter danced across the bakery. From the corner of my eye, I found her leaning against the counter on her elbows, hands cradling her face, chatting, okay, still flirting because that was what Tina did, much to Justin’s annoyance, with Senhor Goncalves—a frequent customer of the bakery who didn’t bother pretending he wasn’t looking down the neckline of her shirt.
I preferred serving his wife.
If we collected tips, I was sure Tina would triple her paycheck every month. She’d let her mid-length hair down an hour ago, the memory of her hair band imprinted in her chocolate brown tresses. Throwing her head back with another insincere laugh, she touched the middle-aged man’s forearm, his face shading ruby.
Idiot. He fell for her cheap ruse every week. Tina saw him as nothing more than a free car wash every Sunday when she pulled up to his full-service car wash in her frost-white ’97 Acura Integra—a graduation present from her parents when she finished her business degree at Bristol Community College.
Tina was… resourceful that way. Nothing she did in life, flirting included, wasn’t calculated. “The only way to get ahead is to find a way to make people think doing things for you will make them happy, too.”
I still hadn’t figured out why she stuck around the bakery at this point. The pay was shit. The hours worse. She was educated, intelligent, and had the kind of freedom I would have killed to have. Any time I asked, her vague explanation was always the same.
“It does what I need it to right now. When it doesn’t, then I’ll move on.”
The phone finally quieted.
Before I could relish in my reprieve, draw in a relieved breath, it started again.
Restless, I shuffled in place, the traces of flour grit from underneath the treads of my sneakers grinding against the tile.
We were still an hour away from closing even though the weather was bad—I didn’t know why Ma insisted on being open seven to seven during the work week—and if Tina didn’t put me out of my misery soon… God, I couldn’t take it anymore. “Tina.”
Senhor Goncalves startled at my intrusion, like my voice had forced him to remember I was there, observing, but I paid him no mind. Tina might have had no qualms flirting with him, but that was as far as it went, so said the shiny engagement ring adorning her finger.
She and Justin fought like cats and dogs, but she was as loyal as they come.
Tina lifted her head, offering me a quizzical look. I flicked my eyes from her to the phone, imploring her to answer the stupid thing already. Plodding over to where she stood, I deposited the box of pastries Senhor Goncalves had bought next to her on the counter, then retreated, finding another make-work task to get absorbed in. You’d be surprised how meditative cleaning the same spot could be on the mind.
Usually, anyway.
Ring. Pause. Ring. Pause.
Louder and louder it got until I was trapped in an echo chamber, prompting me to unwillingly recall I was under an extreme form of lockdown that showed no signs of ending.
Absently, I touched my forehead, my fingers tracing over the scab, remembering with perfect clarity how hard Ma had slammed my head against our kitchen counter at home.
Unfortunately, despite the blood, it hadn’t been enough to kill me or knock me out.
Both options would have been a welcomed alternative to my reality, but no. I wasn’t that lucky. Instead, I had blood dripping into my eye, stinging and blurring my vision, while Ma screamed incoherently at me, and her spittle freed itself, hailing all over my face in time with her open hands. Any attempt I made at protecting myself served as an accelerant for her rage.
Eventually, I gave up, my mind powering down and leaving my body, just like it had with Martin at the lookout point.
When her arms tired, she kicked, but I’d been too weak to curve into myself, to protect my ribs, so I took it, sobbing, pleading with her—with God—for it to stop. She’d all but dragged me by the hair up the stairs, my exhausted legs moving after her as quickly as I could muster to lessen the burn against my scalp.
She released my hair, and shoved me into my bedroom with what remained of her dwindling strength. “I dare you to open this door.”
I didn’t, and when sleep finally won the battle with my adrenaline and robbed me of consciousness, I’d awoken to the sounds of her installing a lock on the other side.
Weeks ago, I’d said I didn’t want to die. That I only thought about it occasionally. But I’d be lying if I didn’t admit the belt on my waist had tempted me lately if for no other reason than the idea of this being the rest of my life made death preferable.
My terms. My rules. My choices.
That made me a bad person, didn’t it?
When my uncle was… I swallowed, my eyes shuttering to a close, my head light. Well, the concerned regulars who asked if I was sick might be right. I was sick. Not like him, but…
I opened my eyes, catching the tail end of Tina’s muted sigh while she pushed off the counter, sliding the dessert box over. “I’ll see you on Sunday, Senhor Goncalves!” She offered him a coquettish wave, her fingers fluttering. He tracked the sway of her hips as she advanced toward the phone, and I lost control of the disgust polluting my face. God, he was gross. He wasn’t even trying. He had a daughter a few years younger than us.
He stiffened when he realized I was staring, but rather than using my visible discomfort as a cue to reflect, he narrowed his gaze at me because I, of all people, had no place judging him.
Everyone knew what we’d—what I’d done.
My cheeks stung, and I slanted my body away from his scrutiny. As per Tina, the community was divided. Some strongly vocalized Ma was justified. Others felt Ma had officially gone off the deep end. Not that they’d intervene. This was a private family matter, after all.
The chime on the door jostled, announcing Senhor Goncalves’s departure, but my body coiled in that all-too-familiar way it had been accustomed to the last few weeks, preparing to take off even though the threat didn’t exist.
Felix wasn’t outside in the parking lot. Not today. Maybe it was the snow.
I hoped he was safe.
I settled a hand on my stomach, pulling in air through my nose while the wintery breeze swept through the bakery, wedging the warm yeast from the dough rising in the back for tomorrow’s batch in my sinuses.
It wasn’t what I wanted to smell right now. It was more of this tomorrow.
And the next day, and the day after that.
I hated it.
The way I felt.
The heaviness in my head, and the emptiness in my stomach food alone wouldn’t satiate. The confines of the bakery. The entrapment of her house. Ma’s rules and restrictions. Her vicious hands. Her bottomless anger.
Her .
A few weeks ago, I’d nearly cracked at the sound of my name in Felix’s husky voice. That Bristol County accent desperate and imploring, promising me things he couldn’t with just my name alone. Toasted tobacco layered over cedarwood, citrus, and chilled spearmint kissed by the first frost sliced through the scent of the bakery, calling to me like a beacon of hope.
I’d nearly defied her and crossed that threshold.
Begged him to take me somewhere, anywhere. As long as he was there, too.
But the hiss of my name from her served as the only warning I was going to get. The adrenaline surged, and I fled from his sight. She’d followed me through the swing doors and ordered everyone out of the kitchen. They’d exchanged uneasy glances with each other and milled out in single file order. The door was still swinging on its hinges when her hand sliced through the air, striking against my cheek.
Everything I did was wrong, even when it was ‘right’. Was it really any surprise I wanted…
What, exactly? Did I really want to die? I touched the soft leather of my belt, my fingertips buzzing, and I chewed on the inside of my cheek until hints of copper sprung and the fog blurring my distortions cleared.
No, I didn’t want to die. I just wanted an end. Something to hold on to that this wouldn’t last forever. That the suffering would be worth it. In moments of weakness, a hairline crack in her facade surfaced, and Ma drew my bruised body into her with an unbecoming gentleness, appealing to the little girl inside of me still desperate to please her. The one who really wanted to believe her mother loved her.
“It’s all for you, Belmira. Everything I do is for you.”
The words sobered me. I wasn’t sure I believed that anymore. I wasn’t sure I ever really had.
How could she expect me to justify the pain in the welting of raw flesh when she searched my tear-stricken face frantically for confirmation that I understood, that I still loved her despite her violence?
I’d loved Ma harder than anyone.
But it hadn’t made a difference.
I was beginning to realize, it never would.
I peered at the day-old pastries lining the glass case, acid swelling in my tract. The bakery was a map of all the places he’d stood beyond the counter. Uninterested in Ma’s antics. Unyielding to her threats, even when they turned physical.
She’d thrown a pair of tongs his way, and he’d simply stepped out of her line of fire, calm and contemplative, the faintest hint of a smile curving his mouth.
“You got what you wanted from her. Leave her alone.”
From the window of the door in the kitchen, Tina had commentated as she watched him retrieve the tongs, set them down on the counter with an unnerving calm, slid the near weapon forward, and shoot Ma a look Tina had later described as “hot when it probably shouldn’t be.”
Felix had told Ma, “No, I haven’t. Not even close.” He’d stared beyond her, making eye contact with Tina. “Now where is she?”
“You’ll never see her again,” Ma retorted, swiping her forefinger in a cross formation across the middle of her chest. “Over my dead body.”
“That suits me fine.” Felix shrugged. “What kind of casket do you want?” He drummed his fingers against the counter. “Not that you deserve one.” His features sloped into a scowl. “But you are my future mother-in-law, after all. Least I can do.”
Felix didn’t understand the more he antagonized her, the harder she took it out on me later. At this rate, I’d be thirty-six before I was allowed to leave the house again. Who was I kidding? This was Ma we were talking about. Unless I could grow my hymen back and hit undo for all my sins, we’d better make it forty.
I tugged at the neckline of my shirt, fighting for more breathing room under the excess fabric, but it didn’t compensate for the shrinking of my lungs, the illusion of the bakery walls closing in on me.
Was this really all there was to the rest of my life? Holding onto a photograph with crinkled edges and his contact info scrawled on the back, covertly hidden between the pastedown board of a Bible that reminded me, that for one night, I’d been free.
I’d been his.
“It’s for you,” Tina announced flatly, yanking me from the depths of my despair only to plummet my stomach to the floor. The other half of her burger she’d practically forced in my mouth when she’d come back from lunch somersaulted in my uneasy gut. Or I thought it was the burger.
I ran my sweaty hands against the outside seam of my jeans, my focus volleying from the phone in her outstretched hand to her eyes. I couldn’t take that from her. She knew that.
Leaning my weight to the right, I caught the back of Ma’s head in the kitchen as she balled out dough to rise overnight. “I can’t.” Not that Tina needed the reminder.
Tina rolled her eyes, huffing out her impatience. “It’s not him.” She stabbed the inside of her cheek with her tongue. “It’s Maria .”
Clearly, bygones would never be bygones. Maria found Tina’s big personality grating, and Tina thought Maria had the charm of a rock. Being out of high school had changed nothing. But you’d think, considering my uncle’s diagnosis, Tina would be willing to hold her tongue and offer a truce. Then again, leaving it at just Maria’s name was her form of a ceasefire. Lord only knew how long the peace would last.
I eyed the phone, then the circular window of the kitchen door, waffling in my own indecision. If Ma caught me… “Belmira, honest to God,” Tina hissed, trudging forward, the coiled cord of the phone straining. She thrust the receiver roughly against my chest. Ow. Jeez. “Would you hurry up and take this?” My fingers closed involuntarily around the receiver. “I’ll make sure the psycho stays where she needs to.”
The hinges on the push doors to the kitchen squeaked, Tina’s even cadence filtering through. “ Senhora Matilda, what did you say the secret to your papo secos were again?”
I stared at the contraband in my hand, taking a shallow breath. Maria had never called me before. Was she okay...? Or at least… I brought the phone to my ear, wincing as the wailing wind howled sharply in the background, whipping around the line. “Hello?” I pressed down on my tragus, frowning. Was she calling from a pay phone? There was an echo. “Maria?”
“I’m going to get straight to the point,” she said, the audio textured and crackly. Definitely calling from a pay phone. “Felix likes you.”
My heart picked up momentum, her words reverberating in the phone booth. He’d gone to her. I wasn’t sure why that surprised me after everything, but every effort I made at composing myself short-circuited my brain instead.
“He really likes you.” Maria cleared her throat, the stiff debris melding with the grinding of a rusty track containing the glass accordion doors, as though she were battling to preserve the quality of the call, too. “And for whatever my opinion is worth, I think you should give him a chance.”
My slick palm struggled with the receiver in my weak grip. I was afraid of dropping it and arousing Ma’s attention. Adjusting my hold, I tried to loosen the sticky words stuck in my parched throat. “I-I…”
I liked him, too. I liked him a lot. That wasn’t the issue. It never had been.
“You two should have fucked in the courtyard rather than that office,” she offered, procuring my flinch. Did she have to be so blunt? “But hindsight is twenty-twenty, and in case his borderline-stalker efforts weren’t clear enough, he’s really into you, Belmira.” Her pause was full and protracted. “Frankly, he’s one of the better ones.”
I knew that, too. I snatched my bottom lip between my teeth, chewing. I’d accused him of being a playboy that night, and he’d demonstrated he was anything but.
“The way things went down wasn’t exactly ideal, I know,” Maria supplied, assuming what she thought I was going to say, but she was way off the mark. “But he really is a good guy. Better than Martin.”
I studied the heavy snowfall outside, allowing my head to fall back against the wall, my shoulders slumping. “That’s not saying much.”
“Then take it from my firsthand experience.”
My ears perked up, and my pulse quickened. What did that mean? And why didn’t I like it? “Your firsthand experience?”
“Well.” She faltered, suddenly awkward. “Yeah.”
My mouth turned gummy, and I swore my heart knew before my mind or Maria had caught up. “What do you mean?”
“He didn’t capitalize on an easy opportunity after we fool— ow !” she burst.
Fooled around , I concluded.
He lied. He lied to me. “After you fooled around.” I completed the sentence in full, gathering the strength from who knew where. It wasn’t a question. It was a statement.
Not that it mattered. My legs were dangerously close to buckling. There was an embarrassed sob wedged in my chest, and I’d wrapped my free arm around myself in a pathetic attempt to hide all the things he’d seen beneath my clothes. Blood whooshed in my ears, drowning everything else out. For all I knew, Ma was approaching me right now, and my sense of sound was dampened because I was too distraught to perceive much of anything else.
I’d asked Felix about Maria. I’d given him a chance to be honest. I’d been vulnerable and transparent, and he’d… I shook my head.
He’d found a technicality. A loophole to get what he’d wanted because I’d wanted to know if they’d had sex.
I’d been doubtful at the time, too. But the desperation to believe him won.
That was on me.
“We didn’t even get to second base, Bel.” Except, they’d gone to first. “It meant nothing,” Maria assured.
Why did people always say that when they got caught?
Got caught? I’d laugh if the words didn’t sound so ridiculous. She hadn’t done anything wrong. Maria was allowed to do whatever she liked, with whoever she liked. That was none of my business.
But he’d deliberately gone out of his way to deceive me, knowing how I’d felt.
He took away my right to choose.
There was a sound on her end, distorted and frantic, that didn’t sound like her. It occurred to me then she wasn’t alone in the phone booth.
Was he there? Well, good. Better he heard this, too.
“He lied to me.” My hold around the phone squeezed until a pulse formed, and my knuckles hurt. “I specifically asked him about you.”
My vision blurred with tears, the floor growing fuzzy.
“I can’t speak to his ‘why,’ Bel. It’s hearsay?—”
“Spare me the Harvard, please. I don’t have the patience to translate what you’re saying.” I wasn’t smart like her. And if that made me “incorrigible,” so fucking be it.
Resigned, Maria said, “My intention was to illustrate he could have…” I gritted my teeth. Who used “illustrate” in a sentence like that? She was so annoyingly pretentious sometimes. Maria’s long exhale fanned, the audio peppered in popping sounds. “Taken advantage of a situation, and he didn’t.”
My cheeks were on fire, and all I wanted to do was scream. “I’m sure that was very hard for him,” I mumbled. Did he want a medal?
I’d practically begged him to have sex with me, and he’d denied me under the illusion of wanting our first time to be special, but was this the real reason why? Because he felt guilty about having a past with Maria? God, it was, wasn’t it?
“We didn’t have sex, Bel.” Yippee. Good for them. He’d conveniently omitted the part where they fooled around. Whatever that entailed. Making out. Heavy petting. Grinding. Did either of them come? He probably had made her come the way he had me. Had they seen each other naked? She said they hadn’t gone to second base, but— awesome. The visuals were piling up. “If that’s what you’re upset about,” she tacked on.
Uh, had she missed the whole part where I said he lied to me? All that effort he’d put into making me feel safe, convincing me I was in control, had been nothing more than self-serving BS designed to deceive me.
Felix had known what I’d meant when I’d asked him the question, and he wasn’t forthcoming about it. I didn’t need to ask “why” because, as it turned out, Ma was right. Men—boys—would lie to get what they wanted.
They always did.
“I don’t care what you two did anymore.” Operative word—anymore. That was a lie, too, but hey, par for the course. That was what he had done. Let me take a play out of his book. Seemed to suit him just fine.
“We were never interested in each other that way.” The faintest hint of concern laced her argument. I might have felt bad for what was very clearly a slip of the tongue if I hadn’t been the casualty. “It’s not a big deal,” she insisted.
Cool. Maybe if she said it a hundred more times, she’d find an audience who believed her because it sure as shit wasn’t going to be me.
It was physically, mentally, and emotionally taking everything in me to modulate my voice. “It’s a big deal to me , and how you can even defend that is beyond me because I explicitly asked him about you .”
I breathed through the threat of tears. Screw him. He wasn’t getting another tear out of me any more than Ma was.
I’d let my guard down. He’d taken advantage of that.
Maria’s audible swallow filtered through. “We don’t see each other that way.” She really was missing the whole point. “It was like,”—she thought on it for a flash—“ five years ago. I never liked him that way, and I can guarantee you he’s never liked me that way, either.”
“That’s not true.”
“What?”
“You fooled around with?—”
“It was just first base,” she interjected, perturbed. “More importantly, do you honestly go around chastising people for their past?”
“I do when they’ve been intimate with my family.”
“We. Made. Out. Why are you making this into a bigger deal than it is?”
Because he’d kissed her. He’d touched her. The same way he had me. Now there were too many question marks everywhere else for me to be anything but furious.
“Martin wasn’t a saint either.” Why the hell was she bringing him up now? “And to my surprise”—her tinny scoff had me stabbing the inside of my cheek with my tongue—“neither are you.”
“We’re not talking about me or Martin. We’re talking about whether Felix ”—I spat— “ saw you that way or not. Regardless of what you did with each other, clearly, there was enough attraction there to act on it. That’s enough information for me.”
“Belmira, we were high. It happens.”
“And I was drunk.”
Her lengthy silence harmonized with the wind’s whine on her end. “What?”
What had I just said? “That night.” I squared my shoulders, settling on the lie. “I was drunk.”
Drunk. Under the influence.
Not myself.
Lost to his spell.
There was a distinct pause filtering through on the other line, followed by heavy incredulous breathing that wasn’t hers, but his, like he’d gotten closer to the phone to listen. “What?” she repeated, voice a little less clear.
“I was drunk.”
“I heard you the first time. Clarify .”
Sure. “It meant nothing. You’re familiar with that concept, aren’t you?”
There. He had his out, and so did I. He could stop hanging out in the parking lot, stop calling, and quit going to church because I wasn’t interested in being his second choice.
He’d turned my entire world upside down a month and a half ago, and for what? To humiliate me? He could have had anyone. It didn’t need to be me.
If Ma was a different person, if she’d supported our connection—if we could even still call it that after this enlightening conversation—or held enough space for us to explore it, had he really believed I’d stick around if I found out about him and Maria?
Uncle John had said he was a ‘good boy’, but a good boy would have been up front with all of this before I fucking put out.
God, I slept with him! In an office. And hundreds of people knew about it, too. My shoulder blades squeezed together, rage vibrating through me. I hated Felix. I despised him for doing this to me. But worse, I hated myself for allowing him to. For ever believing a single word out of his lying, disarming, beautiful mouth.
My jaw trembled, and I sucked back a regulating breath.
“You were…” she began, tone flat. “Drunk?”
The tears fell. Damn it. I wiped my cheeks quickly with the back of my wrists, catching stray tears. “Yep.”
“From what?”
“I had a couple of screwdrivers.”
“ Really ?” She wasn’t buying it. “You seemed fairly sober to me, Belmira.” Her dismayed scoff needled me. “That’s a shitty thing to say.”
The laugh I let out lacked any humor. “So was his failure to mention you fooled around.”
“For the love of God, we made out!” she seethed, losing her composure. “Something people do sometimes when they’re high , hormonal, and horny. That’s all it was. It’s not the romanticized and twisted shit you’re spinning this into because your ego is bruised, and you can’t conceptualize that occasionally, people do things for shits and giggles when they’re actually under the influence, and not because it has some deeper meaning. Life isn’t a fucking bodice-ripper novel.” There was shuffling on her line, accompanied by a loud, spanning bang—like Felix had struck the wall of the phone booth they were piled inside of at the reminder I’d inferred I was drunk—the accordion doors screamed open before they slammed shut. She was silent, adding gently, “Don’t conflate.”
It didn’t matter. I wasn’t conflating anything. He deceived me to get what he wanted, and now she was helping him see this through to the finish line. I was so tired of living in her shadow, of having her parse things down to me like I was an idiot because she was so much more experienced than me.
My nose burned. “Are you finished?”
“What?”
“Your little telemarketing op on his behalf. Are you done?”
“Oh, look at you, growing a backbone.” Her sarcasm didn’t affect me anymore. “Better late than never.”
“Yeah,” I said with a terse snuffle. “Unfortunately, it came six weeks too late.” I pushed off the wall, but the treacherous buckling of my knees had my hand shooting out again, propping me up. “Tell him not to come around here anymore.”
“Bel.” Maria huffed. “I understand you’re upset.” She didn’t understand shit. She never did. She always got what she wanted. It wasn’t fair. “But this isn’t worth making something into. He really does think you’re special.”
And I thought he was a special kind of asshole. “You don’t get to tell me that,” I replied.
“I do because it meant nothing, and he is crazy about you!” she argued, the evenness of her cadence wobbling.
She was losing control of this conversation, of me.
“I’d never allow you to put yourself in that situation if I felt our history was something you weren’t going to be able to deal with,” she said around a sniffle. “Was I wrong?”
No, she didn’t get to flip the script now and make this a “me” issue.
“Deal with?” I echoed. “I don’t want to deal with anything, Maria. I shouldn’t have to.” The hand keeping me upright curled against the wall, my nails digging against the paint, leaving little half moons behind. “I don’t want to be with anyone who has a history with you .”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she accused.
“You know exactly what it means!” I snapped back, cringing. My wide eyes flicked to the door, but Tina and Ma were nowhere to be seen. They were probably in the walk-in.
There was fidgeting on her side while she considered her next move. “I didn’t chalk you up as being such an insecure person.”
Yeah, my insecurity was what had got me here in the first place. I let out a dry, grim laugh. “I’ve spent my entire life being compared to you,” I said, earning her silence. She knew it was true. “ Years of having all my flaws pointed out. Things I couldn’t even change. This was the one thing…” I brushed my fly-aways from my flushed face, my chest caving in as the words tumbled out in a choked rush. “The one thing I wanted for myself. The one area where I didn’t want you to be a factor in the equation.”
“There is no equation, Belmira. This isn’t a contest. It’s the past.”
But it was, wasn’t it? He had the option now to set us side by side and grade us.
Maria had Dougie wrapped around her finger for years, and I’d always dealt with it because I understood the appeal. What she lacked in good manners and friendliness, she made up for in her intelligence and her physical attractiveness. I got it.
But I’d told Felix how all of this would make me feel. Hell, he’d gone out of his way to ensure what I’d felt toward Dougie was nothing more than just a one-sided crush. Why should this be viewed any differently?
Had Felix compared me to her the entire time? Had he thought about the way she confidently moved for him when I was shy? Had he measured my timidity to her surety? Were my kisses not up to snuff? Was that what had kept him coming back all along? The non-virgin’s virginal-like ignorance? What did they call that again? A kink?
So, yeah. I was fucking insecure, and I wasn’t going to apologize for it. I owned it.
“Forget it. You’re never going to understand, Maria. Why should I expect anything else from you when you can’t see how wrong this is?”
“If you’re inferring you want an apology for something I did when I was sixteen ,” she stressed. “I’m not going to. You shouldn’t expect that from anyone.”
“I don’t need your fucking apology, Maria. I need you to let me end this conversation. Please .”
She didn’t owe me or anyone else that. All I wanted was for her to drop it because I didn’t want him anymore.
Ma would say this was my fault, and for once, she’d be right.
I hadn’t asked the right question, but I’d explicitly asked him about my cousin, and he…
Maria audibly swallowed. “We were never interested in each other that way,” she reiterated softly. “I know you feel otherwise, but…” She was cautious in a way she’d never had to be before, careful to not provoke the wrong response. “I have a different set of lived experiences than you do, and while I won’t apologize for it, because I’m not ashamed of it, it means I’m… more qualified to distinguish and explain the difference. Sometimes, people do things because the opportunity presents itself. It doesn’t have to be anything bigger than that. Okay?”
No, not okay. Don’t fucking patronize me, I screamed inwardly. “I know what fooling around is, Maria.”
“We didn’t—” She heaved a stiff inhale, suffocating the barb, shifting gears. “It wasn’t serious, Belmira.” I wished she’d stop talking. Why couldn’t I just hang up the phone? “I initiated. He put a stop to it when…” Her courage tapered. “When things were going too far. We never talked about it again, and it really is something I think we both prefer to pretend never happened because it is awkward. I’ve never viewed Felix as anything more than just a family friend, and frankly, I’ve never gotten the sense he’s seen me as anything but that, either. We’re… very different people. Who want very different things.”
She was making this so much worse. If their wants had aligned, then what? She’d see him differently? He wouldn’t have noticed me at all?
Yep. Exactly what I wanted to hear.
“You know how I feel about marriage and stuff. Not for me. But it is for him, and he’s told me he wants to…” Maria never completed her sentence, opting instead to allow what she’d already said to marinate, but the statements hadn’t tenderized the edges of my anger. They’d turned sour and tough.
I ground my teeth together. If she had liked him, it would be another guy whose attention I couldn’t hold as long as I was sharing oxygen with her.
“We were teenagers, Bel. It really shouldn’t matter now…” she faltered, grasping she had missed her mark completely, and severely overestimated my patience and understanding. “All I was trying to get across was that while I can’t speak to what his logic was for withholding that from you, I do know despite his mistake, he’s head over heels for you.” Her nervous laugh filtered through, but I didn’t jump in. “He wouldn’t be trying this hard otherwise.”
I lifted my head at the sound of Ma’s laughter ricocheting through the kitchen.
My reality check. “I have to go.”
Panicked, she blurted, “I know I was… difficult when we were in high school, and I rebuffed every attempt you made to be kind because I didn’t trust you, and I apologize for that. But could you please?—”
“No.” Whatever she was going to ask me. No. I was done.
I’d humiliated my ma and embarrassed my aunt and uncle at their party. I’d tarnished my name and was on a never-ending lockdown, all because of some guy who I’d known better than to trust.
Fuck him.
And fuck her, too.
Maria sighed, and I imagined the tight jutting of her mouth tugging to one side as she acknowledged she’d just lost her case. There was nothing she could say to sway me.
“Fine,” she surrendered, terse and annoyed. “I understand.”
Now that , I doubted. How could she?
A raw tightness bubbled in my throat as my apology surfaced, the one she truly deserved. “And I’m…” I brought a shaking hand to my mouth. “I’m so sorry about your dad.” My voice cracked. “If you need anything, let me know.”
I was angry, but I didn’t hate her. I never had. I never could.
She didn’t deserve to lose her dad.
No one did.
I hung my head when she whispered my name, wounded. “Bel.” The dull background noise stretched between us. She gulped on her end. “Thanks.”
“Bye.”
In a daze, I returned the phone to the receiver, staring out the stretch of windows wrapping the bakery. Emotions contended with each other, and I wasn’t sure which feeling took up more real estate. The unfamiliar heat of resentment, the surge of unfiltered defeat from Felix’s betrayal, or the deep-seated ache of compassion for my cousin.
It all melded together in an unrelenting flood I couldn’t separate.
But there was one that stood out, flowing faster than the rest, calling out to me with the familiarity of an old friend.
Shame.
I didn’t regret what I’d done in that room. My only regret was that I’d done it under the belief that he was different.
That we were different.
I’d made the mistake of believing him once.
But I never would again.