13. Serena
“What do you mean you’re selling the house?” I yell into my phone. “You told me that you could buy Dad out if you needed to.”
“Lower your voice, Mu?eca; getting loud with me will not change my decision.” My mom pauses, taking a breath so deep that I can hear it through the phone. “We came to this house to heal—you, me, and your grandmother—and it gave us beautiful years and memories that we can cherish. But it’s just a house, Serena, and no matter what it looks like to you, this house will always have a part of your father connected to it. When I couldn’t get a mortgage, I needed your father to sign as the primary lender; he has held that over my head for the last eleven years. Even if he agreed to refinancing—which he won’t—the walls of the place would still be haunted by his presence. We need a fresh start, one where he can’t hold the literal roof over our heads.
“I’m done, Serena. I cannot communicate with him anymore, not after he verbally and emotionally abused you for making a mistake that most young people make: trusting someone who was not worthy. You are his daughter, not Marina. While you may have made a poor decision because that boy wasn’t good to you, your father has no right to act as though you killed someone or broke a family apart. I will not condone his behavior toward you, and if that means selling this house, good. I don’t want it anymore. I’ve told you we have the money for a fresh start without your father’s influence.”
Tears splash on the counter, and I can’t hold back the choking sobs that overtake me. “B-but it’s our home, Mamá.”
“No, it’s a house, Serena. Memories transfer; they’re not contained in wood or brick and mortar. I know you love this house, but it’s time. This house served its purpose and will be good to the next family.”
“I’m sorry. I feel like this is my fault.”
My mom lets out a sigh, and though I can’t see her, I can feel her shaking her head. “Stop apologizing for being a young adult. Your father is an asshole. And, while you’re the best thing to ever happen to me, marrying your father was the worst decision I ever made. I should have left him the moment I found out I was pregnant.”
“Mom—” I start, but she cuts me off.
“No, Serena. I chose to stay with him, knowing what he was capable of, knowing that remaining faithful to one woman was too much for him. I don’t regret meeting him because it gave me you, but I regret giving him the power to hurt you. He and his money can go fuck off. We don’t need him, not anymore.”
“Are you sure about this, Mom?” I wipe the tears away with the back of my hand and bite down on my lower lip. I called my mom to tell her about the party on Friday night and the botched tattoo; I never expected her to answer the phone with a confession of speaking with real estate agents to sell our sanctuary. Though she won’t say it, I know that my father and his manipulations are behind this.
“It’s time, Mu?eca. Now, what did you have to tell me?”
I cough, a watery splattering of saliva and tears that land on my once-clean countertops. “After this revelation, I hardly think I have anything else to add. My brain is short-circuiting.”
My mom gentles her voice, using a tone she reserves for babies and toddlers. “It’s going to be okay, Serena. There’s nothing for you to do except take care of yourself, be with your friends, and continue to excel in school. I just want you to be happy, baby. I’m asking you—no, begging you—to please let this be. I am at peace with the decision to sell, and I need you to accept it.”
There is no way that I’m accepting it, but I also won’t let my mother harbor any guilt for doing something that I’m almost positive my father is forcing.
“Okay.” My voice is resigned, but my will is anything but. I refuse to let this go without a fight, even if it’s futile.
My mom’s voice is relieved when she says, “Thank you, baby. I need to run; I have a date tonight with the baseball coach, and I need to start getting ready.”
I cringe at my mom’s mention of a date. Though she hasn’t been in a serious relationship since divorcing my dad, my mother is not shy when it comes to insignificant dates. “Say less, Mom. I’m going to hang up now.” We say our goodbyes and disconnect. The moment the line goes dead, I go to my contacts and dial my father’s number.
“Serena,” he answers, not bothering to give me a “hello” or a “how are you?”
“How could you?”
“Excuse me?” My father’s tone is short, almost like he’s annoyed I bothered to call him.
“Why are you doing this? You could buy and sell our house a million times over, yet you insist on making Mom’s and my life as difficult as possible.”
My dad is silent as he takes in my words, and I can feel him seething through the phone. After long moments of silence, he finally says, “Brandi and I decided that we can no longer support you when you continue to hurt Marina and our family. We won’t have anything harm the well-being of those in our household.”
I rear back as if struck. “Are you listening to yourself right now? You realize that you are not Marina’s father, right? You didn’t impregnate Brandi; your DNA is not in Marina. What the fuck do you not get about that?”
My sperm donor has the audacity to scoff. “Marina is more of a daughter to me than you, at this point, Serena. You dare to call me, questioning my generosity through the years when I housed and footed the bill for you and your disgrace of a mother? After all she’s done to poison my own child against me? No.” He laughs. “Until you show me the respect that your sister does, you will not get a single dime out of me.”
“Respect? Why would I show you respect when you’re the one who broke up our family? You’re the one who cheated, not Mom. Even your own mother couldn’t stand the sight of you and moved in with me and Mom to get away from you.” My grandmother, Abuela Pia, immigrated from Mexico City in the early sixties with her parents and married my grandfather, an American Command Sergeant Major. My grandfather died when I was a baby, and my grandmother immediately moved into her only child’s home with his family. My mother’s family lives in Puebla, Mexico, and though we see them every summer, Abuela Pia was a staple in my life.
It says a lot about my father’s actions that his mother disowned him after cheating on my mom and marrying Brandi.
“Watch your mouth, Serena. My mother was a senile woman who was lied to by your mother.”
It’s my turn to scoff. “Senile? She had more sense in her pinky toe than most people. Abuela was fully coherent; she died of a heart attack.” I pause, swallowing down the rest of the vile words I want to say to the man who is fifty percent responsible for giving me life. Releasing a breath, I gentle my voice. “Dad, if you do this, I will never forgive you.”
“I neither want nor need forgiveness from you. Stop acting like a child and grow up.” He hangs up, not giving me a chance to respond. I stare at my phone, stunned by his words and the vehemence behind them. For my entire life, my mother has done nothing to pollute or discourage my relationship with my father; if anything, she encouraged me to foster our relationship. That is until Marina assumed the role of daughter and pushed me into a guest role in my childhood home.
I look down at my phone, debating whether or not I should call him back and demand that he listen to me. I weigh the option of getting in my beat-up car, driving to his affluent neighborhood, and staining his doorstep with my presence until he sees reason and leaves my childhood home—my sanctuary—alone. But I know, as sure as I know that the hands of a clock always move forward, that my father will never be rational. At least, not about this.
A knock on the door disrupts my musings, and I throw my phone on the couch before making my way to the peephole. Part of me hopes that it’s Wolf, that he didn’t mean his parting comment of, “Stop kissing me,” and has come back to ravage me and stake his claim. I may be smart, but a girl can daydream, even if it’s about something as probable as tigers dancing in the ballet.
Looking through the glass hole, I’m surprised to see Ava and Celeste on the other side of my door, holding a tray of coffee and bags from JJ’s Diner, the restaurant on campus that serves breakfast all day and boasts New Jersey staples like pork roll and omelets with fresh tomatoes. I unlatch the door and am instantly enveloped in a large hug.
I breathe in Ava’s soft scent, finding comfort in my friend’s arms. “This is quite a reception.”
“If you ever give me a scare like that again, I will force Celeste on you and chain you to my ankle for the rest of your damn life, Serena. What the fuck happened on Friday?” Ava asks, squeezing me tighter until there’s barely any space left between our bodies.
“Ava, you’re suffocating me,” I choke out.
“Suck it up, you owe me this.”
“Okay, crazy, release Rena and take a step back,” CeCe orders.
“Fine.” Ava sulks, unlatching her arms from my body. “But you,” she says, pointing at me. “You better start talking while I eat this pork roll, egg, and cheese. I don’t want to hear anything but the sound of your voice until I’m satisfied with your explanation.”
I shake my head but laugh. “Can we do this inside the apartment and not in the hallway? I don’t want my neighbors to overhear our entire conversation.” I grab the bag from CeCe’s hand and step to the side, allowing them enough room to enter my apartment. As soon as I shut the door, Celeste whirls around to face me.
“Give me that bag. You are not going to distract us by playing host.”
“That’s not what I was doing,” I grumble, clutching the bag closer to my body and skirting around them toward the kitchen.
“Nope, not happening. Hand it over.”
With a sigh, I hand the bag back to Celeste, watch her walk to the kitchen table, and set it down.
“This is the part where you start talking, Rena,” Ava mock whispers beside me.
I shrug, downplaying the events on Friday. “Not much happened. Now, what did you get me from JJ’s?”
“Oh, no you don’t. If I were to call my cousin right now, would he tell me the same story? Or would there be a different recollection of events?” At the mention of Wolf, my insides go liquid, and a kaleidoscope of butterflies erupts in my stomach. My mind travels back to his hands on my back, my jaw, and my elbows, cleaning me up while teasing me for my lack of organization. “See that look. That look on your face tells me that something happened. So, spill it, princess.”
“Don’t call me that,” I mumble, not liking the nickname in any voice other than Wolf’s. What the hell is wrong with me? “Friday night did not go as planned.” I pause, sighing at the reminder. “I told you; Meg picked me up, and it was a ‘messy mixer,’ which, yes”—I cut a glare at Ava—“I know is gross, but it sounded like fun when she described it. When we got there, I went to the basement and got an elbow to the face, followed by scraped elbows.” I twist my arms to show the bandages. “These were an accident from one of the brothers in the fraternity, Jack. He felt horrible and tried to make it up to me, even offering to pay for my phone, which cracked. I went to the store and had it fixed yesterday, so that wasn’t an issue. But after Jack asked me to dance and left to get a drink or put a drink down, or whatever exactly it was that he was supposed to do, Dylan came.”
“What?” “I’ll fucking kill that gerbil,” Ava and Celeste yell simultaneously.
I shake my head, dismissing their question and comment. “I didn’t realize it was him—he wasn’t supposed to be there, anyway; it was a closed party, but when I spoke to Meg yesterday, she said he came as a guest of one of the brothers. I thought Jack was getting a little too comfortable because when arms grabbed my hips and pulled me back, I felt so uncomfortable and violated. It wasn’t until I saw a unique scar on Dylan’s wrist and heard his voice that I realized who it was.
“I tried to pry him off as he spewed mean words at me, but I wasn’t able to at first. But then I was consumed by so much rage after he called me a slut, that I broke his hold and slapped him across the face. He became irate after that, and Jack tried to step in and diffuse the situation; he even yelled at Dylan. But I was so upset that I ran away and closed myself in the bathroom. I ran by Meg on my way upstairs, and she followed me. I assume Jack told her about what happened, which is why she called you when I didn’t come out when she knocked.”
“You locked yourself in a dirty bathroom? Why didn’t you have one of the sober drivers take you home?”
I shrug, releasing a long breath. “It was closer than the front door, and I didn’t lock myself in. I closed the door but never engaged the lock; it’s not my fault Meg didn’t try the handle.”
“And Wolf?”
I can’t hold back the small smile that pulls on my lips. “Wolf was like a wrecking ball. He terrorized half the party just by showing up there, and he was covered in syrup. I think that if I wasn’t so shaken up, he would have called the cops to shut it down; he kept murmuring about ‘goddamn college kids playing with food.’ But he got me out of there and brought me back here.”
“He just dropped you off? He didn’t make sure you were okay?”
I clear my throat, shifting my weight on my feet as I decide how best to answer. “Ah, not exactly. He came up to the apartment after and cleaned my scrapes with supplies he ordered from the pharmacy. He wasn’t too happy with me, but he made sure I was okay before he left.” I leave out the touches, the tension, and the tangible need I had to climb his body like a tree.
“God, Rena, I wish I could twist that dick’s balls off and feed them to piranhas,” CeCe seethes, crinkling the paper bag in her grip. “The next time I see him, I’m going to put him in a Kimura hold and not release him until he’s unconscious. Then, I’ll shave off his eyebrows and feed him the hair.”
Ava and I look at each other before turning our gazes to Celeste, who looks like a bloodthirsty witch from Macbeth. “Calm down, C, you sound deranged.”
“Calm down? Aves, Serena was assaulted in front of a basement full of people by her ‘best friend,’ and you’re telling me to calm my tits?” Celeste releases the bag long enough to provide air quotes around the words best friend. As though I need any further confirmation that Dylan is a horrible person.
“Nope, I heard it, too. But you’re taking indignation to a whole other level, so simmer down before you pop a blood vessel in your eye again.” Ava stops talking and turns to me. “In high school, the red-headed monster over there got so mad when some idiot on the football team started a rumor about Seraphina, my sister, that she screamed in the bathroom until her eyes turned red. I’ll never forget the look on the douchebag’s face when she confronted him like a harpy in the middle of the cafeteria. C, didn’t he choke on his Frito when you whispered your threat to him? What was it again?”
“I told him that if he didn’t stop insinuating that Seraphina was anything less than an intelligent young lady, I would chop off his dick with a rusty kitchen knife and shove it down his throat so that he could choke on his stupidity. It would have been poetic justice.”
“There is something so wrong with the two of you,” I whisper, shaking my head.
“Yes, but you love us. Back to the points at hand: Dylan is an asshole, and CeCe shouldn’t be allowed near him until she cools down.”
“No, it’s a point, singular: Dylan deserves explosive diarrhea for the rest of his pitiful life.”
“Okay, and we’re done. Celeste, stop manhandling that bag and pass the food over here.” I walk to the table and move the food out of her reach, finally prying open the brown paper held together by staples. The smell of grease and herbs fill the room, and my stomach grumbles, silencing any protests Celeste planned on making.
I read the labels on the containers: pork roll, egg and cheese with no roll, two cereal-coated French toasts, and a container of fruit. I push the meat toward Ava and grab one of the sweet meals for myself. As with every meal, Ava’s self-prescribed food rules dictate what she eats. Though I’ve known her for a handful of months, she’s been exercising more freedom recently, thanks to the encouragement of her boyfriend, Greyson, and her therapist.
“Thanks for this, by the way. I was planning on making myself a sandwich, but this is much better.”
“No problem. Did anything else happen with Wolf?” CeCe asks, and I choke on the bite I just put in my mouth.
Coughing through the food lodged in my throat, I grab a coffee from the holder and take a small sip, savoring the richness of the brew before I cut another bite of my food. “What makes you ask that?” I ask tentatively, worried that Wolf mentioned something to Celeste about the charged moment where I bared my skin to his eyes and fingers.
“He has been ignoring my calls, and I’m stopping by the shop once we’re done here. Ask Dante, the only thing I hate more than being bothered is being ignored.”
“Speaking of being bothered”—I toss a look at both Ava and CeCe—“weren’t the two of you supposed to be in Connecticut until tomorrow?” While the main reason for my refusal was not wanting to feel like a fifth wheel in their group, another reason was the timeline and my eight o’clock class on Monday morning.
“We made Grey and Dante bring us home right after the event yesterday. There was no way in hell we were going to delay getting to you more than necessary if you needed us.” My body warms, and my lungs compress, emotion clogging my being. I’ve never had this level of friendship.
Never.
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“Yes, we abso-fucking-lutely did. Now, eat your French toast. I have to get going soon.”
I look down at the piece of sweetened, fried bread on my fork and wince. If she’s going to Wolf’s shop after this, there’s a very real possibility that he’ll mention the tattoo on my back and the need for a cover-up. “Right, so in the spirit of friendship and in an effort to be transparent, there may be one other thing that happened. It’s minuscule, microscopic, really. But worth mentioning, all the same.” I feel Ava and Celeste’s eyes on me as I continue to avoid their gazes. “So, I may have gotten a tattoo on my back at Royal Ink, and well, it may have come out bad. Like, grotesque, and Wolf may have seen it.”
It’s silent when I bring my eyes up; the shock and confusion on both their faces force me to continue my explanation. “It’s not that I didn’t want to tell you both that I got a tattoo, but it was something I wanted to do myself and then show you the finished product. CeCe…” I bite my lip, finally making eye contact with my friend. “Remember when I told you that I went to see Wolf about the tattoo, and he turned me away? Well, I found someone else to do it, except they didn’t have a great stencil, or technique, or anything, and so I had to stop the piece before it really took shape, and now I have a bit of a sore spot on my back.”
“I have so many questions, and I have no idea where to even begin,” Ava whispers, abandoning her food.
“I’ll start,” CeCe speaks up. “How did Wolf come to see your tattoo?” Her eyes narrow as though she’s waiting for a confession that won’t be given.
“The top I wore on Friday night; a little piece was sticking out since it’s on the center of my back, and he saw the irritated skin and pressed me until I admitted what happened. He took a look at it and gave me instructions on how to properly care for it. It’s better already; I don’t think I’ll need antibiotics. But I’m telling you because he offered one of his tattoo artists to take a look at the piece and do a cover-up so that I don’t have to live with the ugliness on my skin for the rest of my life.”
CeCe softens at my explanation, her posture losing its rigidity. “Good. I wanted to make sure he didn’t take advantage of you.”
“I don’t think Wolf is capable of taking advantage of a woman.” Not that he has to, I add silently in my head.
“You’re right. Sorry.”
“Did they draw a bunch of dicks on your back? Oh, or a bag of dildos?”
I whip my head to Ava and don’t bother holding back the laugh that bubbles out of my throat. “What? No. I went in for butterflies to travel up my back, almost like they are in flight, but what I got is closer to a blob. There’s no definition on the butterflies, and the artist kept jabbing my skin, even when the irritation became too much. When I walked out, I was told never to show my face there again.”
“Can we see it?”
“Do you have to?”
“Of course not,” CeCe responds immediately. “If it makes you uncomfortable, we’ll never ask again.” Setting my jaw, I place my fork down and stand up, turning so that my back is facing both CeCe and Ava.
Resolved to show them the extent of the damage, I brace them for what they’re about to see. “Don’t be alarmed, I know it’s bad, okay? Just look without saying anything.” I lift my shirt, giving them a full view of the mess that was made on my back. Unlike a couple of days ago, the redness and swelling have gone down some, and it’s no longer physically painful.
Just emotionally traumatizing.
I suck in a breath, holding it while I hear footsteps approach, examining my skin closer. Though I asked them to remain quiet, I know my friends, and I know that neither one of them has a filter on their thoughts or words. I’m not sure which one will break first, but I’m waiting for the comments regardless.
After long minutes exposing my back to them, and my nipples to the kitchen appliances, I hear Ava murmur, “Rena, they gave you four flying dicks on your back.”