30 #2
The real rage was that Nat, the divine, dumped me.
Just like that, with the excuse that Irina would get in the way.
Like some Secretary of Lesbian Affairs signing official permits, she laid it on me, and I almost punched another hole in the mansion wall with the screams I swallowed.
And I’ll admit I had it in for Irina at first because of that.
Getting dumped because they’re not into you anymore, fine; getting dumped because there’s someone else, go cry into the comforter; but getting served a melodrama starring a third party who doesn’t even know I exist and is supposedly going to drop from the ceiling like Darth Vader to hack our story to pieces—my face went hot and my hands itched.
And there I was with that little preppy-princess smile that pops up by reflex, the one I can’t stand when I catch it on my own face.
Between gilded walls and people milling around, you’ve got to perform nonstop, and Nat lying in wait, always alert, always a step away, with that smell of expensive cream that shuts down my self-control neuron.
I can take a lot, yeah, but that low voice of hers and those dainty, doll-soft touches melt me, I admit it, and inside I wanted to scream at her that I was totally gone for her—whispered in my head so I wouldn’t blow up my self-esteem.
Even so, I had to fake interest in the new family’s plans, brunch this, cocktail that.
And I was mapping escape routes, service stairs, the driver’s schedule, everything—a mess.
I couldn’t take it anymore, and I wasn’t about to turn invisible to avoid Nat.
I’ve played the dumbass before and I’m over it; this time I went in swinging.
Maybe in another dimension I’m a drama queen yanking my hair out, but here the winning play was provoking her on my birthday—distraction maneuver, silent arguments, glasses flying in my head—very teen, zero mature.
And on top of that, that night I found out something genuinely ugly, and any intention of acting like a grown-up evaporated.
I provoked her with the oldest, most teenage tactic in the book, and look, it’s a classic for a reason—it worked.
The next day she hugged me in front of the whole family and I mentally stepped onto the red carpet, thinking the nonsense would finally stop and she’d give me a kiss to close the episode, but no—had to wait. Nat’s into endless foreplay.
That night I went to her tree house—swear on Britney—I walked in and my brain started firing Wes Anderson and Peter Pan references: everything tidy, everything cute, with twinkle lights and matching pillows.
There Nat finally let her guard down, and I had to remind myself I was playing a serious person, when what I really wanted was to belt “YMCA” at the top of my lungs.
Since then, yeah, we’ve got a thing behind closed doors. More like a full-on thing. No Disney love with a fairy godmother handing out certificates; the only godmother here is the butler who’s been side-eyeing me since breakfast.
Nat is afraid of Irina—not a silly little startle, either. She respects her so much I sometimes think she cries in the shower when Irina says good morning.
Nat promises truth, asks for time. Very proper. And my patience is measured in days, not months, because a girl has limits and waterproof mascara only does so much.
My dangerous blonde has mutated, and not in an X-Men way—though here’s hoping she sprouts claws someday. She changed: no longer the one who called the shots and left my head spinning; now it’s all tenderness that asks for a hug every ten minutes, and you’ll say “drama”—nope. I’m just as obsessed.
Her place is curated in display cases— Star Wars collection still in the plastic, mint labels, calibrated lighting—and I keep thinking that one day, instead of sex, she’ll ask me to build Legos, and there I’ll be, sorting tiny pieces by color without a peep.
In bed, things shifted, and I think I hold the world record for someone going from bites to cuddles in two weeks.
Current Nat is very tender; she wraps her arms around me, murmurs in my ear in a sweet voice, and I cave without a fight.
The other night she called me “princess,” and I didn’t laugh only because my mouth was busy—and yes, you’re thinking right.
I end up just as gooey, though part of me would applaud if she pulled a little toy out of a drawer.
Anything. I’m a fan of variety and the full catalog.
We sneak through the mansion together, hunting for nooks where we can rub up against each other without the family noticing.
Rich people say money can’t buy happiness, and I say it buys empty rooms at all hours, a private elevator for making out, and a car with reclining seats that, in practice, is a VIP lounge for clandestine fucks.
I’m not exaggerating—that’s happening—and I wish the upholstery could talk, though it’s probably better if it doesn’t.
We’re not as lucky as Mikel and Vega, who’ve probably already road-tested the Kama Sutra down in the cellar. And here we are thinking we’re the pinnacle. Total innocents.
Luna and Valeria act as a human shield and warn us with secret codes: claps, fake coughs, counted steps, the whole catalog.
Rashel—divine, it’s in her DNA—goes, “I don’t want to know,” and puts on an aviation headset, even though she still hears everything. She’s convinced that the day Irina realizes we’re sitting on more secrets than the Vatican, the mansion will blow up. Literally.
Until the apocalypse hits, we keep hunting for gaps. Life doesn’t wait and neither does libido. Live a little.
Julia and Svet are my personal entertainment, like watching reality TV without the trashy edit or anyone yanking out extensions. Julia’s cool. If she keeps something to herself, it’s because she fell asleep. She keeps Irina in zen mode—no small feat—and her constant war with Svet cracks me up.
“Svet, glasses,” Julia says—she delegates by pointing and somehow nails it.
“I want Nesquik,” mini-Irina fires back, grabbing the canister.
“You get it if you don’t ask anything weird,” I tell her, knowing that’s not happening—and I love it, because this kid has a gourmet-level mean streak and she makes my day.
Irina walks in. A legend. On the street they call her the Godmother—and she probably is, in mafia Monopoly—but at home, the ice in her veins melts.
She argues with Julia, but let’s be honest, Julia can beat her with one eyebrow.
I want that skill. And nobody can stand Svet when she gets all high and mighty, but Irina turns to mush and lets her do whatever she wants (to Julia’s eternal chagrin).
With Vega, she treats her like she’s afraid she’ll dissolve in her hands, but seriously, my sister hugs her, Irina almost cries, and Vega ends up walking out with two brand-new phones and a pair of vintage track pants that cost a fortune. Of course she does.
“What about you?” Irina says, pointing at the couch. “We’ll talk later.”
I nod like a responsible person, and inside I’m replaying our stroll through Casa del Libro on Gran Vía—temple to me, oral exam to her. She let me grab everything; I walked out with a bag ready to burst, and in the car we got intense about old authors, new authors, and family grudges.
“Aunt Alaska, science question,” Svet pipes up, already armed with a cup, cocoa, and a razor tongue. “Why does Nat always show up wherever you are, and why does she smile every time you talk?”
My glass trembles maybe half a millimeter. Then nothing. I’ve got this.
“Because she’s my security detail, boss,” I shoot back. “Boring mission: endure my monologues and make sure I don’t eat a poisonous plant from the garden.”
Leaning into the Soviet sisterhood angle, I sold Vega on asking for Nat to be our security.
Master plan. At first, Irina made a you’ve-gotta-be-kidding-me face and pointed out that Nat was already in the circle—that club of dangerous, elegant women I fully plan to get myself into someday—but whatever.
Bottom line, she asked Nat if she wanted to go back to being personal-bodyguard deluxe and—surprise—she said yes.
We’d been chewing on the idea for weeks and you couldn’t see a flicker on her face.
Now we’ve got a built-in excuse to leave the mansion together. Blessing.
Julia side-eyes me; Irina pretends not to hear and straightens a fork that was already straight. Vega sits, powers on the new phone, and I send up a secular prayer that no notification pops with a dangerous name.
“Bodyguard with a smile,” Svet fires back, not dropping the bone. “And you do your hair more when she’s coming. Fact.”
“I do my hair because I have a front-facing camera and variable self-esteem. And because in this house people have eyes and memory. Thread over.”
“Memory of what?” Irina goes in, gentle—that’s her version of an interrogation. “Something I should know?”
“Memory that the last time the Russian grandma came over—for anyone not up to speed, I mean my secret mother-in-law—she caught me reading erotica by the pool and yelled at me over the title,” I say, riding my sarcasm surfboard. “Since then, I do my hair out of institutional respect.”
“So dramatic,” Irina mutters, itching for the tea.
"Quick recess," I say, raising my hand. "Sunny day, me in a lounge chair, star-print bikini, book open. On the cover there’s a topless woman firefighter holding a hose.
My grandma shows up—panic face, espadrilles—snatches the book out of my hands and goes, ‘What is this, young lady?’" I mimic her razor-sharp accent.
"‘You reading garbage?’ ‘Quality literature. There’s a character arc, conflict, consent, everything,’ I told her with my good-girl face," I explain.
"She let loose a few words in Russian that sounded brutal.
And since then—flashback closed—I part my hair down the middle and read in my room, just in case she convenes a committee. "
Julia barks a laugh—if I’ve got anything, it’s jokes she always laughs at—and she’s already assembling another tray.
She opens the second fridge, the one nobody knew existed, and pulls out food that wasn’t in there a minute ago.
She’s got two ovens tag-teaming and zero laziness.
She threads between us with the confidence of a flight attendant on a packed flight, drops an olive into my palm, and winks.
Irina gives me a look I read as affectionate.
One eyebrow up, one corner of her mouth down—our little code that’s practically its own language by now.
Careful: the lady’s twice our age and then some.
She could be our mother and I’d be perfectly calm about it, because our biological mother had us stupid young and half hungover.
She’s got her own soap, too: she told us things about the man who fathered the three of us—how he was a grade-A asshole, how he left us loose out there like stray cats.
I listened and thought, Why does everything in this family sound like an episode of Jerry Springer?
And on top of that she told it in that icy tone, even though you could tell (just a little, barely) it pissed her off.
So here I am, living the good life in the mansion, eating breads you only ever see on Instagram, and collecting family trauma in an imaginary sticker album. Missing-father sticker, weird-decisions sticker, shiny foil sticker of poorly managed pride.
Meanwhile I’m seeing Nat almost every day.
Secret plans, stolen kisses, laughter echoing in the garage.
We’re not sleeping together yet, but we’re one breath away.
And whatever sleep we do get happens thanks to two clear factors: a gold-tier network of accomplices covering our schedules, and the small fear that Irina will file a missing-person report on me if I’m late coming home.
Getting a two-minute voice memo at three in the morning with a worried-mom breathing soundtrack will leave you shaking for a month.
I don’t dislike Irina anymore. Maybe I’m joining her secret club of readers who go feral without pages. Sometimes she catches me in the kitchen and says:
"What are you reading?"
"A novel by a woman who writes with bite and tenderness," I tell her. "There’s a girl who lies badly and doesn’t give a damn about the fallout."
"Pass it to me when you’re done," she says, and forgives my unruly bangs without saying a word.
With Nat I’m fighting a different battle. I keep insisting we should just tell everyone. She can do it her way, I’ll back her up, I don’t want to hide one more day. And then we argue, but softly, because we’re polite, and I find myself saying stuff like:
"You leave me on read and my emotional notifications start going off."
"It’s not the right time," she says, looking at me with those eyes that make me go soft. "Give me some leeway."
"How much leeway? A quarter? Your whole life?" And I cross my arms so I don’t hug her, because I’m a pretend hardass.
Two minutes and my sulk is over. She grabs me by the waist, pulls me into her hoodie, says my name in that voice she only brings out when we’re serious, and I sign the peace treaty with a kiss, and another, and another.
And I think this, for normal people, is called life.
And maybe I’m finally getting the hang of it.