Chapter 8
I wake to vigorous shaking. For a moment, I think it’s an earthquake—then I remember that earthquakes don’t have arms.
“Wake up, wake up. Wake up,” Madison shrieks. She lets out a triumphant cry and shakes me harder. “I saw that. You’re awake. Don’t try to pretend you’re not.”
“What time is it?” I groan, and squint my eyes. She’s still dressed for sleep, in her pajamas and bonnet. It’s like the first thing she did upon waking was put on her glasses and jump across the room to shake me.
“Like eight, maybe?”
“On a Sunday? Let me sleep.”
“You slept enough yesterday. Which reminds me, we need to talk about how you stormed out in pajamas. But first, I have gossip, and I need to share it. You were asleep when I got home, and I was tired, so I couldn’t share it then.
But now I’m awake, and if I’m awake, that means you have to be awake so you can hear the gossip. ”
I wanted to wait up for Madison last night, but I was too overwhelmed by my surprisingly lovely dinner with Alex. Torn and confused over what, if anything, it meant. Hence, sleep—the great panacea.
“Screw your gossip.” I roll over to face the wall and pull my comforter over my head.
“Joey. Think about where I was yesterday, and trust me, you’re going to want to hear this,” she says, her voice transitioning to a knowing singsong.
That causes me to jolt up.
“You didn’t.”
“Oh, but I did.” She grins gleefully.
“I told you not to bring me up.”
“Yeah, well, I ignored that—and you’ll be glad I did.”
“I doubt it,” I remark dryly. I sigh. “Okay. Give it to me. Tell me the damage.”
“So I brought you up with Patrick—”
“I already hate this.”
“No, no. Let me finish. It’s a good thing.”
“Imagine if Patrick had been the one to bring Ellie up. What’s the first thing you’d do?”
“I would tell you, obviously.” At my pointed look, she protests, “That’s different.”
“How is it different?”
“Because boys are stupid,” she says, like duh.
“Boys aren’t as stupid as we like to think they are,” I argue. “They’re only stupid when you don’t want them to be. When it would work in your favor for them to be stupid, they’re always way too damn smart.”
Madison waits for me to finish ranting. “Are you done?”
“Fine. Fine. What did Patrick say? And what did you say that he parroted back to Ellie?”
Maybe this can be remedied.
“He said that Ellie really likes you too.”
“Too? Too? You told Patrick I like Ellie?”
This shouldn’t be so horrifying. I’m a grown-ass woman, and I’ve experienced worse things than a guy finding out I like him. But also, I’m not a grown-ass woman, and this is Ellie.
“Are you listening? Ellie likes you. Patrick said he was just embarrassed because it was his first time, and he was all in his head about it.”
Sparks of nervous excitement jolt through me—Ellie likes me!—but I tamp them down. How pathetic am I to be excited about this? I’m old enough to know that mixed signals are just another—more painful—form of rejection.
“I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with that.
I mean, it’s nice to hear he likes me—” But I already knew that, didn’t I?
Ellie once admitted he’d had a crush on me at the start, and knowing that had only served to make me feel worse.
The issue here isn’t Ellie’s emotions—it’s his actions.
“But I can’t exactly go up to him and scream, I know you like me. He didn’t even bother to text me.”
“But Patrick said he thought about texting you a whole bunch.”
“Well, unless Ellie decides to turn those thoughts into actions—preferably with an apology—I’m going to focus on other things.” Like what a great distraction Alex is.
I slump back against my pillow and stare at her, my mind racing.
To a certain degree, this is false bravado.
Despite my wonderful dinner with Alex, there’s a history between me and Ellie.
I just need it to happen the right way. I refuse to chase after him like a puppy dog, and besides, history has proven that doesn’t exactly work.
“Enough about me—how was Patrick?”
“Patrick’s good.”
“That’s it? He’s good?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“How about ‘He’s the best. We fell madly in love and jumped each other’s bones’?”
She frowns. I guess I am laying it on a bit thick.
“I don’t know why you’re so obsessed with Patrick. He’s cool. We’re friends. That’s all.”
“Fine, I’ll drop it.” For now.
We move on to safer subjects. As I get ready for the day, my phone buzzes with a text.
Alex: I woke up convinced that yesterday must have been a fever dream, but then I checked my phone and your number was there. So I guess what I’m saying is, good morning.
I smile at his message, grateful for the distraction.
Me: Maybe it is a fever dream. Have you checked your temperature? I hear shellfish poisoning’s a bitch.
Alex: Don’t remind me. I ate a sea scorpion, and somehow I’m happy about it. You’re a bad influence.
I chuckle at his words because the very thought of being a bad influence on Alex Aquino is laughable. Even the thought that I could influence him at all when he’s always been such an immovable force.
Me: I’m broadening your horizons. Somehow, I never asked… how do you feel about shrimp?
His response is immediate.
Alex: Cockroach of the sea.
“What’s so funny?” Madison asks from across the room. “Oh my God, is that Ellie? Did he finally text you?”
“No,” I say flatly, my good mood deflating at the reminder. “It’s not him.”
“Oh.” She frowns. “Then what the heck is so funny?”
“Nothing, it’s, um—” I scramble for a good lie, wanting to keep Alex to myself just a little longer. I land on something between a truth and a lie. “It’s my mom. I should call her.”
A few minutes later, as I walk aimlessly around campus, I call my mother. The phone rings, and I’m torn between wanting it to go to voicemail and wanting to get this over with.
“Oh my God, she’s alive,” comes my mother’s voice, imbued with over-the-top relief. “Javier, did you hear that? Your youngest is alive.”
I hear my dad yell something in the background but can’t make out his words.
“Okay, okay. I get it. Very funny.” I roll my eyes, unable to keep the smile from my face. “Sorry I haven’t called.”
“I understand. You go to college, and you forget all about us. It’s the natural way of things. Should I take this to mean school is going well?”
Now that we’re talking, I don’t know why I was so scared. I’m eighteen, so our relationship hasn’t frayed yet. The guilt and emotional heaviness that accompanied conversations with my mom later on are nowhere to be found.
I try to picture my mother as she is in this moment.
The last time I saw her, she was in her early sixties and getting ready to retire, but right now she’s forty-eight, an empty nester in the prime of her career.
A career that resembles my own—only, as I learned too late, not in the ways that mattered to her.
My mom is a public defender. She works to keep people out of jail, and she’s brilliant at it. It’s a cause she’s passionate about, and her passion fuels a fire that always struck me with awe. Although she pushed me to be a lawyer, I must admit I also wanted to be just like her.
Then I got to law school and discovered I hadn’t inherited the strengths that made Mom a great litigator.
I didn’t have the passion. I wasn’t as eloquent.
I couldn’t command the attention of a crowd.
It’s weird to compare a litigator to an actor, but a great litigator has a certain kind of star power. A stage presence. I had none of that.
What I did have was a keen attention to detail.
The focus to comb through contracts and not miss a single technicality.
The ability to memorize volumes of corporate law until I knew them like the back of my hand.
I excelled in my contracts classes, and when I took a corporate law internship, I excelled there too—much more than I had at my internship for a public defender.
So I became a corporate lawyer.
Mom said she was proud, joked about how relieved she was that I’d be able to pay off my law school debt so fast. But I could tell she wished I’d chosen a different path.
All of that was just doubt in the back of my mind until Sierra decided to drag it into the open one day, about three years before I died. I’d gotten a promotion and a raise at my firm. It was Christmas, and my parents were celebrating me.
Then Sierra scoffed and asked them why they were glorifying my selfish corporate greed.
That was a common Sierra refrain, calling me selfish, so it didn’t faze me.
Only this time, she dragged my mother into it; she said even Mom hated that I was doing such soulless work just because it paid well.
I asked Mom if that was true. She couldn’t quite deny it.
Over the following three years, I went home a grand total of eight times—only when Sierra had other plans—even though I lived a mere three hours away.
But all that’s in the past… or the future.
A future my mom knows nothing about.
A future that feels silly now, thinking back.
I allowed a nasty comment from Sierra to drive a wedge between me and my mom. And for what? To lose three years of time with her?
Time I’ve miraculously gotten back.
A rush of guilt floods through me at the thought of how I’ve dodged her last couple calls because I was too scared to have this conversation.
I resolve to be better. To appreciate the time I have with my mom. To not blame her for pain she never meant to inflict.
“School isn’t really going much at all yet. It’s barely week two.” I shrug even though she can’t see me. “We’ve mostly just gone over the syllabi and read the introductory chapters of our textbooks.”
“I’m not asking about your classes, silly. I know you’ll do great in those.”
In the background, my dad yells, “She wants the chisme!”
“How’s campus? Any new friends… are there any boys?” Mom asks, confirming my dad’s accusation that she’s calling for gossip.
“Yeah, Mom. They do allow boys in,” I joke.
“And how are those boys?”
My mind flashes to Alex and Ellie.