Chapter 9 #2
Camila shrugs. “You haven’t led me astray yet! Plus, it smelled delicious when I walked by the truck. I’m sure everything that comes out of that kitchen will be, too.”
“You’re not wrong,” Valeria says, grinning as Maria Jose beams proudly.
“I’ll be back with your order shortly,” she says with a quick smile.
They both nod and thank her, and once she disappears toward the truck, Camila leans her elbows on the table. “So,” she asks, tilting her head, “how long have you been coming here, and do you have a food truck ranking system?”
Valeria laughs. “Since it opened, and I don’t.” She rests her chin on her hand. “Maria Jose is my mom’s partner. They’ve been together since I was ten. She opened the food truck around the same time.”
Camila’s eyes widen a little. “Wow, that’s cool. I bet coming out was easy then, since you already knew your mom was accepting.”
“Yeah, it definitely helped.” Valeria lets out a small laugh, tracing a line on the table with her finger.
“My mom and MaJo basically knew before I did. Telling them was easy. Kind of liberating, but telling my dad . . .” Valeria shrugs.
“That was harder. He’s always been a bit homophobic, and it only got worse when my mom started dating a woman.
On the weekends my brother and I spent with him, he almost always went on these rants about how wrong it was; meanwhile, both his kids were queer, and he had no idea. ”
Camila’s expression softens. “That’s super shitty, I’m sorry.”
Valeria waves her off. “Don’t be. He’s a little better about it now. Still calls Brooke my ‘friend’ but hey, he’s trying.”
“I wish my mom would try to accept it,” Camila murmurs, eyes fixed on the untouched cup of water in front of her.
“You guys aren’t close?”
“Not really. She calls once or twice a month to make sure I’m still alive.”
A tightness builds in Valeria’s chest. “She’s not accepting?”
Camila shakes her head. “She’s waiting for this . . . part of my life to be over. Like it’s something I’m supposed to outgrow.”
“As if that’s how it works,” Valeria says, her hands curling into fists, nails digging into her palms, mad on Camila’s behalf.
“It’s not, but I didn’t know that when I was young, and I think I accidentally made her think it is.”
“How so?”
“There was a time I tried dating guys, just to make it easier for her. A desperate attempt to hold on to whatever version of me she could stand.”
Valeria reaches across the table and gently squeezes Camila’s hand as she continues.
“Her best friend had a son, and she somehow convinced me to go on a date with him. She said one date would make me forget all about my interest in girls. She said it as if it were simple, and I wanted to believe her, to be the daughter she wanted, so I did. I dated Sebastian for a few months in high school, and I had never seen my mom so happy. Sebastian was a senior, and I was a sophomore. I went to prom on his arm, spent entire weekends at his house, wore his ridiculous letterman jacket everywhere until I smelled more of his cologne than my laundry detergent. I tried. I really did, but everything about him made my skin crawl.” Camila shakes her head like she’s trying to dislodge the memory.
“My mom thought I’d been cured, but I was miserable.
So when I couldn’t take it anymore, I broke up with him.
The moment I told her I’d ended things, it felt like the final nail in the coffin for us.
She was so disappointed when I admitted I couldn’t make it work.
When I told her I didn’t love Sebastian, that I didn’t even like him .
. . the way she looked at me broke me. It still does if I think about that moment for too long. ”
Valeria’s mouth tightens, lips pressed thin as she imagines Camila’s pain. “What happened after?”
“I realized my heart wasn’t something I could will into place, so I started to lie about who I was seeing.
Then I met a girl, Becca, and we started dating.
I didn’t want to keep lying to my mom or keep her a secret, so I made the mistake of thinking she would understand.
I thought that once she saw how happy Becca made me, there was no way she wouldn’t accept it.
So I told her—told her I wanted her to meet her.
Instead, she forced me to break up with Becca over the phone, and that summer, she sent me to a Christian camp to ‘expel my demons.’ Little did she know that camp would only solidify the fact that girls were it for me.
When I got back, I stopped trying to talk to her about it.
I was never going to be the person she wanted me to be, and she was never going to accept me, so why try? ”
“That sounds incredibly hard. I wish I had better words,” Valeria says as she moves her hand to Camila’s arm.
Camila shrugs. “I’m used to it. I’ve done a shit ton of therapy to work through it. Thankfully, my mom lives by the philosophy that ‘If I don’t address it, it isn’t real.’ Which allows her to ignore the parts of me she doesn’t understand.”
“That must be painful.”
Camila nods. “It used to be. When I still cared about what she thought of me, but I stopped trying to be someone she could tolerate a long time ago. Now I try to make sure I’m okay with who I am, and everyone else can fuck off.”
“Period.” Valeria snaps her fingers. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re pretty wonderful.”
Camila smiles. “It’s worth tons, thank you.”
“Is your dad okay with you being gay?”
“Yeah, he doesn’t care. He’s happy I’m happy.”
“Are your parents still together?”
“They are, but my sexuality isn’t something they talk about. Not that my dad would ever stand up to my mom.”
Coming out was the single most terrifying moment in Valeria’s life. She can’t imagine dealing with it without her mom’s support, as Camila did.
Valeria gives her a tight-lipped smile and lets it sit. Valeria wants to say something—tell her she’s got her and the girls now—but, before she can, Maria Jose sets their plates and drinks in front of them.
“Two Reina Pepiada Arepas and a Guarapo for you both. Anything else I can get you?” she asks.
“No, thank you. This looks delicious!” Camila beams, not taking her eyes off her arepa.
“Enjoy,” Maria Jose says as she walks back toward the food truck.
Valeria wants to pick up where the conversation left off, but Camila looks entirely too excited about her meal.
Camila picks up her arepa and carefully studies it. “Okay, wait . . . what is this? I know it’s an arepa, but what’s inside? It smells incredible.”
“It’s called a Reina Pepiada. It’s an arepa stuffed with chicken, avocado, and a little mayo. I always add lettuce and onions to mine, though.”
“That sounds amazing.” Camila takes a bite—an ambitious one—and her eyes go wide. She makes a muffled moaning sound and covers her mouth with her hand. “This is amazing,” she says, her mouth full.
Valeria grins, taking a bite off her own, and it’s as delicious as always. Fresh and creamy.
Camila reaches for her drink next. “And what’s this again? Guarapo?”
“Oh, yeah. It’s sugarcane juice,” Valeria explains. “Fresh-pressed, super sweet, and delicious.”
Camila takes a sip and immediately grins.
“Wow, that’s delicious. It tastes a lot like the sugarcane juice my grandma used to make.
In Brazil, we call it Caldo de Cana.” Camila says it in a Portuguese accent, and all Valeria can do for a few seconds is blink and stare almost in a daze, her heart fluttering softly in her chest.
“Wait . . . you’re Brazilian?” Valeria asks the moment her brain reboots.
Camila tilts her head, amused. “Half. My mom is white, and my dad is Brazilian. You didn’t know that?”
“No! How would I know that?” Valeria laughs.
Camila laughs, too. “Yeah, I guess that’s true.” She shrugs, still grinning. “Sometimes I forget we haven’t known each other forever.”
Valeria can’t help but feel giddy at that. Camila is so easy to be around that she forgets she hasn’t known her as long as the girls.
“Do you visit often?”
“Not really,” Camila says. “My parents and I used to go at least once a year when I was younger, but I haven’t been back since I moved out.”
“How come?”
“The only person I loved seeing was my grandma, and she passed when I was a junior in high school, so I never felt the need to go back. How about you, do you travel a lot?”
Valeria wants to ask more, know more about the woman sitting across from her, but Camila moves on so fast that Valeria takes the hint. If she doesn’t want to talk about it, she’s not going to push.
Instead, they talk about how Valeria has never left the country but really wants to go to Spain someday. Camila gives Valeria a much-needed update on Miso and tells her about the latest painting she’s been restoring, until their plates are clean and they’re nursing the last of their juice.
“So tell me about this project with Isa,” Valeria asks.
“Honestly, I don’t know much about it. Just that it’s a piece by an artist she’s featuring at the gallery, and it got damaged during transport.”
Somewhere behind her, Valeria hears a voice that sounds like it’s saying her name, but she doesn’t register it at first; it barely cuts through the hum of the trucks. Then it comes again, a little clearer this time.
Valeria turns around, and it’s Brooke. Despite all the tension between them, warmth fills her chest.
“Brooke,” she says, smiling as she stands, her chair scraping lightly against the floor.
Valeria walks toward her automatically, the way her body has done a hundred times before, ready to pull her into a hug. The moment she stops in front of her—close enough to actually take her in—Valeria realizes Brooke is livid.
Her arms are crossed so tightly around herself that her knuckles have gone pale.
Her eyes move past Valeria toward the table, toward Camila, before they snap back to Valeria with a sharpness that steals the rest of the smile straight off her face, and the warmth in her chest cools into something uneasy.