Ofelia
W e were walking hand in hand when the sleek black car pulled up next to us, screeching to a halt.
Beside me, Fabián tensed. I felt my own body go stiff as well. Holding my breath, I watched as someone got out of the car, standing on the driver’s side and staring at me from over the hood.
I’d recognize that face anywhere. My entire body went cold at the sight of it.
Fabián angled his body slightly in front of me, as if he meant to protect me from the man glaring at him. For a second, those eyes flicked down to our joined hands only for his lip to curl up with barely concealed disgust.
“Get in the car, ,” he ordered. “Now.”
I stepped out from behind Fabián, pulling my fingers away one by one until there was space where there shouldn’t be.
I took a step forward. “What are you doing here, papá?”
He hardly ever came to visit me at the academy. Our visits were confined to the holidays.
The timing was suspicious, given what had just happened with Fabián and his own father. I tried not to contemplate it or wonder why he didn’t seem surprised to see me with Fabián at all. More like... disappointed.
I hated to admit how much that cut more than anger ever could.
“I told you to get in the car,” he repeated.
“Papá, this is–” I started to gesture in Fabián’s direction, but my papá cut me off with a fierce growling sound that sent a spike of ice through my chest.
“I told you,” he said from between clenched teeth, “to get in this car right now.”
A part of me wanted to tell him no , that he was being rude, but I couldn’t bring myself to do that.
I turned to Fabián and his face softened a fraction, as soft as it could look with his injuries, and he nodded once.
I offered him a smile, feeling that pinch of relief in my chest.
Of course he understood. If anyone did, it was him.
I’d never considered my relationship with my papá a complicated or dangerous thing. He’d never been a violent man. His voice never raised. But I was familiar with his strict ways, enough so that I slowly walked away from Fabián to obey. It was an automatic response from me. That need to please my parents, to be the good girl they raised me to be, even when every cell wanted to lash out, scream, throw a tantrum. It was hard to put my needs above theirs, when they’d spent the entire span of my life confining me into a box of their making. That anger made anxiety filter my system. It was something I couldn’t shake.
I’d never liked when he was angry at me. It always made me want to curl into myself like a little girl. The very notion was ridiculous. I was grown now, but old habits died hard.
I barely had a chance to get in and close the door before my papá was jumping in after me and speeding away from the academy.
“That was very rude of you,” I said, my voice shaking with the fear of the upcoming confrontation.
“I don’t want to hear a word out of you until we get to the house.”
The ride home is silent and tense. I chewed on the inside of my cheek the entire drive until we arrived.
Our house was a three story structure in a nice neighborhood with a gate that wrapped around the property. Cameras were available at all angles and heights, while my papá’s personal security roamed the grounds. They opened the gate as we drove up and closed it after we went through.
My breathing grew labored the closer we made it to the house, and my fingers twisted along the end of my hoodie.
I’d known when I’d started going out with Fabián that he wouldn’t fit into my world. He wasn’t someone my papá ever envisioned me with. In my world, women married the sons of politicians and powerful political allies. People with different aspirations and dreams. Not Fabián. Fabián wasn’t someone on our radar.
At least that’s what I’d thought until tonight. Until Fabián told me that our fathers knew one another and had made enemies of each other.
It was hard imagining my father with enemies. I wasn’t naive. I knew that because of his position, he wouldn’t be liked by everyone. But he always shielded me from the worst of that part of his life. I was protected from the darkness.
Until I decided to dance with it.
Once we were inside the pristine, clean-scented house, I wasn’t allowed to say hi to my awaiting mamá before my papá whirled on me with a glare that nearly rendered my soul to ashes.
“What on earth are you thinking ?” he demanded.
I took a deep breath to try and steady my nerves. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t act stupid, Reyes Munoz. You know what I’m talking about. How could you be entertaining that criminal?!”
“That criminal happens to be my boyfriend.” I found my bravery just then. It was buried deep, but I managed to pull it forward for the occasion. “And he’s a good person.”
My papá blanched at my declaration, my mother gasped, holding tightly to the rosary around her neck.
I wasn’t sure why she even wore the thing. It wasn’t like she prayed. It was for show. Suddenly, I realized how much everything in our lives was for show.
“You’re going to end it,” he said through gritted teeth. “Immediately. I don’t want you near that boy or his family ever again.”
I threw my hands up in exasperation. I wasn’t a little girl anymore. And maybe in the past I would have cowed and bowed to his wishes, but not now. Not now because Fabián was different and I’d meant every word and declaration I said to him. I couldn’t imagine a world without him in it. Not for a month, a week. Not even for a second.
“What’s wrong with his family? What about them do you not like, exactly?” I knew, but I wanted to hear him say it.
My father let out a mirthless laugh. “You really have to ask? You cannot possibly be so stupid.”
The words hit hard in a way I hadn’t truly expected. My father had never called me stupid before. I wasn’t prepared for how hurt the word actually made me feel. Like I was less. Like I didn’t live up to all he’d trained me to be. And when I’d lived my life under his thumb, being told I wasn’t even good at that was eye-opening.
“Enlighten me.”
“They’re criminals,” he stated, crossing his arms over his thick chest. “And that’s all you need to know.”
A sudden realization gripped me. He used that phrase for... everything. Any time I wanted to push back, anytime I found an inkling of courage to voice my own wants or desires, I’d be shot down. As if what I said didn’t matter or held no weight in the grand scheme of things. If I ever dared to ask why, that phrase would come up. That’s all you need to know . And I’d stupidly accepted it. Because sometimes laying down and taking it was easier than putting up a fight. And it had happened enough that I’d become what he’d wanted me to be. His perfect little puppet whose strings he could pull whenever he felt like.
I was tired of living like that.
“That’s not good enough!”
“!” My mother reprimanded from the other side of the kitchen. Her fist still clutched tightly to that rosary, and I wondered if that was her way of coping with who she was forced to be, or if she’d always been what she is. “Ya basta. Stop talking back to your father. You’ll do what he says.”
“Immediately,” my father added.
I gritted my teeth together, fearing they’d snap. There was no point in arguing with them. I could tell from the look in their eyes, the way they mirrored one another and glared down at me like I was their adversary. They wouldn’t change their minds. And there was nothing I could say that would convince them otherwise. They hated Fabián. They hated his family.
And they expected me to hate him just as fervently.
I’d never lied to my father before in my life, but like Fabián, I would do so now. And I found I didn’t really care at all.
“Yes,” I whispered. “Papá.”
His tense body seemed to relax a fraction, though his jaw still tightened as he took me in, his gaze grazing over me from head to toe, before he nodded. A dismissal, if I ever saw one.
I turned away from him and my mother, afraid they’d see the tears burning behind my eyelids, but my father’s voice made me pause in my tracks.
“There’s an upcoming gala and my team tells me it will do good for our image to be seen together there. Make sure you clear your schedule for the event.”
I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “Yes, papá.”