Chapter 2
Catalina
One month later
Paradisio del Mar Hotel and Resort was a beachfront property right on the turquoise blue waters of the Cancun coastline. When their taxi dropped them off, Catalina’s breath caught, and she momentarily forgot she didn’t want to come on this vacation in the first place.
Despite being a biracial Latina and living in Southern California, Catalina had never visited Mexico before.
She wondered if she’d feel some natural connection or have a kind of familiarity in her soul as she walked across its soil, as though some small part of her would recognize some of her ancestors’ country of origin.
Even though these days she didn’t feel much of a connection to anything, it was still disappointing to discover she didn’t have an instant kinship to the country of Mexico.
Perhaps she was too overwhelmed by the sights, colors, and scents of the place.
Or her family had been too long removed from the country for it to be home anymore.
Beautiful as the country was, she only felt apprehensive about being someplace unfamiliar—and somewhat awkward and embarrassed when the taxi driver had spoken to her in a flurry of Spanish when he first pulled up to the airport curb.
Many of her family members on her Mexican-American side did speak fluent Spanish.
She did not, and it was always something she was insecure about.
A couple of years ago, Catalina had downloaded a foreign language app provided by her local library in an attempt to learn Spanish, deciding it would be helpful in her job as many of the families the organization helped were Hispanic.
She was slowly understanding the bits and pieces of Spanish she heard, but she was too self-conscious at this point to truly test her skills.
She did fundraising, marketing, and community outreach at Little Chefs Big Dreams, a non-profit organization that provided basic ingredients and taught cooking skills to low-income kids and families.
It was a job she believed in because Cat and her mother had been in a similar situation when she was a kid.
But the job came with high demands and stress, especially within the last year.
When it came to a break, it was either take a trip to Mexico or stay home.
Catalina wondered if she made the wrong choice, especially when Trey tried to be cute, like nudging her with an elbow as if to encourage her to interact with the taxi driver in his native language.
Catalina ignored him, evading eye contact.
That kind of pressure only gave her performance anxiety.
Luckily, Trey took over trying to communicate, and the cab driver was friendly and quickly switched languages to accommodate them.
“Hola. Bienvenido.” The receptionist greeted them with a bright smile when they entered the resort.
Catalina let Trey check them in as she wandered the modern lobby, checking the wooden visitor display shelf, which held a variety of pamphlets offering exciting activities and excursions to be explored in the area.
They certainly couldn’t afford to do anything extra.
All their adventures would be limited to the resort and whatever was within walking distance.
Not that this was an issue, as she planned on spending most of the trip reading on the beach.
Trey might find himself somewhat bored with this itinerary, but that was his problem, not hers.
“You ready?” He offered her an extra room key.
“Sure,” she replied, rolling the small overnight suitcase she had borrowed from her cousin and readjusting the large purse on her shoulder.
Catalina followed Trey down one hallway, then another, before turning the corner to an older hallway.
This area of the hotel was less grand than the bright-lit, stylish lobby, but she held her breath when Trey slid the keycard into the lock until the light turned green.
He pushed the door open, sweeping his hand forward and motioning for her to enter their royal suite first. With giddy expectations, she entered.
Except it wasn’t a royal suite. It wasn’t even an upscale standard room.
It was nothing like the images Trey had shown her on the website, the one advertising being newly remodeled.
It would appear not all of the rooms had received the upgraded treatment yet.
They were stuck in a room with matted carpet, dated wall art, and the slight musty scent of wet bathing suits.
She wasn’t planning to spend a lot of time in the room, but she felt disappointed it wasn’t quite as luxurious as promised.
“This is, uh, nice, right?” Trey said, his own smile faltering for a brief moment before recovering. She knew this was a positive front on display as he masked his own letdown over the room situation.
Catalina left her suitcase beside the foot of one bed and dropped her purse on a mahogany table before pulling back the curtain on the single window. The room was on the opposite side of the ocean view, more of a cityscape.
“At least the AC works well.” Trey joined her at the window, and she let the curtain slip from her hand as she moved away from him.
At the table, there was at least a welcome card beside a small bowl filled with apples and bananas.
Catalina undid the zipper on her purse and started placing the fruit inside.
This was a habit she had picked up from her mother, back during the time it was just the two of them, after her father left and before they moved in with her grandparents.
They barely had any money and survived off of SNAP for a while.
When something was a complimentary gift, one had to take advantage.
This was the biggest reason Catalina carted around such a large purse, even if the weight of it sometimes left her with a sore shoulder. Mary Poppins’s carpet bag had nothing on Catalina’s everyday purse, which kept her prepared for most everyday situations.
“We have meal tickets, Squirrel. I don’t think you need to worry about stocking up for the winter,” Trey said.
She eyed him, never enjoying when he used that nickname and liking it even less today.
“Free meals don’t mean good meals. You don't know. Maybe we’ll be lucky to get saltine crackers and peanut butter.
” She felt safe making this claim given that this vacation already wasn’t living up to expectations—case in point, their room.
“I’m starving. Right now, crackers and peanut butter sound pretty good.”
“You’re so easy to please.”
“Since when has that ever been a bad thing?” he asked, his good humor still intact, annoying her greatly.
“If I come across any packets of crackers and peanut butter, I’ll add them to my purse stash for you.”
“These are the perks of being married to a squirrel. What a lucky guy I am.” He flashed a grin, and she hated how the sight of it still had the ability to almost knock the wind from her.
“Oh? Are there any other perks?” Cat didn’t know why she asked that. It sounded almost flirty, and the last thing she wanted was to encourage him. The only thing to do was to turn her back to him.
That might have been a mistake, because he took the unintentional bait and drew closer, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her back to his front. His breath was warm along her neck, the delicate brush of his lips along the shell of her ear. “There are lots of perks in fact.”
“Like what?” It was as if she couldn’t help herself. She even sounded breathless.
“They’re pretty cute. They’re great at finding nuts and putting them in their mouths. They can get jobs as rescue rangers.”
A soft laugh bubbled from her throat, her muscles beginning to ease into him.
This was how they used to converse, a fun back-and-forth between them, one that usually meant nothing of significance and, yet, used to mean everything.
She had missed this. “If you’re thinking of Chip and Dale, they’re chipmunks, not squirrels. ”
“Wait. Are you sure?”
“Yeah.”
He paused for a moment before asking, “But they both like nuts, right?”
All she could do was nod, his grip tightening as he pressed himself into her, trailing hot, open-mouth kisses along her neck. “Cat,” he murmured gruffly into her skin.
Everything in her screamed to soften, to let go, to forget about their fight and what he’d said out of frustration—to let herself be with Trey like she used to.
But it was difficult to let go completely.
He was right. She was a squirrel, but instead of acorns, she hoarded grudges. Catalina never failed to grab them, tucking them away inside of herself, like a miser who might need those grudges in the future, even while knowing they served no useful purpose besides hurting herself.
Except this was different. Trey had mindlessly accused her of the one thing she hadn’t forgiven her father for, the one thing that still caused a dull sense of pain.
Like an echo, the pain grew fainter throughout the years but never went away.
It continued to reverberate around her. Her father’s affair and ultimate abandonment changed her mother from a soft, delightful woman into a cynical shell who had to work two jobs because she wanted her daughter to have the best education possible.
Catalina had grown up with one parent who didn’t want to be around her and one parent who wanted to be around but couldn’t because of their financial situation.
Sometimes it doesn’t matter what you do, her mother had told her many times. They’ll always find a reason to leave. Always be self-reliant, Cat.
Catalina had taken the lesson of self-protection to heart, and she never understood her mother more than when the accusation had flown from Trey’s mouth.
Not only had the hurt broken her carefully constructed dam, but she felt her own heart becoming cool and empty.
Self-reliance might be the only thing that could save her.
It was at this moment, when Trey was undoing the button of her shorts, sliding his hand down into the front of her underwear, and saying, “Let’s just forget about everything and fully take advantage of this accidental two-bed situation the resort put us in,” for her to realize that pretending things were fine was never going to happen.
Here they were inside a different bedroom, in another country, and Trey was being his sweet, charming self and running his hands over her.
His body was big, hard, engulfing—it had always made her feel so protected before.
With his slightly tousled wheat-colored hair and blue-green eyes reminding her of ocean glass, he’d never been an easy man to resist. Perhaps she could have forgotten their problems for a short time.
Until he told her to forget. And then she knew she never could. Self-reliance started now. He couldn’t protect her anymore, at least not from himself.
Catalina pulled herself away from him, snatching her enormous purse from the table and clutching it to her chest like a shield. “I’m going to take a shower and then maybe I’ll go read on the beach. You can go ahead and do whatever you want.”
His arms remained slightly outstretched as though he were holding onto the phantom version of her past self.
They soon fell, along with his hopeful expression.
“Cat. Please. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything that I’ve ever said.
” But then his facial features contorted into one a little more bitter.
“How long am I going to have to keep begging for forgiveness? How long are you going to punish me? I get this is my fault, and I deserve it, but I can’t stand feeling disconnected from you, and it’s driving me—” He scrubbed across the back of his neck, clearly frustrated. “If you just let me—”
“No.”
They both stared at each other at an impasse, Catalina refusing to bend and Trey tired of bending all the time.
“What exactly are we doing here?” he finally asked.
She shrugged. “It’s a vacation, but you can do your thing and I can do mine.”
“You don’t want to be together at all?” He appeared devastated.
Catalina almost faltered, but she didn’t see the point. Be self-reliant. “I want to take a break from arguing, as I’m sure you do. Don’t you think this is the best way to go about it?”
“No.”
“Well, I do.”
Trey leaned forward, gripping the top of one of the chairs at the table before throwing a harsh glance in her direction. “We’re required to attend the timeshare presentation.”
“Fine. You tell me when and where, and I’ll be there. If you need me for anything else, send me a text.” She didn’t know when her voice had become hard, so much like her mother’s. Better this than weak and wobbly. Either way, she hated it.
He opened his mouth to say something before seeming to change his mind. Instead, he retrieved the keycard he had dropped on the table. “Okay, if that’s what you want,” he replied in a quiet, dejected tone.
Trey left, the door shutting behind him with a resounding click, the sound so final it vibrated in her heart. This was it. They were on their way toward a different path, one that had a definite fork and no U-turns allowed.
Abandoned in this musty room with a rattling air conditioner, the steel in Catalina’s spine dissipated.
Trey was wrong. This wasn’t what she wanted.
She desired nothing more than to love and be loved, to not feel alone.
She couldn’t stop the pain from spiraling inside her gut, nor stop the tears that threatened to spill all the time—even at work, which was one part leading to her breakdown and her boss demanding she take a few days off.
Unfortunately, the only way she knew how to deal with the situation was to either strike out at Trey for being the catalyst for why they were unhappy and…
Well, this wasn’t entirely true. He may have brought the situation to a head, but there was unhappiness before their major blowout.
So, she could either strike out at her husband or stuff everything down deep inside. It was debatable which one was worse.
But she was convinced this would be the last vacation they’d ever take together.