Chapter 20 #2
“Not as fun without you,” he says, and my heart squeezes. “I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner, it was crazy at the hospital today.”
Get back to…
“What?”
“Your text,” he explains. “From last night?”
I halt in the middle of the street.
Nooooooo!
“Oh.” I fumble with my phone, put it on speaker, and begin searching for my text chain with Alejandro. “Don’t worry about it.”
“No, I thought it was funny,” he says.
What the hell did I do last night?
“Anyway.” He clears his throat. “I was wondering if maybe you’d like to have dinner? Catch up?”
I stop looking for the text and stand up straighter. I expect the elation to bloom but instead there’s a void inside me. A rushing car nearly blinds me with its headlights, but I’m too numb to feel it. “You want to have dinner with me?”
Alejandro chuckles. “Of course.”
“Why?”
“I…guess I miss you.”
“Oh.” I swallow.
Be happy about it, I command my heart. But the part that used to beat faster in anticipation of seeing him is quiet.
My mind is spinning—Eugenia’s house is still behind me, I’m still standing in the middle of the sidewalk.
I concocted this entire plan because I want Alejandro back.
I try to focus on that truth, but my migraine is threatening to return, I’m thirty minutes from home, I have unread messages from Simón, and I simply can’t think straight.
Eugenia’s voice crawls into my brain saying, Good job, darling. This is what I want. So why am I hesitating?
“Listen, I’m about to drive home,” I say. “Is it okay if I call you back?”
Alejandro is silent for a second. “Sure,” he says at last.
“Thank you.”
I hang up.
Questions flood my head on the drive home—Should I tell Simón that Alejandro wants to have dinner? Does Ale want to get back together? Would quitting Talento V mean not seeing Simón anymore? But that’s what we want, isn’t it? It is. Right? Yes.
With each question, an imaginary fist squeezes my chest a little tighter.
As I ride the elevator up to my apartment, I wipe my sweaty hands on my jeans.
I try not to focus on the metallic whirring, normal for this ancient machine.
Instead, I focus on the lit-up buttons, signaling which floor I’m crossing.
As I step farther back into the corner, the cold surface of the mirror soothes my electrified skin.
I shut my eyes, breathing in. Then open them immediately when the elevator stops and a young mom steps in, a baby pressed to her hip.
I smile. “Good evening.” No reason to burden her with my emotional breakdown.
She smiles back.
Calm down, I think. All I did was ask Ale if I could call him back. People do it all the time. He’s not angry. He’s probably already forgotten about it.
The elevator dings and opens on my floor.
“Good night,” I say, then step out, grateful for the open space.
This is ridiculous. I’ll call Ale, we’ll talk, and then I’ll decide if I want to go to dinner with him tomorrow. But Simón is my coach, so I should let him know. Right? I should let him know. What if he tells me not to go? What if I hate him for it? Or, worse, what if I think he’s right?
Maybe hating Simón is exactly what I need right now.
I sit on the stairs by my apartment door and pull out my phone.
I go through my chats until I find Simón…
and his five unread texts. I don’t watch the video out of self-preservation.
There’s nothing I can do about the pictures.
In the first one, Blanca and I are on either side of Simón, laughing with our heads thrown back, a red glow behind us.
Simón smiles directly at the camera, his eyes bright.
I’m wearing his hat, my hair cascading out of it.
We all look happy. In the other, it’s the two of us.
We were sitting close together, talking about my mother plucking the microphone out of someone’s hands because they were singing her only hit wrong.
Blanca yelled “PICTURE!” We looked up, half smiling because we were laughing. Blanca refused to show me the result.
I read Simón’s last text.
Simón: let me know if you want these burned or framed.
And then I read it again. And again.
Framed. I want them framed. One on my nightstand, the other on my living room table.
I know exactly what kinds of frames I would use, exactly where they’d go, exactly which trinkets they would look good next to.
I can’t ignore the sting in my chest when I think about it.
Or the quickening beat of my heart, or the heat on my face, or the sudden burst of anxiety as my brain weighs the implications.
I leave Simón’s texts unanswered and go to a different, more familiar chat.
Yo: dinner tomorrow night?
I hit send before I regret it. This is the path I chose. This is what I’ve been working toward. This is the future I had planned out. My eyes zero in on the text right above this one, from last night, thirteen minutes before midnight.
Yo: yellow for the riches, blue for the Caribbean sea, red for the blood spilled
I frown. Why the hell was I explaining to Alejandro what each color in our flag represents at 11:47 p.m.?!
Ale: tomorrow night doesn’t work for me, I’m working the night shift at the clinic until Thursday. Friday?
And a second later:
Simón: are you feeling better?
I send the same reply to both of them.
Yo: yes.
Simón replies first.
Simón: I’m proud of you for what you did last night
Simón: you seemed to be having fun
That’s the thing. I did have fun. After I got there, after Blanca and Gustavo understood how I felt about Ale’s birthday, after I had that conversation with Simón, after singing…
I couldn’t remember why I was sad in the first place.
I couldn’t remember that it was all supposed to be for show.
I liked that I stepped out of my comfort zone, that I didn’t take myself too seriously for three minutes.
I liked that I was offered the room to do it while still feeling safe.
I don’t know if I would have been able to do it if Alejandro had been there.
Yo: I was
Yo: it’s the most fun I’ve had in a while
And isn’t that sad? Living a perfectly planned out life, thinking I was content, when it turns out I was just bored.
Maybe Alejandro is right in some of the things he said.
Maybe I am controlling and I need to loosen up a little.
It’s not the karaoke and the drinking that made the night fun, though.
That’s not what I’m missing. It’s freedom, I think.
Allowing myself to be messy from time to time.
Simón: this week’s homework is easy.
Simón: all I need you to do is hold on to that memory and not feel guilty about it.
Simón: you’re allowed to be happy, even when you’re sad
The step I’m sitting on grows cold as a draft of cold night air snakes through the window.
On the floor above mine, a dog barks. I hate that Simón can see me so thoroughly, that he knows I would feel guilty about having fun without Alejandro if I sat with my thoughts long enough.
Well, he can ask me not to feel guilty all he wants. That doesn’t mean I know how.
Groaning, I stomp into my apartment and lock myself in my bedroom, hell-bent on focusing on the one thing I can control: me. I have an article to write and damn it, I’m going to write it.