Chapter 29
sofía
“?Sofía, abra la puerta!”
I jolt upright, tumbling off the side of the couch, tangled in a blanket. The horror of my apartment hits me as my mother bangs on the door, yelling for me to open it.
“C’mon, Sofía,” Luisa calls. “We’re here to see you.”
“Mama made food for you.”
Fuck. She brought my sisters, too.
Dirty dishes line the counter tops. Empty coffee cups and chocolate wrappers pepper the coffee table, surrounded by crumpled tissues.
Ella Enchanted plays on the television. Laundry covers the floor.
I haven’t washed my face in a week, and I’ve only left to go to the lobby to collect the food I have delivered each night.
My hip pops as I rise from the ground, slipping and sliding in my fuzzy socks on the hardwood floor. I grimace as I pass a mirror.
I’m a mess. I know it, and now my sisters and mom are going to know it, too.
The jangle of keys is the only warning I get before the door flies open and my family tumbles in, a range of horrified looks on their faces as they absorb the space.
I’ve always been a tidy person.
This apartment looks like it belongs to someone else.
In a sense, it does. I’m not the same person I was when I left for Australia, and I’m not the same person I was when we landed. I’m nothing more than the shell of Sofía who climbed into the back of a cab at the airport on the verge of tears.
I panicked. Froze.
It was like a movie. All the potential ways it could fail flashed across my mind. I couldn’t believe what he was asking—the exact thing I wouldn’t allow myself to hope for but desperately craved—and the terror caused me to freeze.
Outside of a few work emails, he’s been quiet. No posts on social media. I tried texting him. I composed dozens of messages, only to delete them. Each one felt wrong.
Don’t you feel it, too?
I do feel it, I almost told him. So deeply, and it scares me to death.
But I didn’t tell him in time—not before he took my stunned silence as confirmation of his worst nightmare. And I know he left the airport believing I think he’s unworthy.
It couldn’t be farther from the truth.
The second I got back to my apartment, I crumbled, needing to process.
I had a plan. One I spent the whole day formulating.
Land in LA. Go back to my apartment with my list and find a way to tell him I don’t want to forget what happened or leave it all behind.
A new deal—one that doesn’t involve losing my job.
Instead, he beat me to the punch, stunned me so thoroughly I lost function of my body, and I fucked it all up.
Everything I wanted was right there for me to take, and I let it slip away like sand between my fingers.
“Mija…” My mother trails off, surveying the living room. “What’s going on?”
Her perfume, the nostalgic smell of amber, fills the air, and I crumple in her arms.
I silently sob while she holds me, whispering soft affirmations, before another set of arms surrounds me. Then another, until all three of them are hugging me.
“We missed you,” Luisa says. “Also, we’re here to thank you for helping with our college applications.”
Another sob rips out of me when my mom adds, so softly I almost don’t hear her, “Estoy aqui, mija.”
“And the dresses.” Maria pauses. “They’re gorgeous.”
“Dresses?” I stumble out of their grip. “What dresses?”
They give me an odd look, and my mom says, “For the docuseries premiere? We got your invitation. When we went to pick up our dresses, they were paid for.”
“I didn’t pay for them,” I tell them.
But I know who did.
It only makes the tears worse, the regret stronger, and the heartache more intense.
I miss him, and I love him, and I want him back.
Holy shit.
The center of my diaphragm tightens. Somewhere between here and Australia, I fell in love with Jett.
Instead of panic or fear, there’s only calm recognition, my body aware of what my brain has struggled to identify. With him, I am accepted. Heard. Understood. Days are filled with joy. I never worry over voicing my opinion or that my emotions are invalid.
When he asked about my dream partner…I was describing him.
Love with Tommy was stressful, messy, toxic. Love with Jett is transformative, settling, warm.
“Who paid for it, then?”
My mom loads the dishwasher, directing my sisters to pick up the laundry and throw it in the wash. It’s weird—having them pick up my space and offer help. I want to tell them to stop, that I can handle it, but I know what they’re doing, and it makes my heart pang.
They’re trying, and I love them for it.
I answer my mom’s question. “Jett.”
In a blink, my space is clean and I’m hounded by my sisters.
“Who is Jett?” one asks.
“Is he your boyfriend?” the other questions.
“He’s her boss,” my mom replies, unloading a bag full of Tupperware containers. My head snaps to her, and with a lifted brow, she adds, “I follow him on social media.”
Containers full of food—salsa verde, birria, rice, beans, enchiladas, mac and cheese—cover the kitchen island.
Dread fills me as she makes a plate of food, mostly mac and cheese, and slides it across the counter.
After she’s made plates for Maria and Luisa, she surveys us while we eat, eyeing me I spear beans onto my fork.
I avoid her gaze, focused on the noodles on my plate, pushing them around. I haven’t had much of an appetite. Other than working on the premiere and release party, I haven’t done much of anything except wallow in my decisions and think about texting Jett, only to chicken out.
Truthfully, I can’t remember the last time I brushed my hair, and it shows.
“Are you sleeping with him?” Maria asks.
My mother chokes. Luisa gasps.
I try to melt into the barstool and disappear. This isn’t something I want to discuss with them. They might be seventeen, but our mom is here, and I’d rather she pretends I’ve never had sex in my life. It would be best if they assume that forever. Even if I have children.
They can believe it was an immaculate conception.
“Are you guys dating?” Luisa asks. “Do you like him?”
I choke back the regret creeping up my throat, and the questions stop when they register the look on my face, the longing and sadness I know I can’t hide. The frayed edges of the sweatshirt I stole from Jett are particularly interesting, and I tug at a loose strand.
The fabric is baggy, but it still smells like him, and I refuse to wash it, even after I spilled soy sauce on the front and spent twenty minutes crying.
I hate how on edge I am, how unraveled I’ve become since the luggage claim.
“That felt like the wrong question to ask,” Luisa whispers to Maria.
Luisa whispers back, “What do we do? She looks like she might cry.”
“I’m not going to cry,” I snap. There’s been enough crying today. There will be no more until they leave. “I am fine.”
The declaration tears another rip in my heart. Jett would hate to hear those words, despise the lie falling off my tongue.
Mom laughs—deep and hearty. “Mentirosa. Your bed isn’t made. You always make your bed.”
Everyone’s head turns to my cracked bedroom door and the crumpled sheets. I hate that she’s right. I sigh, slumping in my seat. They might as well know I fucked up the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
As concise as I can—because I can barely stomach sharing the story without upsetting myself—I tell them about Jett.
About the trip and how, somewhere along the way, he stole the worn, tattered pieces of my heart and returned it to me fully mended.
I stumble over the deal we made, how he fired me, wincing when my sisters tease me and my mother rubs the skin between her eyebrows.
“A sex deal,” she mumbles in bafflement. “Dios.”
“That’s not what it was,” I yell.
That’s exactly what it was, and when she puts it like that, I am horrified. What on earth was I thinking?
We were equal participants in this brand of stupid. I think I love him even more for going along with something as idiotic as firing me so we could sleep together.
She shakes her head. “It’s fine. I’m a cool mom. I can be hip.”
“Cool people don’t say hip,” Luisa tells her.
Maria laughs when my mom scrunches her nose—the telltale sign she’s annoyed. We’ve all inherited that trait from her. Her stubbornness and fantastic eyebrows, too.
I continue my story before I lose steam, and I have to suppress the tears as I explain how he laid out his truth and I let him walk away.
Luisa takes my hand, squeezing, and Maria drops her head on my shoulder.
A steely determination transforms my mother’s face, her brown eyes glittering with a scheme. “He lives in the city?” she asks.
“About twenty minutes from here,” I say with trepidation.
She rounds the counter and ushers me out of my chair and into my bedroom. She grimaces at the mess but pushes me past it and into the bathroom, turning on the shower.
“Get in,” she demands. “We’ll clean while you shower.”
I gawk at her. “Why?”
“You smell like soy sauce.” She drops a towel on the counter while she barks at the twins to make the bed. “You don’t want to smell when we go to Jett’s house.”
I fly into the shower to prevent continuing that conversation, scrubbing my body clean and adding a nice-smelling body oil. Just in case.
They help me get ready.
Maria curls my hair and fusses over my bangs.
Luisa scours my closet for an outfit, selecting the long polka-dot maxi dress Jett bought for me in Sydney.
My mom supervises, in charge of the playlist—the same songs she would play as she cleaned when we were kids—and picking out a cherry-colored lip gloss.
Nerves flutter in my stomach as we pile into her car, the twins shoved into the back.
“Do you love him?” my mom asks, her voice low so the girls don’t hear.
They’re too busy singing along to the song to bother with our conversation. A wild blush creeps along my cheeks, so bright it could be seen from the stars.
He should be the first one to know, but I can’t help myself, itching to say the words out loud. To make them real. Manifest this alternate reality. One where I’m in love with Jett, and he gives me a chance to explain why I panicked. A life where we get to laugh every day.
“More than I thought was possible,” I tell her. “I don’t even know when it happened. He made it that easy.”
Her laughter is soft, comforting. “Your father did the same thing to me. I can’t wait to meet him,” she says, patting my knee.
Our car ride to Jett’s house is filled with off-tune karaoke and my sisters teasing me about needing our mom to take me to my boyfriend’s house. It’s embarrassing and wonderful, and by the time we pull into his driveway, a wave of calm washes over me.
This is where I’m meant to be. The horrible relationship with Tommy, the shitty dates with mediocre men, it was all part of the path to get to him. I don’t know if I ever would have seen him if I hadn’t had those experiences.
I’m kicked out of the car, a chorus of “good lucks” and “make sure you kiss him” following me up the driveway to the front door. I smooth out the nonexistent wrinkles in my dress, brush through my curls, and suck away any potential lipstick on my teeth.
A nervous tremor kick-starts in my hands as I lift a fist to knock. After a minute, there’s no answer.
I knock again.
And again.
And again.
I stand on the porch for ten minutes in disbelief. His car is in the driveway. A light shines in the hallway when I peek through the window. The grass looks freshly cut.
The car door slamming shut is the only sound I hear outside of the pulsing in my ears. A hand lands on my shoulder, and Luisa and Maria track me, worried and sympathetic, as Mom guides me back into the car.
My cheeks are wet.
I didn’t even realize I’d started to cry.
We make it all the way back to my apartment before I fully comprehend this new reality.
I had my shot with him, and I blew it.