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It was only going to get worse when Leo moved to LA for film school. He had known that going in. His career choice, his passion, would lead him away from his family for a while, and it was going to be painful. Being away at college was like a four-year practice course on how to survive without the constant bickering of his siblings or his abuelita’s cooking. Being Lucia and Mateo Diaz’s son meant that you fought for what you wanted, but, in the end, family always came first. It felt like a betrayal to be so far away and detached from the commotion of his family for so long.
“What are you thinking about?” Piper interrupted Leo’s inner monologue and then shook her head at herself. “Never mind. It’s none of my business.”
“It’s not a big deal,” Leo assured her. “I was just thinking about my family. I haven’t seen them in a while.”
“Hence why you were guilt-tripped into driving down with me.”
“At least we’re kind of getting along. It hasn’t been that bad, right?”
As if to prove Leo wrong, the car lurched forward with a pop of sound, catapulting him toward the windshield. The seatbelt caught and held him back as another loud thwack slapped the undercarriage of the Mini Cooper, vibrating under his seat. His spine went ramrod straight as everything unnaturally tilted to one side—his side. Unbridled fear snapped him into action as he leaned toward Piper, who was white-knuckling the steering wheel.
Then they spun.
“Chingado,” Leo cursed, clutching onto the side of Piper’s seat. If he didn’t lean harder, they were going to flip. Someone was screaming. He was vaguely aware that it was Piper, but the world outside was so disorienting and topsy-turvy that her screams felt like thoughts or a dream rather than reality.
The whole thing couldn’t have lasted more than thirty seconds, but everything had moved in slow motion, almost as if Leo were a bystander to it all. A bystander who had no idea what the hell was going on until the car came to a stop on the shoulder of the freeway, mere inches from a guardrail. It was the middle of the night, so the majority of vehicles on the road were truckers, and they hadn’t seen any for the last few minutes.
“A tire must have popped,” Leo murmured, more to himself than to Piper, as if working out the logistics of that or saying it out loud would help him reconcile what had just happened. He was shocked that Piper had no response at all, though. His ears were still ringing from her blood-curdling screams. A quick examination revealed why she had said nothing.
Piper’s hands were still latched onto the steering wheel. Her face was sheet white as silent tears trailed down her face, and her entire body shook. Leo had snapped out of the disorienting incident the second the car had stopped, but Piper looked like she was still there, stuck in the in-between, wondering if she was going to die today.
With a stiff-fingered jab, Leo unbuckled himself and leaned as far over the console as he could get, latching his hands around both her wrists and pulling them away from the wheel and to his chest.
“Hey,” he whispered. “It’s okay. We stopped.”
“M-my…” Piper stammered. Leo had never heard her voice so shaky before, so frightened. Her hands were ice cold, so he folded his hands over hers to warm them up.
A new fear ripped through him. “Are you hurt?”
Piper’s head shook repeatedly. Over and over and over again as he searched her body for injury. “P-parents,” she managed to get out.
“Parents?” Leo repeated. A second later, he realized just how bad it was. Eyes widening, he shook his own head. “No pasa nada. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.” He repeated it over and over again and took Piper’s head in his hands, staring into her eyes, which were still brimming with new tears. This meant so much more to her than just a blown tire. Her breathing was erratic, so he leveled his own as best he could. “Breathe, princesa. In and out with me, okay?” Piper managed to nod once before he led her in several deep inhales and exhales.
Color returned to her face after five deep breaths, and the pulse point under his hand slowed by ten. Piper sniffed and let her eyes drift shut as Leo finally let her go and leaned back into the passenger seat.
“I’m sorry,” Piper murmured when her eyes finally fluttered open.
Leo jerked to face her in his seat. “What the hell do you have to be sorry for?”
A morbid laugh left Piper’s lips. “I freaked out.”
“Do you often apologize for your feelings?” he asked. She just stared back at him, confusion cinching her eyebrows together. “The tire blew out. It’s the middle of the goddamn night. You’re with me, of all people. And you have a history with bad car accidents. That was terrifying, Piper. Don’t apologize to me for being scared. That’s ridiculous. You’re allowed to feel things. You’re not a robot.”
“I could have handled it better,” Piper argued.
“You didn’t need to handle it better. I’m not judging you. The only time I feel like you’re a genuine human is when you’re bitching at me about something, so seeing you just feel was…” Leo swallowed, unsure of the right adjective. Enlightening? Scary? “Well, it felt like you were being real for once.”
“So what?” Piper snapped. “You’ll start enjoying my company if I have panic attacks more often?”
“That’s not at all what I meant.” Leo groaned. “Why are you always twisting everything I say? It’s like you want me to be a bad guy.”
“It’s not hard to jump from one thought to another when you say I feel ‘real’ when I’m having a mental breakdown.” Piper aggressively unbuckled her seatbelt and flung her door open. Leo ripped at the passenger-side handle and stepped out into the night to meet her eyes over the hood of the car. “I’m not a fucking science experiment for you to study. I’m not required to be vulnerable with you or with anyone, for that matter. I don’t owe you my trauma. I’m not going to share my deep-seated feelings about my parents’ car accident just because you think I’m a little more real when I’m miserable.”
“I didn’t ask you to!” Leo shouted back. “I’m just saying it’s okay to be miserable sometimes. The world isn’t all sunshine and roses.”
“Your world is!” Piper’s voice escalated even louder. “You’re directing your own musical. You’re going to get into film school. You’ll do everything you want to do. You know what my dream was, Leo?” When he just stared back, she answered for him. “To design rooms right alongside my mom. To go over the business finances with my dad. Your parents are alive. They’ll get to see you grow up. They’ll get to watch you get married. Have kids. Mine are six feet underground, so I don’t want to hear your self-righteous declarations about what I’m allowed to feel. If I want to put on a smile or fake it till I make it, that’s what I’ll do. That’s what I have to do to survive. To stop thinking about everything I’ve lost. So, yes,” Piper threw her hands in the air, and Leo flinched despite being nowhere near her flailing limbs, “I apologize for my feelings. It’s easier to shove them down, and if I was going to share them with someone, it wouldn’t be the person who’s made it abundantly clear that even being near me is an inconvenience. You don’t like this version of me? I can guarantee that you wouldn’t like the messy one, either. No one does, and you’re not special.”
Leo rounded the car and folded his arms over his chest. “You don’t get to diminish things I’ve struggled with because you’ve struggled, too. My life isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. It has been ten times harder for me than it would be for someone in your position to get where I’m at. I fought tooth and nail to be who I am. I worked my ass off. So, yes, it fucking sucks that your parents aren’t here, Piper. And yes, I’d take all of my struggles with money and status over being without my parents any day, but that doesn’t mean that you get to tell me that my life is easy. The likelihood I’ll end up with only a small portion of my dream is the reality that I live in. I do not apologize for who I am, and I don’t hide from it. If people want you to cover yourself up with a smile just so they can feel better about themselves, then they aren’t worth your time. Life isn’t easy. If it was, we wouldn’t be shouting at each other on the side of the road at two a.m.”
