Chapter Seven
When a personconsidered themselves on the path to villainhood, it made it a lot easier to accept people’s unhappiness or disappointment. If she did things that were met with displeasure, she could shrug and say, “What did you expect?” It’s not as if she didn’t warn them.
At least, this was how it was supposed to be in theory.
There were a limited number of places Natalie could just be and it was usually when she was alone. This could be why her Tahoe trips were so freeing. She didn’t have to pretend to be anything because it didn’t matter. Unfortunately, pretending was getting harder all the time. If she embraced the inner villain, a little at a time, maybe people would be less shocked at her final transformation.
Unfortunately, her heart wasn’t chilled to arctic temperatures quite yet. When she did catch someone off guard, she felt bad. But it was better they discover it early before falling into the trap. Natalie was still learning how to avoid the trap herself.
After Mason departed the shop, she wanted to weep rather than celebrate her avoidance of getting stuck in a potentially sappy love story, one that would inevitably fade into unhappiness. Her sparsely decorated tree proved to be the perfect metaphor for it all. So much beautiful potential, but poor intentions and lackluster execution made it not worth cutting the tree in the first place.
No matter how much she wanted him to kiss her, how much she’d been drawn to him and his easygoing personality, she didn’t want to hurt him. Mia’s argument had been right all along. Better to nip things directly in the bud before anything had a chance to bloom with deeper feelings. If anything, she was doing him a favor and, in time, he’d realize this himself. They always did.
Even so, it probably would have been a nice kiss.
She couldn’t remember the last time she had one full of sweetness, instead of a fast, sloppy make-out session with some Tahoe guy because she had to squeeze everything in before returning home. It could have been a kiss that had something behind it. One that was solid, grounded, and actually meant something, instead of being a single burst from a firecracker, burning itself out too quickly and leaving behind the same emptiness as before. It had been so long, she was beginning to doubt the existence of such kisses.
*
The next dayshe stopped by the mechanic shop where her father worked. “Mija! You’re coming to visit me?” he asked while wiping his hands on a dirty blue rag.
“Hi, Dad.” She kissed a weathered cheek smelling of transmission fluid and car parts. “And why are you acting like I never visit you? You know I saw you yesterday. Should I be worried about your memory?”
Her father shook his head. “No. You came to visit your mamá—”
Natalie groaned. “Stop. I’m so damn sick of this. I visit you both. I love you both. I’m not going to keep getting caught up in this damn game you and mom keep playing. Can you guys please get help? I’m begging you at this point.”
Her father stared in shock, even if she’d given a similar speech at least twenty times. This wasn’t anything she hadn’t said before except with far fewer damns involved. Her frustration with the whole situation was reaching her breaking point and soon she’d react with more damns than non-swear words.
“Your mom always tells me to get help and now my own hija…” He acted as if he’d never been so betrayed.
“I’m telling you and mom to both get help. Why do you guys want to be so damn miserable all the time? Can we just have one conversation that doesn’t devolve into this same thing over and over again? I can’t take it. Pretty soon I’m not going to visit anyone anymore. Is that what you want?”
“So you’ll visit with your mamá but not me?”
“Ugh!” She was about to start flinging ratchet wrenches against the wall. All she wanted was to be heard, for someone to actually listen to what she was saying. Perhaps it’d be better if she was more like her sisters who shrugged everything off. But Natalie couldn’t. Her parents’ behavior would never not bother her.
“Can I borrow your truck?” she asked, changing the subject rather than taking her frustration out at her dad’s workplace.
“Why?”
“Tío bought a trailer for the coffee business and I need to take it to the Christmas farm.”
“Enrique won’t take it for you? Want me to call him?”
“No. I know he can. But this is sort of my thing and he already went through purchasing it so I want to take control and show him I can do this.”
“I’ll go with you after work. We can go together.”
“It’s not that far. I can do it. I just want to borrow your truck. So can we swap?”
“Of course. You know I would do anything for you.”
“Yeah,” Natalie said. Although, there were some things he wasn’t willing to do, along with her mom. She wasn’t going to put herself into the discussion once again. Instead, she kissed him on the cheek, assured him she loved him, and swapped keys with her father, driving away in the small gray pickup truck.
The next morning at work, she called her uncle and got the information regarding where to get the horse trailer. She then called the owner and set up a time for later that day to pick it up. Natalie was focused, putting her mind strictly into work mode.
She didn’t even think about Mason…much.
