“I was done the second you decided that any of this was my fault,” I said.
I didn't wait for him to respond. I turned and walked out, my shoes a steady rhythm against the floor.
I didn't break until I hit the elevator.
two
VANESSA
“Mamá, I’m home,”I called out, dropping my keys into the bowl by the front door.
You’d think walking through that door would have flooded me with cherished memories, but instead, I was just reminded that I was twenty-seven and living with my parents again. While other people my age were getting married, buying homes, and having kids, I was back within the same four walls I grew up in. Iknew they said not to compare your life to others, but also... pity party of one, please.
I didn’t give my mom a chance to answer. I made a beeline for my childhood bedroom, desperate to burrow into my blankets like a hermit crab and not come up for air until the next decade. The faster I got to that door without human interaction, the better.
The problem with my plan was that I couldn’t see the living room until I was halfway across it. That’s when I saw them—eight adults and five tiny humans, all waiting for me.
Suddenly, the unnerving silence made sense. A Mexican household was never quiet. Ever. Even at night, my dad snored loud enough to rattle the windows. When I was little, I was convinced a burglar would break in, only to be scared off by the sound of a freight train living in our hallway. He was five-foot-four, but he snored like a giant. We still hadn’t figured out how such a massive sound came out of such a tiny man.
I scanned the room. Every single member of my immediate family was there. My little sister held up a piece of paper that said
INTERVENTION
in handwriting so sloppy it looked like one of the toddlers had written it. For a moment, I felt like I had walked into a Spanish-language episode ofHow I Met Your Mother—less comedy, more tragedy.
The tiniest human, Gabriel—Gaby—waddled up and kicked me squarely in the shin. He looked up with a proud little smirk, waiting for my reaction. This was how we played, apparently—entirely too rough. I was almost certain I was teaching himterrible habits, because who greeted another human by kicking them? Gaby did.
He kept smiling, so I dropped to my knees and tickled him. Partly because I loved his giggle, and partly because I was desperate to avoid the conversation that was about to go down.
“Out with it, you traitors,” I said over his squeals.
“No seas así, amor.Don’t be like that,” my dad said. “We’re here because we care about you. I asked if you wanted me to kill him, and you said no. So, what can we do? How can we help?”
He was dead serious. My dad was ride-or-die. I had heard through the grapevine that someone vandalized Javi’s car after everything went down. When I asked my dad about it, all he said was, “Lástima.” What a pity. It warmed my cold, dead heart to no end.
“Can we just beat his ass and get this over with?” my oldest brother, Valentín, asked.
Violence obviously ran in the family.
“Nobody is beating anyone’s ass,” I said flatly—even though my blood wasn't steady; it was pounding in a rhythmic chant:murder, murder, murder.
“What about Ava? Can I beat her ass?” my baby sister, Valeria, asked.
I looked at Valeria—five feet of pure sass—and started laughing. It felt foreign in my body, like using a muscle I’d forgotten I had. God, I missed laughing.
“If you try to beat her up, can you tell us when and where? We’d all like ringside seats,” my brother Victor chimed in.
He was right. Watching Val fight would have been pay-per-view worthy. She was the feistiest of us all and yet somehow the least confrontational—a weird, paradoxical combination for such a tiny, angry person.
“Guys, I appreciate this, but I’m fine.”
My mom snorted.
“I will be fine,” I corrected quickly.
They didn’t know the half of it yet. They didn't know I had also gotten fired. I’d tell them later—when it wasn’t so raw. When I’d processed it. When I’d finally allowed myself to cry.
It’s not that I was too proud to cry; it was just practical. My face turned red and splotchy for hours afterward. My elementary school nickname was Rudolph because of it. So for now, I boxed those tears up tight.
