I know what she wants to hear. She was against it when she first found out I was considering the position at the university in Ciudad de México, specifically because the distance would make visits even more rare than they already were.
“Fine. There’s potential,” I answer, and without meaning to, two green-brown eyes appear at the edge of my mind.
“Someone with potential?” she asks because my reaction didn’t slip past her.
I’ve never lied to her. She always knew when I was about to, so I learned early to just tell the truth.
“Yes.”
I don’t have anything more to give her than that. Amalia Sanchez is one of my students. Brilliant, but a student. She needs to learn to use her mind for herself, needs to stop being so accommodating. So fucking good to everyone.
“Wow, there really is someone with potential,” she says, and I catch something sad in her expression, so I stop looking at her.
“Karina, you and Seb are my priority.”
She nods, but this subject is always going to hurt her.
Before she leaves the kitchen, her hand comes to rest at my temple, and she taps it gently three times with one finger.
“That can’t give you answers to the things you don’t understand, Si. Look a little lower for those.”
I just nod because I’ve never known how to listen to whatever that thing in my chest is trying to tell me. With the two of them it was always easy, that connection was always clear.
But as I finish my tea, eyes on the street outside with its sparse evening traffic, I realize those hazel eyes are taking up too much space in my head.
And that’s a problem because I can’t afford to forget where my priorities lie. And not one of them has a bun with too many strands escaping it and the most aggressively colorful wardrobe I have ever seen collected in one place.
Use your head, Silas. You saw what happened the last time you didn’t.
It’s been five days since Professor Vaughn missed class, and even though we were told he had a few days off, I can’t shake the feeling there’s something else going on. That man doesn’t strike me as someone who knows what a vacation is.
The substitute teacher finishes writing the formulas on the board, so I copy them quickly and close my notebook.
I promised Lupe we’d have lunch together at the cafeteria, so I rush to grab a table in a corner where we can actually hear each other over the noise.
Once I’ve secured a spot, I open my laptop and read ahead for tomorrow’s lecture, losing track of time entirely the way I always do when the material actually interests me. I’m three chapters deep by the time I feel a kiss dropped on the top of my head.
“Ame, stop scowling at that screen or it’s going to crack from sheer terror,” my twin says, dropping into the chair across from me.
I shake my head at her, close my laptop, and feel a quiet wave of guilt that I haven’t spent more time with her lately. Between her schedule and mine, plus the small jobs I do forseñorGustav, we barely exchange a few words in the evenings.
“I’m seeing Alek today,” she tells me in a low voice because she already knows what I think about this Alek situation.
“Lupe, are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“Ame,” she sighs. “He sees me. He actually listens to me. And for the first time I feel like I matter to someone in that way.”
“You matter to me,” I murmur, but I know that’s not what she means.
She takes my hand in hers and her eyes are bright, her smile wide, and even if I don’t like the guy, I have to admit that my sister is happy.
“Promise me you’ll be careful. Promise me that if something feels off, you’ll call me.”
“¡Te lo juro!”
We go quiet for a moment, and then I ask the question that keeps me staring at the ceiling most nights.
“Do you think we’ll ever findher?”
