Page 55 of A Curvy Girl’s Hurricane Survival Guide

Mom waves him off. “The point is, I chased him. And here we are, almost forty years later. Does that make me pathetic?”

I look at her quizzically. “Okay, okay…so I assume the moral is not to keep chasing Trevor, right?”

The room explodes; I can barely tell who is commenting.

“Oh my God!”

“¡No seas bruta!” (Don’t be hardheaded!)

“Seriously, WTF!”

Dad rests a heavy, comforting hand on my shoulder. “The moral is that putting yourself out there doesn’t make you pathetic. But you shouldn’t keep forcing something that’s bad for you.”

I nod, throat tight.

Alex leans forward. “So where did you and Sonny leave things?”

I tell them everything; how I found out who he really is that morning, how I tried to explain, but he’d already shut down.

“He left. I think I messed up,” I say, melancholically.

Rey rubs his chin. “You were super vocal about hating video games. Then suddenly you’re cool with it right after you find out he’s rich and famous? From his side, it probably looked suspicious.”

More murmurs of agreement ripple through the family.

“But that’s not how it happened!” I protest. “I didn’t even know until that morning…”

Rey shrugs sympathetically. “I get it; I’m just saying how it probably looked to him.”

I sigh. “What do I do now? I don’t even have his number.”

“¡Tengo su email!” Abuela announces triumphantly, pulling a scrap of paper from her bra and waving it around.

I make a mental note to come back to Abuela carrying his email in her bra.

“He’s going to be at GamerCon in two days,” Lucas adds, fingers typing as he researches on his phone.

Rey grins. “Even better. You can tell him in person.”

My face goes hot. “You think that’s a good idea?”

“Yes,” Rey says. “But first, we need a plan.”

And just like that, the living room becomes mission control.

Over the next few hours, the house turns into organized chaos. My nieces and nephews huddled around laptops, hunting for last-minute convention tickets and printing out maps of the venue. Mom and Dad book my flight, arguing loudly over aisle versus window seats.

Alex drags me into the bathroom for an emergency makeup lesson, muttering about “dark circles” and “glow-up protocols” while slathering on primer and highlighter, explaining how I should use each. She asks what I am planning to wear, and while I have packed half my wardrobe, I have to admit I have no idea.

Abuela lights another velita in the corner, murmuring prayers in rapid Spanish. Every few minutes someone shouts a new idea across the room.

Rey pulls me aside into the den, hands me a controller, and says, “Before you show up to that con, you need to understand what he actually does.”

I swallow.

“Open mind. Full effort. No prejudices.” Rey says.

I repeat his words. I mostly mean them.