Page 37 of Serving Bunt

“My mom died when I was twelve.”

The words sounded strange out loud. They tasted even worse.

“Abuelita and Guelo were suddenly raising their four grieving grandchildren while trying to grieve for themselves. My little sisters were terrified all the time.” I swallowed. “And my brother . . . he stopped speaking for almost three months.”

Beside me, Matty went very still.

“So, I found a way to fix it.”

I stared up at the ceiling, tracing the knots in the wood overhead with my eyes.

“At first, it was dumb little things. I’d make up ridiculous games to distract my sisters when they started crying. I learned every dance from High School Musical because it was my brother’s favorite movie at the time.” A quiet breath escaped me. “I started cooking with Abuelita too, mostly because the kitchen was the only place people still talked to each other.”

Matty didn’t interrupt or rush to fill the silence. He just listened.

“If the house got too quiet, I’d turn on music and force everybody into the living room. I basically became a one-man emotional support circus.”

That earned the faintest huff of laughter from Matty.

But my smile faded quickly.

“The thing is . . . it worked.” I swallowed again. “People laughed more and the house felt lighter. After a while, I think everybody just got used to me being the happy one.”

“The fixer,” Matty murmured.

“Mm-hmm. And once people start relying on you to keep things together—”

“It’s hard to stop.”

My throat tightened unexpectedly.

There he went again. Looking straight through me like it was the easiest thing in the world.

I turned my head toward him. Even in the dark, I could make out the shape of his face, the sad smile on his lips.

I swallowed hard. “Florence would love this.”

“Florence would charge you three-hundred bucks an hour.”

“That’s criminal.”

That earned me a sleepy snort.

Then quieter, more hesitant, Matty asked, “Is that why you started writing?”

The question settled over us gently.

I thought about all those late nights hunched over my laptop. All the things I’d poured into stories because I didn’t know how to say them out loud. And I wasn’t just talking about the sexy stuff.

“Yeah,” I finally admitted. “I think it was the first time I could be honest without feeling . . . exposed.”

“Until I accidentally stumbled across your secret identity.”

“Like a redheaded Lois Lane.”

Matty snorted softly. “I thought she was a redhead.”

“You’re thinking of Mary Jane. From Spider-Man.”