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I hated it.

Because if it was? I got it. I really did.

Nick should have left me first. He should have never cheated on me. But if I’d felt this way about Jacob when I was married to Nick…it would have been torture. It would have made me question if who I was with was the right one.

It would have been enough to end a marriage.

It was two o’clock when I finally pulled up to my house. I dragged myself out of the car and up the front walk, planning on going to bed to sleep off the rest of my hangover, but when I opened the front door, I immediately knew something was wrong. Very, very wrong.

The air smelled like chicharron.

Mom was here.

I mouthed a silent cuss word and Benny poked his head out of the kitchen. “Hi, BRIANA. Nice to have you back, BRIANA.”

I gave him a death glare and a second later Mom came out behind him. She had on her old apron, and her wild salt-and-pepper curls were tied up on top of her head. “Hola, mija!”

“Hola, Mamá,” I said, hugging her.

Benny was glaring at me over her shoulder. He was in an apron and I just knew he’d been Mom’s prep cook for however long she’d been here.

She held me out from her and shook her head at me in disapproval. “So skinny. You aren’t eating? Where is your boyfriend? He doesn’t feed you?”

“He feeds me, Mamá.”

She pursed her lips. “He’s probably too skinny too. You doctors never eat. I’m making pupusas, come help me with the masa.” She went back to the kitchen without waiting for me.

I slumped. Benny shot me a vindicated look. Now it was my turn to suffer.

I loved my mom. She was an incredible woman. Strong, capable, a survivor in a hundred different ways—but she was a lot.

Mom lived to care for others. And when the people she loved were in crisis, this instinct went into overdrive. She’d come home to her newly divorced and apparently emaciated daughter and her ailing son in kidney failure. She was going to scrub down every surface of this house and feed us until we begged for mercy.

Benny looked over his shoulder toward the kitchen and then closed the space between us.

“I can’t believe you called her,” he whispered. “We had a deal.”

“She called me last week. Was I supposed to send her to voicemail?” I whispered back. “I told her you had a donor and you were fine. I didn’t tell her to come!”

“I’ve been making curtido since eight a.m. Apparently I’m sick enough to need her to fly across the United States, but not sick enough to not chop cabbage.”

I snorted at this, which earned me a more pointed glare. “How long is she staying?” I asked quietly.

He held up ten fingers. Then he started pulsing them. Twenty, thirty, forty, fifty—two months???

I groaned quietly. “Whhhhy?”

“To be here to nurse me back to health.” He jabbed a finger at me. “This is your fault—”

“My fault?” I whispered. “How is that?”

“You made me give up my apartment,” he whispered. “I’m trapped here.”

I crossed my arms. “Well, if it makes you feel better, I’m trapped here too.”

“It doesn’t. It does not make me feel better, Briana. You suck.”

“Gil didn’t come?” I asked.