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“You want to talk about it?” she asks gently.
“Ineedto talk about it,” I insist. I feel like I might explode from all the rage pounding inside me, demanding to be released.
“Come on. We can talk in my room,” Silvia says as I set her down. Taking my hand, she leads me down the hall.
When we get there, she plops down on the edge of a mattress, grabbing one of her colorful fluffy pillows to hug to her chest. The themes of her Paris-chic room jump out at me, the sketch of the Eiffel Tower that lines one wall, high-fashion women in fancy dresses standing like models as they pose. Even her bed cover has little images of the famous city drawn across its cream background.
“So… what happened?” she asks tentatively.
Now that I have her undivided attention, I suddenly find myself unable to say. Instead, I pace as I think about how I’m possibly going to phrase everything spinning out of control in my head.
“Nico, what iswrong?” Silvia demands as I pace back and forth in front of her for the hundredth time.
I didn’t know who else to turn to. I’m so consumed by rage, distraught over the fact that Anya has kept such a monumental secret from me all this time. I feel like she’s ripped my heart from my chest and stomped on it with one of her stiletto-clad feet. I have a daughter, an adorable little four-year-old girl who has my hair and my eyes. I could see it as easily as I could see the guilt on Anya’s face when Clara said who her mom was. And my kid sister is the only person I could even think about talking to about it. She’s the one woman in my life that I respect. Someone I trust inherently. She’s always been honest with me, even when the truth is hard to swallow.
But now that I’m here, stalking across her bedroom like a caged tiger, I can’t bring myself to tell her. I’ve never felt for anyone the way I feel for Anya, and to have her betray me so utterly–I can’t even think straight, I’m so mad.
“Nico,stop,” Silvia insists, standing to grab my wrist and drag me down onto the edge of the bed. “I can’t help you if you won’t tell me what happened. Is it… the ballerina?” she asks tentatively.
I nod, dropping my head in my hands and grinding the heels of my palms into my throbbing eyes as I lay it all out for her.
“There was this girl I knew back in sophomore year of high school, Anya. A dancer. She was beautiful and kind of an enigma because she never came to any parties, played any sports, or did any extracurricular activities. I saw it as a challenge to… get to know her.” I hate myself as I say the words, ashamed to be telling my kid sister what I did to a girl when she was just my sister’s age. “I slept with her, but I wasn’t really interested in pursuing it further after that. She, uh, comes from a poor immigrant family, and I knew it wouldn’t work between us in the long run….”
“In other words, you were being a tool. Go on.”
Silvia’s gentle chide drives a nail into my chest, and I raise my head from my hands to try and get a read on her. She’s grave, waiting for me to continue with my story.
“I never saw her after that year, and in all honesty, I completely forgot about her. I’d only been with her the one night, and four years is a long time… Anyway, she transferred to Rosehill this year, and I ran into her for the first time since sophomore year. I could tell she disliked me from the get-go, but I didn’t recognize her, so I didn’t know why. We ended up forming this sort of rivalry.”
“And then you saw her dance,” Silvia says with conviction, like a well-known fact, and I frown as I meet her eyes.
“How did you…?”
“I was there, dummy. I’ve never seen you look at someone the way you looked at her, like you just had to have her. I thought you might climb right over the theater chairs to get to her,” Silvia teases.
I give her a weak smile as a sign of appreciation for her attempt at levity. “Well, we started dating, and… I dunno, Sil. I really started falling for her. I thought we might have something special. And then she just went and dropped an atomic bomb on me. She told me I got her pregnant back in high school, and she kept the kid. I have a fucking four-year-old daughter I hadn’t met or even known about until today! But the worst part is, I get the feeling she would never have told me if I hadn’t happened to run into them at the park.” My rage boils up inside me once again, obscuring my vision as I curl my hands into fists to stop myself from breaking something.
“What did you do?” Silvia asks gently.
“I told her she could fuck right off. She lied to my face, Silvia. For months! She’s kept my child from me for years. I told her she had no right, that maybe I should take Clara from her as punishment. I mean, four fucking years! My daughter walks and talks and has a fucking sense of humor, for Christ’s sake. And Anya never once thought it would be a great idea to mention that I’m a fucking dad!”
“You threatened to take her daughter away from her?” Silvia asks, horror in her voice.
Guilt twists my stomach at the look of utter disbelief in my sister’s eyes. Sighing, I bring my anger down a notch. “Maybe that wasn’t the best thing to say,” I admit.
“Nico, you abandoned her in high school. And then again today when she finally had the courage to tell you about your daughter,” Silvia scolds me gently.
“Not like she had a choice. I mean, the kid was right there in the park. We didn’t plan on running into each other, and when Clara said Anya was her mom… I mean, I guess I didn’t connect the dots right away, but Anya couldn’t have kept it from me at that point.”
“Still, it was probably terrifying to tell you about what happened. Think about it from her perspective. She’s probably scared you’ll abandon her again, forget about her like you did after high school, and she doesn’t want her daughter to feel the same heartbreak she must have felt.” Silvia’s tiny hand comes to rest on my shoulder, a tiny consolation after she just gently pared me down to size.
She’s right. I hadn’t thought about it like that before–that she might still be carrying what I did to her in high school with her. Suddenly, all her anger and resistance when I asked her to date me made so much more sense. She already knew I would probably fuck her and dump her like I have so many women over the years.
“You’re clearly in love with Anya,” Silvia says softly. “And if that’s the case, isn’t it a good thing that you have a daughter together? Now is your chance to show Anya you can be a good man. You can show her that you’ll stick with her even when things get tough.”
I don’t know what to say. At the mention of love, I want to draw back, to object, but if I think about it–truly focus on how I feel for Anya–my kid sister is right. I’m crazy about Anya. What started as an obsession has transitioned into something much more… intimate and real. Rather than losing interest in her, I find myself wanting to learn more about Anya every day.
Horror grips my chest as I realize what I’ve done. The words I just said to Anya.Wasn’t it just last night that I told Anya I don’t want her to be afraid of me?And then today, I went and threatened to take her child away. I don’t want Anya to look at me as a bad guy. I want to be a man worthy of her affection. When it comes down to it, I would rather try and work things out with Anya than remove her from my life.
