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It doesn’t feel shameful, though.
It doesn’t even feel wrong.
It just feels…different.
Whatever drew us together when we were younger has changed with us. It’s been evolving in secret, until we found ourselves in an empty kitchen years later with him looking at me like that,and my body responding in ways I never knew it could. My pussy has a pulse now, anactual pulse, and my nipples feel achy and sensitive like I’ve been swimming in a sea of ice.
I wage war with my body every day. It brings me nothing but trouble, but it feels like we’re finally in sync tonight.
“Ella! There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you.”
My eyes fly open as my mother rushes up to me, her smile lifting in relief. Everyone always comments on how alike we are. We both have long dark hair, sapphire-blue eyes, and pale complexions as opposed toPapáand Thalia’s tan skin, but she has way more self-possession than I ever will.I bet she never had to cling to a wall because a man made her dizzy and breathless.
“I came in for a glass of water. Has everyone finished their entrees?”
“Not yet, and why didn’t you ask the waiters to get you one?” Narrowing her eyes, she regards me suspiciously for a moment. “You look flushed. Are you sure you’re feeling okay? Shall I call Danielle? Is this all too much?”
“Mamá, I’m fine,” I say, sliding my arms around her and bringing her in for a hug. Occasionally, the only way to convince my parents I’m not actually dying is to have them feel it for themselves. “Should I be turning that question around? You look worried about something.”
“Someones,” she corrects, emphasizing the plural. “Uncle Aiden and Uncle Rick have gone AWOL, and your father just showed up at our table in a volcanic mood.” She breaks away to smooth a stray strand of hair from my eyes. “Right now, he’s simmering, but I fear the explosion may be imminent.”
“Dead people imminent?” I glance through the kitchen door as we double-back on ourselves to reach the patio, but Edier’s already gone.
“Quite possibly,” she says with a frustrated sigh.
My parents are the prime example of ‘opposites attract’. She was a reporter in Miami when they first met, writing award-winning articles that exposed dangerous men like him. He took that challenge and ran with it, taking her free will out of the equation at the same time, and giving her no option but to fall in love with him.
I once asked her if she ever felt anger or resentment toward him for kidnapping her the way he did. She just smiled and told me to watch carefully. That’s when I saw how effortless their marriage was. The passing glances, the brief touches… Their history was the daisy chain link that bound them together, and their love was a perfectly imperfect love in motion. It bent with the storm and braced against the tide. Ever present and undying.
It’s the kind of love I aspire to have one day.
“You were the last person to see him, Ella. Did you have words?”
“Something like that…”
She stops and spins, an incredulous smile creeping across her face. “You told him about NYU.”
“I told him… Then, I might have tricked him into agreeing to let me go.”
My mother gasps in excitement. “Why, Ella, you’re a natural!”
Of all my family, she’s the one who understands me the most. We both love to write, and it feels wrong when we don’t, like there’s not enough oxygen in the room.
I thought about writing fictional stories, but then I became too curious about the real ones. When I found some of her old articles online, I ate up her words like candy. They made me realize I had something to say too. That I had a voice, and a craving to shape the world from my own perspective when so much of mine over the last six years had been shaped for me.
My mother recognized this. In the end, she was the one who encouraged me to apply to the college.
“Do you thinkPapáwill ever forgive us?”
“Yes, but he’ll make us suffer for it first,” she teases, linking arms with me as we step back out onto the patio. “And don’t expect your freedom to come without a price. The cartel has a big presence in New York. You’ll be watched and guarded around the clock. Every step will be overshadowed. The first sign that it’s impacting your health, you’ll be brought back to the island. They’ll be days when you’ll feel like you’re glimpsing something wonderful from behind a sheet of glass, but, Ella…”—she turns to face me, gently cupping my cheek—“you need to take it and make it your own kind of wonderful.”
“I will,Mamá.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise.”
She leans in to hug me again because sometimes the only way parents can put more love into their words is to let their children feel it for themselves. Letting go with a smile, she adds, “At least you know people on the East Coast already. Sam’s only at Rutgers in New Jersey, and his younger brother Seb might be starting with you next fall.”
