“It’s not selfish to want your sister back.”
“For those reasons, it is.”
His eyes are glassy and he grimaces when one tear trails down his cheek. He lets go of me to wipe it away.
“You’re not selfish for wanting to be less lonely.” And then I lean up and kiss the place where his tear was.
Santiago lifts his hand and holds my face so gently. “You’re—you’re not a whore, Moon. I know I’ve said this before, but I guess I need to make sure you know it again. Your value isn’t about that. About sex.”
And now I want to cry. “Okay. Thanks.” It sounds so lame to say. But I can’t think of anything else. He glances down at my lips before sliding his hand down my neck, to my shoulder, settling it on my hip.
“I applied to culinary school.” He says it all casual. Like it’s no big deal at all.
“What?!” I sit up fast. “Are you serious? That’s, oh my gosh, awesome, Santiago.”
He grunts, but there’s a faint smile on his face.
“What are you grumbling for?”
“My dad isn’t going to like it. He already thinks I waste my time with all the cooking I do.”
“What? Has he not tasted your cooking before?”
He smiles a little. “Mom has. She gets on his case all the time. Once, she heard him making a comment to me while I was making pico de gallo, and Dad slept on the sofa for two weeks.”
“Well, yeah. She’s experienced the foodgasms. She knows there’s no way in the world you’re wasting your time.”
He gives me a weird look. “That’s a pretty messed-up way to put it when we’re talking about my mom.”
I laugh. “Well, I hope you’re fine with me talking about your culinary talents that way. Because I have, to about everyone.”
He grins at me. “I don’t mind giving you foodgasms.” His voice is real deep and guttural. It’s got me tingling down to my ankles.
And the double meaning of his little confession has me breathless. And my brain, it’s scrambled a little. So I have to try really hard to make my next question make sense. “Why does your dad think it’s a waste of time?”
Santiago lifts his left arm. “Because of this.”
“That’s absurd,” I say. “That’s so absurd.”
“It’s—he doesn’t think anyone will hire me. But I’m as fast as any other chef. I just need time to prep first.”
“You’re going to be an amazing chef,” I declare. “And chefs have cooks prep for them, anyway. Where’d you apply?”
“The Culinary Institute of New Orleans.”
“Oh my God,” I say, punching his arm. “That’s where I applied!”
“You applied to the institute?”
I laugh. “No, I applied to Tulane. It’s right near my favorite relative’s house.”
“Your aunt?”
“Yep. I love her.” I pause. “That’s so weird that we both applied to schools in New Orleans, huh?”
He blinks, like he’s just considered it. “You’re right. I mean, what are the chances?” But then he shrugs it off. “I don’t know if I’m going to go yet.”
I gasp. “What? You have to, Santiago. You have to.”
“It’s expensive.”
“And… I mean, isn’t your family well-off?”
“My family, yes. But not me. Andro said he’d pay for it, but…” Santiago shrugs. “That feels like cheating.”
“It’s not,” I say. “He can afford it, and you can pay him back if that’s important to you. Santiago.” I put my hand on his. “It’d be foolish not to. Trust me, the world needs your freaking delicious food. Okay?”
We don’t say anything for a while, just sorta look into each other’s eyes like… like I don’t know what. Like in a way that makes me feel like I’ve lunged off a cliff, but it’s only a little scary and a lot of something good. Like this view of the sky and stars, so close I could taste the spilled-powdered-sugar clouds, makes it all worth it.
“You should read my fortune again,” Santiago says.
Because I don’t ever want to leave, I say, “Yeah! Sure.”
43. The Third Time I Ever Had Sex (Also Known as, the Last Time I Ever Had Sex)
STAR’S ONLY REAL boyfriend was Bryan Finnigan. And I use the term “real boyfriend” lightly. He’d come over, and Mom would coo all over him and pretend we were this perfect family. He and Star would hold hands during dinner, and then he’d leave, and that’s pretty much how their whole relationship went. I’m not sure they were ever alone together, to be honest. Mom’s idea of the perfect courtship.
After the night of the knives, I was walking around school, trying to hide this massive bandage on my chest. “What happened to you?” Iris asked.
I said it without thinking. “Pissed my mom off.” I forgot I’d even said it, that’s how flippant it was to me.
Next thing I know, I’m in the counselor’s office. Mrs. Blaine said, “We heard a disturbing rumor, Moon, and we wanted to make sure you were okay.” She gestured to my collarbone. “Did someone hurt you there?”
My mouth opened, but sounds couldn’t come out. My voice became a black hole, sucking everything into it.
And then the door opened and Star came in, all smiles. “Is everything all right, Mrs. Blaine?”
“We wanted to make sure everything was okay at home, Star. Especially since Moon has this scary-looking injury.…”
“Oh, that.” Star laughed. “You didn’t tell her, Moon? Moon’s always climbing trees, which she should stop because she’s so clumsy. But she just fell out of a big tree.” Star shrugged. “That’s all.”
Right. Just fell out of a tree, directly into the knife Mom held pointed right at me. But I couldn’t say this. My voice was still a black hole. It had absorbed the whole school and town and sun, and now Star, Mrs. Blaine, and I were floating in outer space. My feet, my chair, nothing had the ground under it. Nothing was solid anywhere.
Mrs. Blaine laughed too, because Star had put her right under her spell, and said, “Moon, you need to be careful out there. You’re a little old for climbing trees!” And we were dismissed.
Star never said anything about it. She acted like that was the truth even when we were alone.
But I couldn’t pretend. I could hardly stand upright around Star anymore. My own sister, you know? My own sister.
So that night, I found Bryan Finnigan and I fucked him.
It was a lot easier than I thought it’d be.
I heard them have their big fight the next week. Star loves to talk on speakerphone so she can straighten her hair at the same time, but I guess this time she’d forgotten that the walls of our home were thinner than skeleton leaves.
“Aren’t you tired of living a lie?” He asked it over and over again. She started screaming for him to shut up and eventually hung up on him. There was a bang after that, I think from her throwing her phone across the room.
I wondered what that lie was, and now that I’ve seen her with Belle Brix, I think I might have a clue.
But I still feel dirty, to use my mom’s word, about Bryan. He called me a lot after that, and he actually seemed sweet and genuine in his interest. But I couldn’t. I’d slept with someone for revenge. I mean, he definitely wanted it, and to be honest, so did I. I was certain this made me a slut for real.
But now things have changed. It feels like a whole new universe being born again, like wildflowers into seeds into flowers, on and on from ancient times until now. And I can be anything in this brand-new world. Absolutely anything I choose.
44. Back to My Night with the Nebula
IT FEELS LATE, but it’s only ten. I feel lazy, so I grab the mirror stone from my bag and plop down again. “What do you want to know?”
“Actually, why don’t you read for yourself?”
“Ugh. That’s really hard.”
“How so?”
“It’s really easy to focus on what we want. To interpret everything on how we wish it was, would be. Li
ke… to not see what’s really there.”
“Confirmation bias.”
“Yeah. All the biases.”
“Well, just try, then. Why not try?”
“Ugh. Fine. I’ll take a tiny peek.” I rub my fingers over the stone, and the images come really fast. The moon, the rose, the weed. And then a star, right over the moon, eclipsing it.
“No way,” I say, rolling my eyes.
“What?”
“My sister. She’s going to betray me.” Hasn’t she done enough of that already? I guess not.
“Huh. That doesn’t sound like biased reporting.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s also not surprising, is it?”
I shake my head. “But she’s never done anything deliberate before, you know? Like, premeditated. She’s never done something on that level.”
“Are you kidding, Moon? All she’s done since you guys got here is try to humiliate you every chance she gets.”
I open my mouth to object, and then I close it. Because he’s right, of course. I close my eyes. “She has everything. She’s beautiful. Everyone adores her.…” I shut choking out of my voice. “And Mom loves her.” That’s it. That’s the worst of it.
“Your mom’s incapable of love, Moon. I mean, I know I can’t say that for sure, but no mom could do what she did to you and be able to know what love is.”
“That still doesn’t change the fact that everyone else loves Star.”
“Star’s shallow, Moon. That’s why.”
“What do you mean? Because Star really is religious. She really believes all that.”
“No, she doesn’t.” Santiago says it matter-of-factly. “If she did, she wouldn’t treat her own sister like shit all the time.”
Again, I can’t think of anything to say. So I sigh and put the mirror stone away. What a crap reading. I guess it’s better than seeing your dead dad, though.
“Stay here tonight,” Santiago says. And I freeze as he keeps talking. “I swear, I’m not trying to be creepy. It’s just…” He turns over so he’s staring right at my face. “I hate sleeping alone since the accident. And I’m tired of listening to Andro snore when I sneak in his room.”
I smile and say, “I’m sorry, again, for all you went through.”
“Yeah. When we’re home, I make Andro share the room with me. It’s so embarrassing. I’m like a four-year-old.”
“It’s not embarrassing,” I say. “Let me get my things from my room, okay?”
I decide to keep on my baggy T-shirt and shorts. He’s seen me in them enough. I pack my bag up and return to Santiago’s room, knocking lightly at the door. When he swings it open, I have to try really hard to keep my eyes above his neck. Because, of course. Of course he doesn’t have a shirt on. He’s trying to make me blush, faint, and turn into dust on purpose. I swear.
He slides into bed first, and then I get in. He pulls me to his body just like earlier, my head in the nook of his neck. I’m nervous, so I start talking. “What’s with these muscles, huh? Are you trying to make every male-attracted person within a thirty-foot radius hit on you?”
He laughs, and it feels so nice. “I learned early on that other people are a lot less likely to bully you about missing a hand if they think you could beat the crap out of them.”
I swallow. “Oh. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
“I’ve never done this before.”
“Be in bed with a guy?”
I turn to him. “Be in bed with a guy without him expecting something.”
He runs his hand along my back. “You don’t have to ever do anything—ever—with me. Even if you change your mind about sleeping here. That’s fine.”
“Right,” I say. “I don’t have to do anything besides the cooking show, right?”
And he laughs again, and this is how I fall asleep, to the warmth of everything that is Santiago Philips.
When I wake up, I feel peaceful. I don’t know why, because everything, frankly, is imploding. My mom might literally murder me the next time I see her. Star thinks I’ve stolen Santiago right out from under her. And… and… that’s actually it. Because everything else kinda rocks. My tarot sales are through the roof. My FG has almost a couple hundred thousand followers at my last check. And then there’s Santiago. His arm is draped over me, but that’s the only place we’re touching. I knew he wouldn’t, but it still kind of amazes me that he really didn’t try anything last night. Knowing any sample of teenage guys has skewed my expectations, I guess. Or maybe they’re normal and maybe Santiago is exemplary.
I put my hand on his forearm, just above his wrist where it ends. Usually he wraps his arm, but right now it’s open. The skin is pink there. I wonder if it still hurts him. If he gets those phantom limb sensations you always hear about.
Gently, I lift his arm off me and place it on the bed. The sheet is stretched across the continent of his shoulders, but I can still make out about every valley and ridge and mountain of muscle.
I stretch and run to the bathroom. I don’t want to look or smell like a sweaty old antelope when he opens his eyes. After freshening up, I walk out and grab my deck, the unfinished Wild Moonflower tarot sample. I stand by the windows, where the morning light is thickest. In this sun, I feel like I’m ancient. You ever think about that? How that same sun lit up the sky for all your ancestors, for the very first humans, for every creature and bug and beast that has roamed the planet. The sun is so old, and every day we go about in it like it’s nothing. Which is fine, too. We don’t need to bow down and hold a three-hour service to it. It’s just amazing to think about every now and then.
I grab the deck and shuffle. There’s only one question on my mind and it’s the Knight of Swords. The man who was going to enchant me, according to Tía. Is it Santiago? Is it really him?
“Hey,” Santiago says. It’s almost like he heard my thoughts.
“Hey.” I turn around, and there he is, sitting up, the sheet at his waist, his magnificent triple-Fs on full display. “Good morning,” I add.
He smiles at me, his face still sleepy-looking, his hair all mussed. “You reading?”
I nod. “A little spread.”
He points to the bathroom. “Do you need—”
“No, no,” I say. “Go ahead.”
I turn around because I don’t want him to feel self-conscious about, uh, morning wood. Also that would be really awkward.
As he’s in the bathroom, I return to my cards. And I think about Santiago, about how perfectly my body fits alongside his, and I choose one. It’s the Knight of Swords.
And yeah, I guess I should’ve known.
Only now the card seems softer to me. There’s less of an emphasis on conflict and more on the ability to cut through bullshit. It feels kind of hot in here, so I open the window a crack. The air outside is dry and cool, and I resist the urge to stick my face out the window and sing a high note.
“What do the cards say today?”
That you’re my Knight of Swords. That you’re into me. That you don’t think I’m as attractive as a slug. This line of thinking, though, gets me on a really pessimistic route. Because I remember when we first met, how he played that little cruel joke on me with the name tags. Even though I deserved it, I can’t help but think that if Santiago were the knight—my knight—he wouldn’t have made me feel so bad about my looks.
So I laugh a little and say, “Hey, remember when we first met and you mixed up mine and Star’s name tags? Ha. That was funny.”
“Why is that funny?” he asks, stretching. His shirt rides up a little, exposing the line of hair under his belly button.
I look away and say, “Well, it was a good joke, you know? Having me wear Star’s name tag.”
He wrinkles his nose. “Yeah, I never got that joke.”
Now my mouth wants to drop open. “But you’re the one who did it! How could you not get the joke?”
He shakes his head like I’m spouting nonsense. “Explain to me
this hilarious joke.”
I shrug. “You had me put Star’s name on. Ha ha. The ugly, talks-too-much and laughs-too-loud sister is wearing the perfect, beautiful angel’s name tag.”
Santiago look stunned, which stuns me a little in return. “That’s why everyone thought that was funny? What assholes.”
I furrow my brow, ignoring the weird butterfly in my belly that gets frantic when Santiago comes closer, so close that I can smell the toothpaste he’s just used. I angle my body so it’s facing the window and not him. That’s a breeze whistling in, and it feels amazing on my arms, my chest, my face. I cough a little before I can say, “Well, why’d you do it, then?”
He sighs and crosses his arms. “You really want to know?”
Oh man. This can’t be good. But I nod anyway.
“That girl Chamomile Tea, or whatever, made those name tags for everyone. And she had me pass them out. She’d tell me a line about who they belonged to, ’cause I basically knew no one. I still can barely remember everyone’s names.” He sits back on the bed, facing me. Lord. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen Santiago nervous before.
“Anyway, she told me that those two tags were for Star and Moon. At first I thought she was joking, because, you know, your names.” I nod. Lots of people think they’re fake. He continues. “And she said, ‘These are for the two girls over there with all the pink luggage. Star is the hot one.’ ”
We stare at each other for a few moments before I furrow my eyebrows. “Is that the end of the story? I don’t get it.”
He laughs. “You’re seriously going to make me spell it out for you?”
“Apparently I need it spelled out for me.”
Santiago groans, puts his hand on his mouth, rubbing at the stubble there. “I thought you were the hot one, Moon.”
I feel like I’m not in my body for a moment, and then what he said slaps me right in the brain. “What?”
“I’m not saying your sister is ugly, so don’t yell at me about that, all right? I just—she’s not my type.”
How Moon Fuentez Fell in Love with the Universe Page 22