by Elena Armas
Now, I was pissed. That was probably why I opened my mouth without thinking. “That’s why you didn’t speak up during the meeting where all this was dumped on me and then some? Because I didn’t ask for help? Because I am too stubborn to ever accept it?”
Aaron’s head reared back just slightly; he was probably shocked by my admission.
I immediately regretted saying anything. I did. But it had somehow slipped out, as if the words had been squeezed out of me.
Something flashed through his otherwise serious expression. “I didn’t realize you wanted me to step in.”
Of course not. No one had. Not even Héctor, who I almost considered family. Didn’t I know that by now? Yes, I was more than familiar with the fact that when it came to these situations, there were two groups of people. Those who believed that not saying anything made them stand in neutral ground and those who picked a side. And more often than not, it was the wrong one. Sure, it wasn’t always as harmless as condescending and disrespectful comments like those Gerald had made. Sometimes, it was far, far worse than just that. I knew that. I had experienced that firsthand a long time ago.
I shook my head, pushing the memories away. “Would that have made a difference, Aaron? If I had asked you to intervene?” I asked him, as if he held the solution in his hands when he really didn’t. I watched him, feeling my heart race with trepidation. “Or if I told you I was exhausted from having to ask, would you step in then?”
Aaron studied me in silence, searching my face almost gingerly.
My cheeks heated up under his scrutiny, making me regret more and more that I had spoken.
“Forget I said anything, okay?” I averted my eyes, feeling disappointed and mad at myself for putting Aaron, out of all people, on the line when he didn’t owe me anything. Not a single thing. “I’m stuck with this anyway. It doesn’t matter how or why.” Or that it wouldn’t be the last time.
Aaron straightened, leaning his body toward me just the splinter of a hair. He took a deep breath as I seemed to hold mine, waiting for him to say whatever was brewing in his mind.
“You’ve never needed anyone to fight your battles, Catalina. That’s one of the things I respect the most about you.”
His words did something to my chest. Something that created a kind of pressure I wasn’t comfortable with.
Aaron never said stuff like that. Not to anyone and particularly not to me.
I opened my mouth to tell him that it didn’t matter, that I didn’t care, that we could just drop it, but he held up a hand, stopping me.
“On the other hand, I never pegged you for someone who would cower and not give their best when faced with a challenge. Whether it’s unfairly imposed or not,” he said, turning away and facing his laptop. “So, what’s it going to be?”
My jaw clamped closed.
I … I wasn’t cowering. I was not scared of this thing. I knew I could do it. I just … hell, I was just exhausted. It was hard, finding the motivation when something was this discouraging. “I’m not—”
“What is it going to be, Catalina?” His fingers moved on the laptop pad with practice. “Whining or working?”
“I am not whining,” I huffed.
Clark Kent look-alike jerk.
“Then, we work,” he fired back.
I took a good look at him, taking in how his jaw bunched up with determination. Perhaps some irritation too.
“There’s no we here,” I breathed out.
He shook his head, and I swore the ghost of a smile graced his lips for a fragment of a second.
“I swear to God …” He looked up, as if he were asking the heavens for patience. “You are taking the help. That’s it.” He peeked down at his watch, exhaling. “I don’t have the whole day to convince you.” Scowl back in place, he returned to the Aaron I knew. “We’ve wasted enough time already.”
This scowling Aaron I felt more comfortable with. He didn’t go around, saying stupid stuff, like that he respected me.
Now, it was my turn to scowl, as I was painfully aware of how I wasn’t kicking Aaron out of my office anymore.
“I’m as stubborn as you are,” he murmured, typing something in his laptop. “You know I am.”
Returning my attention to my computer screen, I decided to allow this strange truce to settle between us. Just for the sake of InTech’s reputation. For my own mental health, too, because he was driving me completely crazy.
We’d be two scowling idiots who would tolerate each other for an evening, I guessed.
“Fine. I’ll let you help me if you are so set on it,” I told him, trying not to focus on that warm ball of emotion forming in my belly.
One that felt a lot like gratitude.
He peeked at me quickly, something unreadable in his eyes. “We’ll need to start from scratch. Open a blank template.”
Looking away, I tried to focus on my screen.
We had been in silence for a couple of minutes when out of the corner of my eye, I perceived movement. Quickly after, he placed something on my desk. Right between us.
“Here,” I heard him say from my side.
Looking down, my gaze found something wrapped in wax paper. It was a square, about three or four inches long.
“What’s this?” I asked him, my eyes jumping to his profile.
“A granola bar,” he answered without looking at me, typing on his keyboard. “You are hungry. Eat it.”
I watched my hands move to the snack of their own accord. Once unwrapped, I inspected it closely. Homemade. It had to be, judging by the way roasted oats, dried fruits, and nuts were assembled together.
I heard Aaron’s long sigh. “If you ask me if it’s poisoned, I swear—”
“No,” I murmured.
Then, I shook my head, feeling that weird pressure in my chest again. So, I took the snack to my mouth, bit into it, and—holy granola bars. I moaned in delight.
“For Christ’s sake,” the man to my right muttered under his breath.
Gobbling all the nutty and sugary amazingness down, I shrugged. “Sorry, it was a moan-worthy bite.”
I watched his head shake as he was focused on the document on his screen. As I studied his profile, an odd and unfamiliar feeling settled in. And it had nothing to do with my appreciation for Aaron’s unexpected baking skills. It was something else, something warm and fuzzy that I had gotten a whiff of a few minutes earlier, but now, I wanted to bend my lips into a smile.
I was grateful.
Aaron Blackford, scowling Clark Kent look-alike, was in my office. Helping me and feeding me homemade snacks, and I was glad. Thankful even.
“Thank you.” The fugitive words escaped my lips.
He turned to face me, and I saw him relax for an instant. Then, his eyes jumped to my screen. He scoffed, “You still haven’t opened a blank template?”
“Oye.” The Spanish word slipped out. “You don’t have to be so bossy. Not everyone has super speed like you, Mr. Kent.”
His eyebrows rose, and he looked unimpressed. “Quite the contrary. Some even have the opposite superpower.”
“Ha.” I rolled my eyes. “Funny.”
His gaze shifted back to his screen. “Blank template. And make it today, if that’s not too much to ask.”
This was going to be a long night.
Chapter Four
“Mamá,” I said for the hundredth time. “Mamá, escúchame, por favor.”
It wouldn’t really matter if I asked her to please listen to me a thousand more times. That wasn’t something my mother excelled at, much less ever practiced. Listening was reserved for those whose vocal cords took breaks.
A long and loud sigh left my lips as my mother’s voice traveled from my phone to my ear in heavy spurts of Spanish.
“Madre,” I repeated.
“… so if you decide to go with that other dress—you know which one I’m talking about?” my mother asked in Spanish, not really giving me a window to answer. “The one that is all flimsy an
d silky and falls to your ankles. Well, as your mother, I need to tell you that it’s not flattering. I’m sorry, Lina, but you are short, and the cut of the dress makes you look even shorter. And green is not your color either. I don’t think that’s a color the madrina of the wedding should wear.”
“I know, Mamá. But I already told you—”
“You’ll look like a … frog but in heels.”
Gee, thanks, Mother.
I chuckled and shook my head. “It doesn’t matter because I’m wearing the red dress.”
A gasp came through the line. “Ay. Why didn’t you tell me this before? You let me talk for half an hour about all your other options.”
“I told you as soon as it came up. You just—”
“Well, I must have let myself get carried away, cariño.”
I opened my mouth to confirm that, but she didn’t give me the chance.
“Perfect,” she cut in. “That is such a beautiful dress, Lina. It’s classy and flirty.”
Flirty? What was that supposed to mean?
“Your boobs will be entering the banquet before you.”
Oh … oh. So, that was what she meant.
“But the color does really flatter your skin, body shape, and face. Not like the frog dress.”
“Thanks,” I muttered. “I don’t think I’ll ever wear green again.”
“Good,” she said far too quickly for taking it as a good-hearted comment. “So, what’s this boyfriend of yours going to wear? Are you going to match? Papá got a tie in the same shade of baby blue I’ll be wearing.”
A tiny groan slipped out of my mouth. “Mamá, you know that Isa hates that. She specifically told us not to match.”
My sister had been very insistent—no matching couples. I even had to fight her over not adding that instruction on the invites. It’d cost me a lot of energy and patience to convince her that she didn’t want to be that kind of bride.
“Well, given that I gave birth to the bride and that I already bought that tie for Papá, I think your sister is going to have to make an exception.”
Leave it to her to be stubborn. I certainly was, my sister probably even more, but our mother? The woman had created the term bullheaded as she opened her eyes to the world the day she was born.
“I think she’ll have to,” I admitted under my breath.
Reaching for my planner, I scribbled on my to-do list to call Isa to warn her.
“I have an online voucher you can use, I think,” Mamá commented while I unlocked my laptop and absently checked my inbox. “Although maybe it does not work outside Spain. But it should, shouldn’t it? You are my daughter, and you should be able to use my vouchers, no matter where you are in the world. Isn’t that what the internet is supposed to be for?”
I clicked on an email notification for a new series meeting I had received. “Yeah, sure.” A quick scan of the contents of the description told me I should have probably waited for my mother to hang up before opening it.
“Yeah, sure, the internet is for that? Or yeah, sure, you’ll use my voucher?”
I leaned back on my seat, reading through the information attached.
“Lina?”
What are we even talking about? “Yes, Mamá.”
“Well, you’ll have to check the voucher yourself; you know I am not good with this internet thing.”
“Of course,” I said, still not knowing what I was agreeing to.
“Unless he has a tie already?”
He.
All my attention returned to the conversation.
“Does he?” she insisted when I didn’t answer. “Your new boyfriend.”
Small beads of sweat formed on my forehead at the prospect of discussing this.
Him.
The boyfriend I didn’t have but my family believed I did.
Because I had told them.
Lied to them.
All of a sudden, my lips were magically sewn together. I waited for my mother to conveniently change the topic in that chaotic and speedy way she always did while my mind went on a panicky frenzy.
What am I supposed to say anyway? No, Mamá. He can’t have a tie because he doesn’t even exist. I made him up, you see. All in an attempt to look a little less pathetic and lonely.
Perhaps I could hang up. Or pretend to be busy and terminate the call. But that would fill me with remorse, and frankly, I didn’t think I was able to take on any more of that. Also, my mother wasn’t stupid.
She’d know something was up.
This was the woman whose womb I had come out of.
More seconds ticked away as nothing came out of my mouth, and I couldn’t believe that for the first time in probably ever, the Martín matriarch was waiting for my answer in silence.
Shit.
A few more seconds ticked away.
Shit, shit, shit.
Confess, a little voice in my head said. But I shook my head, focusing on one of the little droplets of sweat trailing down my clammy back.
“Lina?” she finally said, her voice unsure. Worried. “Did something happen?”
I was a horrible, lying human being who had unquestionably put that concern I could hear in her voice.
“No …” Clearing my throat, I ignored the heaviness that felt a lot like shame settle in my stomach. “I’m okay.”
I heard her sigh. It was one of those sighs that smacked into you. Making me feel bad about myself. As if I could see her looking at me with eyes filled with defeat and a little sorrow, shaking her head. I hated it.
“Lina, you know you can talk to me if something happened.”
My guilt deepened, souring my stomach. I felt awful. Stupid too. But what could I even do besides keep lying or coming clean?
“Did you guys break up? You know, it would make sense because you have never talked about him before. Not until the other day at least.” There was a pause, in which I could hear my heart drumming in my ears. “Your cousin Charo said something yesterday, you know.”
Of course Charo knew. Anything Mamá knew, the rest of the family knew.
“So, she said that,” she continued when I didn’t say anything, “you don’t have any photos of him on Facebook.”
I closed my eyes.
“Nobody posts anything on Facebook anymore, Mamá,” I told her in a weak voice while I kept battling with myself.
“And Prinstanam? Whatever it is that you young people use now. No photos there either.”
I could picture Charo scouting all my social profiles, searching for this imaginary man and rubbing her hands when she hadn’t found any.
“Charo said that if it’s not Prinstanam official, then it’s not serious.”
My heartbeat hammered louder in my chest. “It’s called Instagram.”
“Fine.” She sighed again. “But if you broke up with him or if he ended things—I don’t care who did what—you can talk to us about it. To Papá and to me. I know how much you have struggled with this dating thing ever since … you know, since Daniel.”
That last comment was a knife to the chest. It turned that heavy sensation into something ugly and painful. Something that made me think of the reason why I’d lied, why I struggled—as my mother had put it—and why I was in this predicament in the first place.
“You have never brought anybody home in all these years you’ve been away. Never talked about a man you were seeing. And never talked about this one before you told us you were dating him and that you’d bring him to the wedding. So, if you are alone again …”
A very familiar and very sharp pang pierced my chest at her words.
“That’s okay.”
Is it?
If it was really okay, I could tell my mother. I had the chance to end this lying circus, bury all that regret somewhere deep and dark, and breathe. I could tell her that, yes, I was no longer in a relationship, and consequently, I was no longer taking my—nonexistent—boyfriend home. That I’d attend the wedding alone. And that it was okay.
&nbs
p; She had said it herself. And maybe she was right. I just needed to believe she was.
Taking a deep breath, I felt a surge of courage and made up my mind.
I’ll come clean.
Attending alone wouldn’t be fun. The pity looks and whispers of a past I didn’t want to think of would certainly suck. And that was putting it lightly. But I had no options.
Aaron’s scowling face popped up in my mind. Unannounced. Definitely unwelcome.
No. I kicked it out.
He hadn’t even mentioned it again since Monday. It had been four days. Not that if he had, it would have changed anything. I was on my own. But I had no reason to believe he had been serious.
And it was okay; Mamá had said so.
I opened my mouth to follow up with my decision of growing the hell up and to stop acting like a compulsive liar for something I should have the maturity to face alone, but of course, luck wasn’t on my side. Because my mother’s next words immediately killed whatever I was about to say.
“You know”—the way her voice sounded should have tipped me on what was about to come—“every person is different. We all have our own pace to put back together our lives after going through something like that. Some people need more time than others. And if you haven’t managed to get there yet, then there’s nothing to be ashamed of. Daniel is engaged while you are not. But that isn’t important. You can come to the wedding alone, Lina.”
My stomach dropped to my feet at the thought.
“I’m not saying Daniel needed to put his life back together in the first place because, well, he jumped off that boat, unscathed.”
And wasn’t that the damn truth? Something that, on top of everything, would make things even worse. He had merrily continued his life while I had … I had … gotten stuck. And everybody there would know. Every single person attending that wedding would know.
As if reading my mind, my mother uttered my thoughts, “Everybody knows, cariño. And everybody understands. You went through a lot.”
Everybody understands?
No, she was wrong. Everybody thought they understood. Nobody did. They didn’t realize that all those pobrecita, poor little Linas, accompanied by all those pitiful looks and nods, as if they got why I had been scarred and not able to find somebody else, were the reasons why I had lied to my family. Why I wanted to crawl out of my skin at the prospect of showing up alone when Daniel—my first love, my ex, the groom’s brother and best man—being there with his fiancée would only reinforce their assumptions of me.