by Shay Bravo
“Nothing gets someone going like someone you can’t have,” he’d said, grabbing a small plate of appetizers being passed around.
“That’s kind of dumb, but sure if you say so,” I’d replied. It was my first big thing after the accident; my arm was still in a sling and would be until I graduated, but my dress was sleeveless, and that helped me out.
After the party we went over to one of his friend’s houses and amid the teenaged cheering, we kissed briefly. Something along the lines of us being friends for so long not making sense if we weren’t attracted to each other, but I didn’t feel anything. I was surprised, a lot of rom-com movies told me that that shouldn’t have happened, that I should have realized I was secretly in love with my best friend, but I wasn’t.
Turns out he felt the exact same way.
“It’s different,” he’d said, a couple of days later. “It’s not like I feel like we should date, it’s not like I see you as more or less of a friend because of it.”
When I kissed Tyler it was nice—I felt cared for and there were feelings involved. Kissing my best friend was different. There were no butterflies or adrenaline. It was only a kiss, and we shared cheek kisses quite often as greetings. It was as if we had gone for a simple hello and missed, only to laugh about it later.
We were hanging out on the balcony of his place, our feet dangling three floors away from the ground. “No offense, I could not imagine dating you, but I know I want you there in the future,” I’d said.
“Exactly.”
“So, we’re fine?”
“Yeah, Sol, we’ll always be fine.”
And we have been ever since. Whenever we need a date for events like family weddings, we’re there for each other. Diane says we’re technically friends with benefits.
“Nonsexual benefits, mind you,” she assured me as soon as I protested. “You guys do what normal friends do, but he’s also there at three a.m. bringing you ice cream because you watched The Lion King again and are crying. You would do the same for him. That’s true friendship with benefits.”
We meet Diane and Natalie at Liam’s Dinner, a new, in-with-the-kids-but-with-an-older-kick restaurant that opened up a couple of months ago, and which I’d been eyeing since word got around that the shakes and fries were good. The floors are black tiles, and the booths and chairs a cherry red to contrast with the white countertops and teal-blue walls. “Put Your Head on My Shoulder” by Paul Anka plays overhead as Carlos and I walk into the restaurant.
“You guys made it.” Diane gets up, her girlfriend following. Natalie is shorter than me by about a head, and has the type of pixie haircut I could never maintain without looking like a crazy person. She also seems to be the opposite of Diane, from their character to their looks. It’s cute, how they steal glances, giggle, and touch whenever they can.
After everything that’s been happening with Ethan, I’ve begun to wonder if I can go through something like that again. With what happened with my mom, there are things that are way more important than a relationship right now, but I still think about it from time to time.
“Diane says you’re a history major,” Natalie says, dipping one of her fries into her milk shake.
I nod.
“That’s supercool. What’s your favorite time period?”
“That’s a tricky question. I don’t think I can say I have a favorite time period per se. Things have always been hard for women and people of color. I’m not sure there is an ideal era that I would like to live in. When I study history, I ask myself, ‘What did we do wrong in the past? Why are we still making the same mistakes today? How can we make it better in the future?’”
Natalie’s eyes widen as she turns to Diane. “Wow.”
“Told you she goes off.” Diane raises her milk shake to me.
“Well, I’m glad I got to meet the friend Diane speaks about so much.” Natalie smiles, and I can see she means it. It makes me glad that my friend talks a lot about me when I feel like there’s not a lot to say about myself.
“She’s spoken a lot about you too,” I reply as Carlos gets back to our table with two drinks. He hands me one and I give him a quick thanks as he sits down next to me.
Diane looks away but I can tell she’s a bit embarrassed by the previous comment.
“That’s good.” Natalie moves a hand through her hair. “Has she told you about all the movies she wants me to watch?”
“Don’t even get me started.”
“You both are simply not educated in the art of cinema, right, Carlos?” Diane says, pointing at him.
“That’s right,” he agrees, holding up his plastic cup so that Diane can clink it with her milk-shake glass.
“They’re jealous because we’re good students who don’t have the time to watch movies all the time, don’t listen to them.” I turn to Natalie, who laughs.
“I mean, I’m not sure I’m a good student, I mostly spend a lot of time on my phone and napping,” she replies. Her statement resonates in my soul.
“We all do, don’t worry, girl, we all secretly do.” Diane drapes her arm around Natalie’s neck.
“Not so secretly.” She rests her head on Diane’s shoulder.
The nice thing about meeting your friend’s significant other is that at the very least you can complain about them while they are sitting right in front of you. While that sounds like a mean thing to do, it does bring out the human aspects of a starting relationship—if they can get along with your friends and your people really like the person you’re talking to, then it all should be smooth sailing from there. Most of the time.
“She seems nice,” Carlos says as he drives me back to my place. I have reclined my seat so I’m nearly lying down, lo-fi music playing in the background as I watch the streetlights pass by outside the window.
Carlos’s car is an old Mustang he and his dad put back together. It’s a Marlboro red, and that’s the last thing I remember because I don’t pay much attention to cars unless there’s a specific word or feature that stands out on its own.
“She does. I think they work nicely together.”
“Like you and Ethan?”
“Oh shut up.”
“I heard you guys had fun last night.” With a quick pull of the lever, I am sitting back up and glaring at him, ready to give him a piece of my mind.
“Fuck that, I was scared for my life. We nearly got caught.”
“In the act?”
I slap his shoulder. We’re close to the college campus, and the various fast food restaurants splatter neon lights across his windshield.
“Ouch, Sol! I’m driving.”
“Well, you said something stupid.” Looking away from him, I watch the sidewalks snaking across the different apartment complexes dedicated to the students who want to live nearby. “I mean, I like him, and I guess you could say he likes me. I don’t know what we have now.”
“Have you thought of telling him?”
“What? No. You think I’m crazy?”
“I don’t think you’re crazy for liking him. I think you’ve been spending a lot of time with this guy and that you’ve gotten attached.” He puts his blinker on to merge onto Thirteenth Street, which feeds into the larger neighborhoods in town, including mine and the Winstons’.
“I don’t have time for a relationship. You know what I have time for? School, work, the club, my cat, and my family. I don’t need a relationship.”
“I know you’re a strong independent woman, but I saw you by the pool. Maybe you could make something out of it. Not something serious, but something.” Without taking his eyes off the road, he reaches over with his left hand and pats the top of my head, which is nice until he digs his fingers down and messes it up, the way Dad often likes to do.
“You’re so fastidioso!”
He laughs, and while he is as annoying as he can be, I wo
uldn’t exchange this idiot for anyone else in the world.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The first rule of the history club should be: do not trust the club.
It’s six in the morning on a Tuesday, the blinds in my room are closed, and Michi is sleeping peacefully by my feet. My slumber would have been undisrupted had it not been for the constant vibration of my phone next to my pillow. With a yawn, I take my phone in my hand and cringe at the amount of light it expels once the screen has been awoken. Reading the message makes me squint in disbelief at the normalcy of it.
Anna: Morning members :D I want to remind all of you that this upcoming weekend there’ll be an opportunity to join the WCC festival of the arts! We’ll be selling some goodies and spreading the word about the club. If you’d like to get a couple of community hours make sure to message me so I can add you to the roster (:
My first instinct is to message her “Bruh wtf” because she never mentioned us being a part of the festival, but my exhaustion wins and I go back to sleep.
The next time I wake up it’s because my cat is on top of my chest, pawing at my face.
“Michi, I’m trying to sleep.” I push her off but this only makes her meow harder. “I’m not feeding you, go away.”
That doesn’t appease her.
“Fine, fine.” The fact that I’m talking to my cat doesn’t make me question my sanity, but getting up at eight in the morning surely does. I pick her up before marching out of my room and into the kitchen, where Dad is stirring a cup of coffee.
“¿Te caiste de la cama?”
“No, I didn’t fall from my bed, this one wouldn’t shut up.” I set Michi down in front of her bowl and grab a can of food from one of the lower cabinets. To be completely honest, I don’t know what kind of cat Michi is. She was a birthday gift nearly four years ago from my parents. Now she’s a bit round and lazy, but I love her, and she is like my child. When I was growing up in the old house, I would ask for an indoor cat but Dad would refuse because he didn’t want animals inside the house. Even when they gave her to me he sternly told me she was only allowed to be at home because she was a kitten.
Michi has never stepped a paw outside unless it’s for a vet visit, begrudgingly going on a harness walk, or moving into the new apartment.
“You should put her on a diet.” Dad still thinks the outdoors is a perfect place for a cat to roam and be free, but Michi has grown on him. Besides, I really wanted an indoor cat, one to cuddle and buy a cat tree for—all those things that give me an idea of what my life will be like when I’m eighty and my only companions are my thirty-eight cats.
“Pa, don’t say that! She’s perfect.” Michi purrs slightly when I pat her back, or maybe it’s more of a growl because she’s trying to eat. I smile and lean against the counter, trying to undo the knot my braid became during the night. “You didn’t go to work today?”
“New job site. They’re doing some paperwork and asked the workers to come around nine.” He takes a sip from his coffee, bushy eyebrows shooting up. “Your ma says you haven’t called her in a couple of days, is everything okay?”
If there is anyone on this planet who would sense something is wrong with me it would be her, even though she lives thousands of miles away. Some moms are faster than Russian hackers.
“Everything is all right, school has just been extra tiring recently, and I’ve been busy with club . . . activities.” I try not to look guilty. “I’ll call her later today once I come back from class.”
“Don’t stress out too much, corazón, it’s not worth risking your health. You know no matter how hard school gets or how busy life seems, we’re always here to talk.”
Oh crap, there it is, the line parents use to make you feel like crying and like you are a disappointment.
I nod as he walks by and pats my head.
“You work too hard.” He yawns.
“I learned it from you and Mom.”
Dad laughs. “I know we always asked you for the best grades and for you to be well behaved when you were little. Though sometimes I feel like we might have asked you too much and not given you enough . . . I wish your mom was still here, and I know a father is not the same thing as a mother—”
“Dad, you try, and she’s only a phone call away. I’m grateful for all you do. Aside from having Mom here with us, I would change nothing about our family.”
I know that he partially blames himself for meeting her in the first place, because if she had married a citizen, she would already have papers. If he had started his citizenship application sooner, he would be a citizen and wouldn’t have to wait for me to be over twenty-one to fix her citizenship. If only she had worked in a program that allowed her to apply for a green card, or if only she had been a Dreamer.
If only.
My grandmother used to hate my dad’s guts because he was undocumented, which meant her daughter wouldn’t be able to fix her papers until her children were old enough to petition for her or she left the country. That meant she was always at risk. Then he got his residency and it was my mom alone, in danger.
But if they hadn’t met, I wouldn’t be here.
Only a couple of days into February things around school have simmered down a lot compared to the last couple of weeks. Students have more of a grip on what’s going on in their classes, so more people have started to skip said classes, unless attendance is mandatory. Being that I work for the school and spend the majority of my time on campus, I manage to be both forced to go to every one of my classes and still manage to be running late to all of them.
“Are we doing it?” Ethan says.
“Excuse you?” I stop in my tracks in the middle of the student path toward the square. I had been pushing my bike next to me to avoid hitting any students who were walking, and had no idea anyone was following me. He was clearly not here a moment ago, and yet his tall butt has appeared out of nowhere.
He pauses and gets really close to me, way closer than he usually does. He’s wearing his denim jacket with a marine hoodie underneath. The fabric is cold against the inner skin of my arm when he hooks his elbow with mine.
“Are we going to do it?” he whispers.
“Oh! You mean the fund-raiser.” I elbow his side, putting some distance between the two of us while appreciating the mildly pained face he makes. It’s funny that he thought he could make me blush. “I’m not against doing it, but I’m pretty well set up with the community hours I get from the archive.”
“Are you sure you want to go there after what we did that night?”
I pause. He’s hiding his hands in his hoodie’s pockets, and has a slight grin on his face.
“Are you sexualizing us breaking into the archive and ringing the bell? Because that’s some weird-ass kink you got there.” I continue walking, only catching his laugh as he follows close behind. Then, pausing for a moment, I add, “Who knows, maybe some people fetishize breaking the law or breaking into weird places to do it. Wouldn’t be the weirdest thing I’ve heard.”
“You realize you took my little comments and shot them off into the stratosphere, right?” We keep a calm pace, avoiding bumping into people as we round the fountain in the middle of the square. “But, I mean, there’s a fetish for everyone.”
“Oh really, Winston?”
“Soledad, we’re not having a weird fetish conversation in the middle of the day at school.”
“Hey, you started it.”
“Did not.”
“Did too.”
“Did not.”
“What you’re trying to say is that you have a bunch of weird fetishes you’re now too embarrassed to bring up.” I wink. “All right, I see you.”
Ethan clears his throat. I’ll take that as a win on my side for who was trying to embarrass the other one in public. He is surely more playful today, which is nice to see.
“Anyway,
maybe you’ll want to stay clear of the archive for a week or so, in case they have some of the footage laying around or are still investigating what happened with the lights.”
He’s not wrong, as usual.
“Besides, I figured you and Carlos would be the first ones to volunteer for community hours.”
“No, I think he’s going to be with an engineering association. He’s in a bunch of groups. He was surprised that we were going to attend the festival in the first place.” When I called him before I got to school, he had yet to read Anna’s text.
I turn my bike and cross the grass to where one of the overly used bike racks is placed in front of the Liberal Arts Building. There’s a bright-red bike laying on the ground, no chain. Someone must have been running late to class, like I am. “If you’re asking whether I still plan on attending without Carlos, the answer is maybe. But if you want to volunteer with me, I’m down.”
The way Ethan looks at me when he smiles makes me want to punch a wall. He has no right to make me feel this way. Crushes in the twenty-first century: you either make out on the first day you meet or don’t say a word about your attraction until both of you are dead and buried.
“Awesome, then I’ll see you later, Sol.” He gives a quick wave and walks away from my spot on the lush grass. I can’t take my eyes away from him until enough people have walked between us that it’s like he disappears.
As I stand there, under the February California sun, I come to the conclusion that I like Ethan Winston.
Throwing my shirt across the room, I put my hair into a ponytail and stare at my reflection in my mirror. It’s a mess, my room and my life. In the corner of the mirror is a picture of Mom and Dad with me when I was about six. Next to it is a picture of me and Diane, and one of me and Carlos. I look happy in all of them.
Sighing, I turn away and grab a pajama shirt, unlock my phone, and find my WhatsApp icon. My aunts and uncles on my dad’s side swear by this app, and once Mom moved to Mexico, it seemed like the best option for long distance communication. When my parents were young, they decided to move to California after my father’s friend told him about the construction business here. My maternal grandmother was not happy about it, and the family drama that ensued ended with my mother cutting ties with her parents and seldom talking to her brother. Dad has two sisters in Texas still, and while he gets along with his family, they don’t really see the need to see each other very often.