The Mask I Wear

Don't Bring the Party Down With You

            Mirabel could feel the silence hit her hard the moment she stepped up to provide a sense of comfort to her young cousin. Antonio was not going to take another step without her, so she swallowed her own fear and hesitancy in order to help him. It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. "C'mon, let's get you to your door." she smiled down at him, trying not to show him how this was affecting her. Each step felt like it was a mile apart and reminded her of her own failed ceremony until finally she left him at the top of the stairs next to their Abuela.

She couldn't stand alone on the other side of the door, so she tried to slide past Antonio's parents and her cousins with as little bumping as possible. She was unsurprised when they didn't even look at her after giving her a look of disapproval. Her Tia's look was the worst of them, enough to make her stomach hurt and she just barely held back a flinch. Behind them, she could barely make out the sight of Antonio and his excitement and wonder as his door came to life and glowed bright and full of magic.

As much as she loved Antonio and was overjoyed to see the magic working hard to give him his gift, she couldn't help the sharp cutting pain at watching her Abuelita looking at him with the same proud fondness she remembered. The last time she had bothered to look at her with such an expression was her own ceremony. After that, she looked at her with annoyance and irritation, no matter what she did Mirabel was never enough. No matter how much her mom and dad tried to convince her otherwise Mirabel knew the truth. She wasn't special. She never had been and she was sure that she never would be.

A smile plastered itself across her face as Antonio grinned and animatedly spoke to the animals that had come into the home. Her heart leapt in her throat as he turned to her, "Look! Mirabel! I can understand animals!" Little Antonio reached past his own parents and siblings to grab her arm and yank her back out to the spotlight. Her Sisterly instincts kicked in once more and she crouched down next to him while he excitedly introduced her to the closest animals while his family looked on with slightly hidden disapproving looks before looking between her and the door. "C'mon Mirabel! I want you to be the first person to come inside my new room with me!"

She didn't fight as he pulled her forward, the door opening to a grand rainforest being built before their very eyes. "Woah!" they exhaled together before animals flooded in from behind them, rats and birds and even more not even close to flooding the large expanse of a room. "Ah!" she let out a shriek when suddenly, Antonio had smiled in a conspiratorial way with a tiger and the pair were tossed through the air and onto his back. As the tiger raced, they laughed from the thrill. Mirabel and Antonio found themselves being thrown through the air, bouncing off of hammocks, and sliding down the wooden slides before finally landing back in front of the family.

"That was amazing Mirabel!" he squealed with delight and hugged her as tight as his little body could. Holding on to him she felt a warmness of inclusion in her heart. Antonio would never leave her behind. Her fears before his ceremony were silly. She was his favorite cousin, he'd said as much himself. As he let go, she found herself standing alone again as he rushed to his parents and siblings to share his delight with them as well and she amended her previous thought. Antonio would never leave her behind, at least not intentionally.

She was breaking the moment enough as it was, being so involved with Antonio's ceremony, so she let herself follow the ebb of the crowd and be gently pushed back out of the way as more people crowded into the room to celebrate. She was fine. She was. It was something she repeated to herself often, as though the more she said it the truer it would become. She would keep on saying it, and saying it, and saying it some more until it had become the truth.

When she was with Antonio, her smile tonight had actually become genuine, but now pushed to the side once more it became false and plastic and fake. No one would know the difference; she knew from experience. Her smile was rarely so exuberant and full and genuine. They all thought this plastic one was real, that she wasn't faking her happiness and demeanor in order to compensate for her crushing sadness and the disappointing reality that she just didn't fit in with her perfect magical family. It was this smile she now wore until, for the first time in a while, she felt it twitch and crack; watching her family gather together only steps away from where she stood without her to take a family picture.

            It was then that she fled the room to the coldness of the open air inside the courtyard of their beloved casita. Their beloved casita, which was cracking right before her very eyes as the rest of the village celebrated. "Casita?" she whispered before crying out in pain as the tile sharply cut into her hand. "Oh no... the magic is in danger, the house is cracking." she felt anxiety well up inside as she realized something else, "I can't ruin Antonio's celebration," Abuela had already warned her against being involved and this would surely cause a scene if she went back in there. Mirabel whispered to herself once more, "I'll wait here for Abuela to come out to tell her about the cracks." So, there she sat amongst broken shards, a deep bleeding cut in her palm from the roof tile that had cracked in her gentle touch. "She'll be out soon. Right, Dolores?" she murmured, thinking of how her cousin Dolores, with her super-hearing, had a tendency to report back to Abuela the second she heard anything of substance or value. "She will." she whispered again, "She will."