Certain Things » harlena

PROLOGUE

[E] MY mother was a very headstrong woman, and the strongest one I'd ever met, so it was no surprise to me the day I came home from school in my plaid skirt and cardigan to find her yelling at my dad and throwing his clothes out front for everyone to see. At first, I'd thought someone had broken into our homes due to the crowd that people had formed in the predominantly latinx neighborhood, but instead I came to find out the fact that my father was cheating on my mother with a man that he worked with.

I would've much preferred to have been robbed.

I was so embarrassed, not because my father was gay, but because he solely cheated on my mom as if he was unhappy with his life. My eleven year-old self blamed herself for everything that happened. My mom comforted me, tried to make me feel better, but I wouldn't have any of it. My parents weren't together anymore, and their love had been broken.

Eventually, my mom's hours at the nursing home were not enough to pay for mortgage, so we had to leave the community in which I was raised to live with my aunt Matilda for a little while. That was, until she got pregnant and kicked us out as well, in the "nicest way possible" as she tried to put it. I was fourteen at the time, my first year of high school, and I had to move to another school halfway. Mom managed to find a small apartment with one room, where we shared beds, and I was fine with it at first but I began wanting to have privacy, I started dating, and I had my first boyfriend. I wanted to have my own room. But I knew my mom was working hard enough as it was, so I decided to get a job in a bookstore, a space that I could call my own in my break hours or when I didn't have to work my shift. It was refreshing to find something new to do, to say the least.

On Wednesday, I was walking home from my normal shift, wearing a quirky grey shirt that said 'I like big books and I cannot lie' in white print. It was a present from my dad last year, when I went to visit him in his new apartment. He wanted to show me that it was a place where I could drop by anytime and stay over if I wanted to. He was trying really hard, and I appreciated that a lot, but seven years later and it still hurt to know that he had cheated on my mom. It would've been easier to tell her he was gay and was in love with someone else. My mother handled sadness better than she handled anger.

I did too.

I never ended up sleeping there— I didn't want to leave my mom; I knew she would feel lonely, but I did promise him that I was going to go to his wedding next spring in a couple of months.

I was texting him when I got home from work, chuckling at a meme he had sent me about Adam's reaction when Eve took a bite of the apple, and then I removed my keys from my bag and unlocked the door. I had to shove my shoulder violently against the door to get it to pry open, and then I had to push at it in order for it to open fully. It was once annoying but it's progressed into a habit. I stepped inside the apartment, glancing to the right to see no one in the small living room, and then to the left to find a steaming plate of something covered in aluminum foil on the counter of the even smaller kitchen. I assumed mom was in the room, so I headed there instead and found her looking out the window talking on the phone, her short curly hair tied up into a bun and her curvy body hidden underneath a white cotton robe. She only glanced at me for a quarter of a second, and we shared a brief wave before I dropped my bag on the bed and left the room, closing the door behind me in the process. I walked to the kitchen and removed the foil from the plate to reveal a hot plate of cocido madrileño, which contained all kinds of meat with broth, vegetables and beans. It was my ultimate favorite for the cooler weather of early October.

For a while, I sat in front of our small TV clueless of the conversation that my mom was having on the other side of the wall, not knowing that it would be a life-changing decision. I was hooked on a local news channel with an empty plate next to me the moment my mother stepped out of the kitchen with a wide smile on her face. She walked over and grabbed the remote from my hand, turning the TV off and ignoring my protesting remarks.

"Nos vamos a mudar," She said, smiling so wide that I wondered if it hurt. "Por fin." We're moving/Finally.

I sat up a little straighter, the TV show gone from my head. "Qué?" What?

"I got a job with a rich British-American family," She said in her heavy Spanish accent. "I need to practice my English."

I was a little confused, my eyebrows furrowed and my face turned into a frown. Wouldn't we need to wait for her to receive the money before we started thinking about moving? "Do they pay you before you work or something? No entiendo." I don't understand.

"Voy a trabajar como su ama de casa," She explained. "Y les pregunté si podías quedarte también y dijeron que si!" I'm going to be working as a maid/And I asked them if you can stay there too and they said yes.

The idea of moving away was not very thrilling, especially because of the fact that I was pretty sure that I was still going to share a room with my mother, but she looked so excited that I couldn't help but smile and prevent her from seeing my hesitation. If she was this happy, it meant that she was going to make more money than she did at the nursing home, and since we wouldn't have to pay rent... maybe that meant that I had a chance to go to college. But I didn't want to get my hopes up.

"When are we moving?" I asked.

"In two weeks, since I still need to inform my job. And I'm going to sell all this furniture," She gestured around the room. "And all that money is going to go for your education."

I grinned. "Gracias, ma."

"Mas te vale. I'm doing all of this for you." You better.

I chuckled. "I know."

She moved to sit next to me. "How was your work?"

"Fun," I shrugged. "But then boring."

She laughed. "I don't understand your obsession with books. En serio." Seriously.

"I got that from dad," As soon as I said it, I wanted to take it back. He wasn't someone who was mentioned much at this apartment, mostly because my mother hated to think about the affair. She felt fooled and unwanted no matter how much I tried to convince her that she was the strongest woman I knew— that strength didn't mean happy, it meant that you can prevail and succeed even when your insides are broken. I'd been a little wary about boys since the affair, I had figured that if my father had cheated on my mom then any man could cheat on me, which is why I'd only gone on dates, and only had one boyfriend. "Perdon." Sorry.

"Ya," She shook her head. "No more pity on me, Elena."

"Okay," I muttered, before breaking out into a smile. "Want to start a new novela?"

"No," At my frown, she chuckled. "If I start one now I won't be able to finish it since I'm going to be working. I'm not allowed to watch TV. But if you want we can maybe watch it on the internet."

"No you're right," I sighed. "You're going to be really busy."

I would too, but I didn't know that yet.

🌿🌹🌿🌹🌿🌹🌿🌹🌿🌹🌿

Things you will find in this book;

romance

typos

love-making

clichés

mistakes

betrayal

sadness

happiness

an idea that was sculpted in the mind of a girl who is obsessed with love.

© 2017 Evelyn Cruz
All Rights Reserved.

NOV. 10, 2017
(Updates every Tuesday&Thursday)