Breathin'

Chapter One

She couldn't remember a moment where she was in charge of her own destiny.

Belen really tried to wrack her brain for a moment where she felt like she was making a decision for herself but the only thing she came up with was when she was six. Her dad took her to an ice cream shop a couple blocks away from their house.

Those were the good old days.

The days where everything was happy and free of all the other ridiculousness and drama her life seemed to encompass.

Her hand was so small in her father's hand as they crossed the street and headed towards the ice cream shop. Belen still remembered the smell of the ocean and the humidity of the hot Florida air against her skin and through her hair. Her mother had worked extra hard to brush her hair free of all the tangles. Whenever the humidity was thick like that her hair was impossible to manage. A con of having Hispanic hair as her Abuela always used to say.

Her father told her that she could have any ice cream flavor she wanted. Belen stood on her tippy toes as she looked over all the different ice cream flavors. Her hands were pressed against the glass which caused her father to scold her, informing her that someone would have to work extra hard at the end of the day to clean the glass if she did that.

Her father was always like that.

Kind and thoughtful.

It was what she loved most about him.

Belen took a considerable amount of time deciding on what flavor she wanted but eventually, she picked birthday cake. There was something about the flavor of cake mix that Belen always loved. Maybe it reminded her of licking the bowl clean of the leftover cake mix her grandmother used to bake cakes. It was never anything fancy. The cheap store brand of the boxed cake mix but Belen always savored the flavor of the cake mix whenever her grandmother let her lick the spoon.

Maybe it wasn't even the flavor she loved.

Maybe it was just the memory.

Belen didn't know but she remembered sitting there in ice cream shop with her father on a hot summer day in Miami as she devoured her birthday cake ice cream and he ate his bubblegum flavored one which always turned his tongue blue for an hour or so. He would laugh at her as she managed to get ice cream all over her face although he would hastily clean her up before they left. Her father worried about sending her mother into a panic. Her mother always panicked over the littlest things, after all.

Now that Belen was a twenty-three-year-old woman, she was quick to realize that time in her life was the only time where she actually made her own decision. Although those frequent trips to the ice cream shop soon ended after her father died when she was nine. The happy times went with him and Belen honestly couldn't ever remember being as happy as she had been back then.

"Belen, have you gone over the video concept with the director yet?" An all too familiar voice asked her and Belen flinched as she was snapped out of her thoughts.

She glanced up from her phone, which she had been staring blankly at for the past half an hour, and looked at her mother who was staring at her expectantly. There was hardly any other way her mom looked at her. Things used to be different before her father died but it seemed as though his death changed them both and not for the better.

"Not yet," Belen said quietly, not really having a good excuse to give her mother. An annoyed look came over her mother's face as she sighed heavily.

"Belen, we're due to shoot the video in just three weeks. 'Into You' is going to be a big hit single for you so this video needs to get done," Her mom lectured her as always and Belen didn't even attempt to argue with her because she never argued with her mother. "We don't even have a male lead for the video."