I can remain unblinking for forty-five seconds. Unlucky for me, that isn’t the kind of battle we’re waging.
Internally, I debate. Tell him, don’t tell him.
Just say the name!
Don’t say it.
He’s going to find out. Plus, he said he wouldn’t tell Buzz.
But what if he gets ahold of Mateo before I do?
Then what?
Then what do I do?
Everything is a disaster…
“True.” He tries again, softly. “It’s my job to protect you.”
Ha! “It’s too late for that.”
My words wound him; I can see it in his eyes.
“Why won’t you let me help you?”
“You are helping me! I am so glad to be here, you have no idea.”
“That’s not what I meant. I want to help you, like—go to the doctor with you and shit. Or Chandler can go with you, I don’t know. Buy diapers and stuff.”
Now he sounds like Molly, using like and stuff, stumbling on his thoughts.
“Molly came with me to the doctor. I went today.” I go to my purse on the desk near the laundry room and fumble around for the ultrasound pictures the technician took, holding them out for my brother to see.
Gingerly he takes them as if the papers are glass, as if he might break them, blinking down at the black and white images, my name WALLACE, TRUE in small print, up in the left-hand corner.
He blinks again, lashes fluttering.
Wet.
“Tripp, are you crying?”
He’s not—he can’t be.
“No.” He denies it like most men would.
But he is.
My brother is crying over my ultrasound photos, and it’s breaking my heart.
And if I wait much longer to tell Mateo, it’s going to be his heart breaking, too. Then mine all over again.
“I love you, True,” he croaks. “I just want you to be happy.”
“I am happy.”
I’m not happy, not really—but I want to be, someday.
I know what I have to do.
I just have to figure out a way to do it.
Six
Mateo
“So this girl…”
Ugh, here we go again.
Gloria has not let this subject go; she knows I’m interested in someone and she’s latched onto it like a barnacle on the bottom of a boat. Like she’s a matchmaker and it’s her job to see me happy and settled down with lots of Espinoza babies to add to la familia.
“Please don’t start, Glory. I have a headache.” My head flops to the headrest on my big, worn couch.
She snorts. “You always say that when you’re trying to get the attention off you and onto something else.”
“I do?”
“Sí, you do.” Her laughter is light and easy, good-natured because that’s how my youngest sister is. “Also, don’t be mad, but…”
I sit up straighter on my couch, head coming off the back, eyes focusing on Gloria. She’s up to something; I can feel it.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing?”
Little sisters are the worst.
And big sisters, and middle sisters.
“The girls are coming over.”
“What girls?”
“What girls, he says.” Gloria giggles. “Cami, Mari, Ana…”
The rest of our sisters? WHY?
“Ugh, why would you invite them over? Dammit, I was enjoying my peace and quiet.”
“I think you need cheering up.”
That makes me laugh. The last thing that’s going to cheer me up is my freaking sisters coming to my condo and getting deeper into my business than they already are. Camila will probably rearrange my kitchen drawers, Mariana will clean, Ana will sit on her phone and make snide comments.
“Sophia, too?”
“No, one of the kids has guitar lessons and the other one has basketball. It’s her night to be home with Dalia.”
Dalia is the actual baby of the family, just three years old.
“Well I don’t want to be harassed about my personal life tonight. I want to relax.”
“Ha! When does that ever happen?”
My shoulders sag. “Never.”
Glory busies herself in my kitchen opening the cartons of takeout she ordered and had delivered to my place, readying the food for our older sisters.
“If anyone asks about that Lillian from Aunt Zoila’s party, I’m going to lose it.”
“No one is going to ask—trust me, we all realized she wasn’t your type the second she walked in. Even Mami admitted it was a terrible match.”
Our mother had her say? “Mom didn’t like a schoolteacher? Why?”
Glory is folding napkins and stacking them neatly next to the chicken wings in a large cardboard container. “Thought she seemed boring. Not enough spunk.”
That’s true. That chick did seem boring.
“Anyone marrying into this family better have a serious set of lady balls,” I declare.
That makes my baby sister laugh.
Which isn’t hard to do—Glory laughs at some pretty stupid shit that comes out of my mouth.
“I feel like you have someone you can’t get off your mind and that’s making it impossible for you to date right now.”
Ding-ding-ding—winner, winner, chicken dinner!
She’s right.
I met True and I have no desire to meet anyone else, and I haven’t the fucking faintest clue why. We spent one night together; it makes no sense why I want to spend a lifetime with her.