Page 63 of Crash & Burn

“That’s too bad,” I say with an exaggerated sigh. “I guess I’ll eat it.”

I can tell she is about to break, so I change tactics and resort to begging. “Please talk to me, sunshine.”

She lets out a sigh, and I know I’ve won. “You’re such a dick,” she says as she reaches towards me to take the candy bar from my hand, and she gives me the first smile I have had in hours.

Is it possible to be addicted to someone’s smile?

Because I think I will do anything and everything to see Mia smile.

It is a drug, and I need my fix.

And I don’t think I’ll ever get enough.

“Nope, not until you hear me out.”

“Are you really using a Kit Kat to make me have this conversation with you?”

“I most certainly am.”

“You’re lucky I can’t say no to a Kit Kat.”

I want to say that I’m the lucky one, that the tension has dissolved enough for her to let me talk to her again, but I don’t. Instead, I tell her, “I’m sorry about what I said. About you just being Mateo’s little sister. I don’t want you to think that is all you are to me.”

She nods, so I continue. “You were right. I was the one reading into all of this, so I don’t want you to think you did anything wrong because you didn’t.” I was the one who caught feelings where I shouldn’t have, and I am going to be the one who has to suffer in silence, settling for a friendship that is going to take all of me to uphold. Not because it is hard to be friends with Mia, but because it is hard to not want more. “I really want us to be friends. You get me in a way no one else does, and I feel like you see me for more than just the guy who is always smiling or making sure everyone is having a good time.”

I have to stop myself from admitting that she is the first person to seemein I don’t know how long, and it is so fucking confusing. I don’t know why I want to tell her everything I’ve kept hidden or why she makes me want to feel everything I’ve buried.

But what I want doesn’t matter.

What matters is keeping Mia the only way I can.

“So, what do you say? Friends?” I hand her the Kit Kat, and she takes it. A few moments pass, and she seems to be very interested in the wrapper of the candy bar. She doesn’t open it, but she looks at the packaging as if it holds the world’s secrets.

“Are you going to tell me why you feel the need to always be the one no one has to worry about? The one who everyone can always count on to be in a good mood?”

I think about this for a second because Icouldtell her. She trusted me with something so raw and real to her, maybe I can do the same. I feel the words on the tip of my tongue. I don’t know why it feels easy, almost natural, to tell her, but I don’t want to read too much into it.

Not after what I almost completely fucked up.

“It has always been the role I took on. My dad, he isn’t—wasn’t—a good guy. I had to get them away from him, my mom and my sisters. I needed to be the one who took care of them, and I didn’t want to ever be a burden for them, not with what they were dealing with.”

“What about whatyouwere dealing with?” she asks, the candy bar now forgotten in her lap. We are still parked next to the gas pump, but the car is off. I had every intention of getting back on the road after executing my plan to get Mia to talk to me, but now?

Now, we are at the point of no return.

The point where everything is on the verge of coming out, and I don’t know what to say.

Being there for my mom, Lucia, Carmen, and Isa was second nature to me. I didn’t even hesitate that night when I saw an opportunity to get them away from my dad once and for all. I was finally big enough to take him, and I had begged my mom to leave him so many times before. She refused every time, and I couldn’t blame her for it. I know I willneverunderstand what a woman goes through when she is in an abusive relationship.

What I did know is I had to take matters into my own hands.

I will never forget sitting down for dinner, like we did every night, pretending we were a big happy family. From the outside, we fit the picture. But, if you looked closely, you would see my mom’s timid movements, not sitting down until my dad had his plate of food in front of him and his drink in hand. She painted a smile on her face, and maybe that is where I learned toput on my mask,as Mia calls it. My sisters refused to look anywhere but their plates, trying their best to fade into the background in their own fucking house. Me, I was just waiting for my chance to wring the man’s neck.

In my gut, I knew that night was the night. The night that I wouldn’t let us all go to bed just for my sisters, now old enough to know what was going on with my parents, to come running into my bedroom, so scared for my mom but also so scared for themselves and each other.

“I don’t know if it was because he was such a fucking pussy or because he got off on hurting women, but I never felt like I was the one in any danger.” I let out a humorless laugh. “My dad actually pretended that he and I were the greatest son and father duo out there. Like we were on the same team. The way he would talk to me, the looks he’d give me when some sexist, vile crap shit came out of his mouth. He pretended we were one and the same.” I shake my head, thinking about all the times he would flip a switch, one minute he was seconds away from backhanding my mom for not having his drink refilled soon enough, the next, he was trying to talk to me about football tryouts or asking me if I had a girlfriend. “I always felt like I was the one who had to protect them because I was the only one who could.”

“How old were you?”

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