Page 128 of Between Passion and Revenge: Part One

I snap to at that question.

“Trouble? Like what?”

“Like…” She starts to flush. “Did you get someone pregnant? Or is someone claiming?—”

“Damn, Ma! No, I haven’t knocked anyone up, and there aren’t any kids running around claiming the Sandoval name.”

She slumps back into her seat.

“Good. Great.” She grabs her oversized stainless-steel water bottle and uncaps it, taking a large sip. “What’s the problem?”

“It’s about a girl,” I reply. There goes that look again.

“Oh? And does this girl have a name? Tell me about this girl.”

That’s easy.

“Her name is Shae. We had a class together this past semester and worked together on a project. She’s about the smartest damn person I know—she actually just got accepted to Harvard Business School.”

Mom makes an impressed face.

“Oh? That’s wonderful. Congratulations to her.”

“Yeah,” I grind out. “Except she doesn’t want to go, but I don’t think she’ll ever do what she wants for her, so….”

“Doyounot want her to go? I know Cambridge is far away, but this is the 21stCentury. You can make it work if you want.”

I wave away her words.

“I get that, but that’s not what’s stressing me.”

She tilts her head.

“Whatisstressing you, then?”

Oh, if that isn’t the question of the fucking century.

“She’s back and forth on if she wants to be with me. I mean, I get it. She spent much of the first few weeks knowing me thinking I was with Bambi.”

Mom gives me a look that says something like,well yeah, do you blame her?

“I know you harbored some ideas with Ms. Lucielle about me and Bambina, but I can promise you that’s never gonna happen.”

She lifts her hands up, palms out.

“Heard, son. But now this Shae knows the deal but she’s still wary?”

I nod. “Pretty much. I’m not sure how to convince her how much she means to me. Because I feel… I feel alotwhen it comes to her, and I don’t know how to handle it if she calls it quits.”

This is probably the deepest I’ve ever gone with anyone, especially my mother, about my emotions. It’s something that’s rarely discussed. Even after Rainn died, we went to individual grief counseling, but we never actually sat as a family and processed the loss.

Maybe that’s why we’re so fucked up now.

“Ah, I see. My boy is in love.” Mom’s words cause me to blink once…then again.

“I don’t know about all that,” I reply, even though the idea of love, the thought of loving Shae, feels right.

It just feels right.

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