Page 13 of Caught in a Bad Fauxmance
Maya throws herself headfirst into our training. Self-care projects are her coping mechanism—for both grief and rage. Whenever she needs to calm herself down, she storms off to her room to knit, paint her nails, or practice outlandish makeup looks. Anything to keep her hands busy for a few hours. After Mami died, she spent four months learning how to make wigs with a sewing machine. From there, she moved on to learning how to create her own lip gloss.
It was a very depressing but fashionable year.
Without a social life to keep her busy, and the cabin’s god-awful Wi-Fi, Maya has nothing but time. Her first draft of our schedule is a color-coded manifesto, combining strength, conditioning, and endurance training into a workout program that even Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson would groan at. Before anyone could think to confiscate her debit card, she ordered a megaphone, whistle, and three types ofprotein powder. She even went the extra mile to make a memory exercise regimen for Andy. Thankfully, the logic side of the games has always been our strong suit. It’s what makes us so good at arguing—we remember everything.
Foolishly, I’d thought we’d have the rest of the weekend before sacrificing our freedom to our training overlord. I’m not big on sleeping in, but waking up at six a.m. every day of your winter break would make even the most straitlaced teenager weep. Thankfully, Maya doesn’t come looking for us at the crack of dawn on day one.
I’m camped out at the kitchen table with my sketchbook and a plate of semi-burnt pancakes when she storms into the room dressed in her finest athleisure, her hair parted down the middle into two Dutch braids.
She stops in her tracks to glare at me. “What’re you doing?”
“Working.”
My tablet has earned a special kind of sneer from her, but she scowls at my sketchbook all the same. It’s been months since I last touched it, dust clinging to the rings holding it together. My tablet may be my pride and joy, but if I want to snap myself out of this creative slump and finish my application in time, something needs to give. Maybe returning to my roots is the answer.
“Why aren’t you dressed?”
I peer down at my sushi-patterned pajama pants. “I am dressed?”
“I mean dressed for today’s drills,” she replies with an eye roll. “We’ve already lost an hour because my alarm didn’t gooff.”
Thank God for that. We’re lucky her megaphone won’t be delivered until Monday, or else she wouldn’t have been as kind about this morning’s wake-up call.
“And where’s Andy?” She looks over her shoulder, as if someone as large as him could hide his presence for this long.
I take a sip of coffee before replying. I’ll need all the caffeine I can get before this inevitable bloodbath begins. “Still sleeping.”
Getting Andy out of bed during the school year was a James Bond–level mission that tested everybody’s patience. We’re lucky if he gets up before noon on weekends. Maya growls through gritted teeth, lunging for something in the cabinet beneath the sink before stomping back toward our bedroom.
Turns out she didn’t need her megaphone. Banging a wooden spoon against the bottom of a frying pan works just fine. She’s lucky Dad and Isabel are out buying home-improvement supplies. Pot banging is usually off-limits.
Andy comes tumbling into the kitchen seconds later, half asleep and nearly tripping over himself as Maya forces him down into the chair across from me.
“Wha’ time’s it?” Andy mumbles as he struggles to keep his head up.
“Time to wake up.” She taps the spoon on the top of his head, emitting a hollow knock. “Eat, get dressed, and be ready in twenty. Or else.”
Neither of us bothers to ask what “or else” entails. Once she’s walked off to her room, I push my plate of half-finished pancakes toward Andy. He needs the fuel more than I do.
“Thanks, dude,” he mumbles in reply before his jaw unhinges like a snake to devour a pancake in two wolfish bites.
I give him a thumbs-up before heading to our room. Getting changed into sweatpants and a ratty T-shirt doesn’t take long, so I go back to the kitchen to be productive with the little time I have left. While Andy pokes through the fridge and goes into feral animal mode, I search my sketchbook for inspiration.
Sketches of Mami on the front porch, Dad playing the bongos we got him for Christmas, and Maya dancing in her room. Reminders of what I love most about art—something I often forget now that it’s a measure of my worth. That I can capture moments, thoughts, feelings in ways that keep them alive forever. That I can tell stories that don’t require words. These pieces aren’t about skill. They’re about the people I want to remember.
There was a time when Maya used to love watching me draw. She’d peek over my shoulder every time she walked by, asking for copies of her favorite pieces to hang up in her locker. When she stopped sneaking peeks, I assumed she’d gotten bored watching me work on the same handful of drawings for my portfolio. Soon enough, I moved on to new projects, but she still kept her distance. And I still haven’t found the right thing to say to bring her back.
The last thing I was working on was a sketch of her, twisting around to tell me a secret, her hair tied up with a purple silk scarf. One of the last few moments of peace last summer, before I left for California.
Before she iced me out.
The sketch is far from finished, but it might be a goodoption for my application. A nod to my humble beginnings.The Devin Báez Story: From chalk drawings of his twin sister on the playground to drowning in student loan debt at one of the best art schools in the country.
Knowing she was the centerpiece of my application will definitely win me some brownie points with Maya. There’s nothing she loves more than being the center of attention. Maybe I could give her the drawing once it’s done. Nothing is usually allowed to leave my sketchbook. Anything I use in here has to be photocopied, no originals. It’s always been just for me, for the works close to my heart. Ripping out one of these pages would be like tearing off the top layer of my skin.
But I’d do it for her.
“Is that me?” Maya’s voice is warm against my neck, while her hand on my shoulder is damp and ice cold.
