Page 107 of Sombra
“How were you hiding?” His open, curious face makes me smile.
“By listening too much to everyone else. Shane, did you know how much I love cooking?”
“You do?”
“I’ve fallen in love with Spanish cuisine.”I’ve fallen in love with other things, too.
“You have?”
“Totally. I’m eating all this weird stuff you’d never find in Iowa. Fish and seafood and tons of garlic and olive oil. It’s so fresh and tasty, though. I love creating it. It’s fun. I feel like I’ve been given freedom to be in the kitchen, and I love testingto see when food is done, tasting all the new flavors. I mean, have youseensaffron threads? They’re tiny and ridiculously expensive. And they make everything taste so good.” I pick at my nails. I need to polish them. “I’ve spent so much time listening to my mother and her weight loss program, which is like fearing food instead of enjoying it.” I give him a pointed glance. “It’s also you withyour protein shakes and meals designed for energetic content rather than taste.”
He gives me a sheepish smile. “Yeah. I don’t eat much variety. It helps me stay in shape, though.”
“True. And it’s not just that I’ve learned how much I like being in a kitchen. I’ve discovered that learning a language is a lot harder than I thought. It’s not how it is in class. Talking in class is likebeing in a controlled lab. Out here in the real world where we speak real Spanish, it’s all messy and hard to understand. They have this thick accent here, and even if I know the words, half the time it takes me a second before I process what they said. And they’re onto another topic before I can figure out what to say back. It’s fascinating and frustrating. When I have a good day and can do mywork in class, it feels so amazing and satisfying. But a lot of the time it’s just impossible, and I end up feeling like this dumb foreigner smiling all the time.”
Shane furrows his brow. “I’m probably keeping you from class, too. God, I’m sorry for that as well.”
I let out a sigh. “I haven’t gone to school in a week.”
Should I tell him?
Yeah, I should.
“I haven’tbeen to school in a week,” I say, “because, uh, well, I found out I’m pregnant.”
His mouth drops open like a cartoon dog. I half expect his jaw to unhinge, and his tongue to go lolling out and then have to be rolled back in.
“You’re … what?” He shakes his head a little bit as if clearing out the cobwebs. “Pregnant. With Tavo?”
I glare at him. “Yes, who else would it be?”
“But Kim? Don’t you … didn’t you use protection?”
“We got carried away, and so caught up in it, I didn’t even think about it. It was like my brain had shut off, and all I wanted to do wasfeel.”
“We never felt that way for each other,” he whispers.
“No,” I whisper back. “He’s my lover, Shane. In all senses of the word.”
Straightening up, he rubs his jaw. “Jeez,Kim. Pregnant. How are you going to tell your parents?”
I get that bad feeling in my gut. Not the one from pregnancy. The one from not knowing what I’m going to do. “I don’t know. I’ll just have to tell them.”
“I mean, you’re going to keep it.”
I nod, and I’m not nodding because he’s telling me this. I’m nodding because it’s my conclusion, too. “Of course. Doing anything else,well, it doesn’t feel right. Not for me. Or him, he says.”
He stands up and comes over to the bed, sitting by me. Patting the back of my hand, he says, “If you want support in telling your parents, I’ll be there.”
“And I’ll support telling yours,” I say.
We just sit in the quiet for a moment. Outside a bird chirps, and a dog barks somewhere far away.
“But you and Tavo?Is it serious?”
“It’s so serious it scares me. Shane, you and I were always destined to be in the friend zone.” I scoot up and put my head on his shoulder. “I think we’re always going to be friends. With Tavo, my emotions are so fierce. I’m putting myself on the line. Like, I trust him with everything. Do you know how risky it is to have someone in charge of your everything?”
“That’show I feel with Randy.”
