Page 34 of Lessons in Forgiving
Henry’s brows rose in mild surprise. He knew better than to look at me this time.
“That, too,” he said. “Obviously that.” His voice gained conviction. “But I just meant… I should’ve considered how you might feel, having to spend so much time with me. And I didn’t until now.” He shrugged, a breath escaping his lips, like he’d been working up the courage to say that.
I considered him for a moment, took in his disheveled hair, his tense expression, and decided he was being sincere.
“Well.” I exhaled, shaking myself out of any petty feelings lingering.Professionalism. “It’s not your fault we’re stuck doing this profile together, is it?”
Henry shot me a glance, surprised by the hint of a smile on my lips. I was, too. But he returned it with a single nod.
“So,” he said. “Your place or mine?”
The words obliterated the rest of the lingering tension in the car, and I rolled my eyes with an amused huff.
“I’m all in if you are, Henry Pressley.”
He mirrored the sentiment when he said, “I was thinking protein pancakes?”
“Definitely all in, then.”
CHAPTER 14
THEN, September: two years and six months ago
I only have a couple of minutes, mami,” I muttered into the speaker by way of greeting. Halfheartedly, I tried to fold the newspaper I’d been skimming with one hand, holding my phone in the other and clutching last week’s edition of theHall Beck Postunder my arm. I rounded another corner and spotted the red brick of Henry’s block with a skip of my heart.
It had been a week since we’d seen each other. And you’d think after a couple of months together, the need to spend as much time with your partner would slowly simmer down. Unfortunately, whenever I wasn’t with Henry, I was thinking about being with him. Whenever he wasn’t there when I fell asleep, I briefly considered getting up in the middle of the night to change that.
Which wasn’t ideal when you had exams to prepare for and papers to research and articles to write. And when he had games to play, practice to attend—all while studying a subject I had been too… dumb for, apparently.
“Paulita, thank God you picked up!” Her accent slipped halfway through the sentence, and she sounded more Spanish than I had heard in a while. I was on high alert right away.
“What is it?” My head turned left, then right before I crossed the street over to Henry’s side, still determined to cut this conversation short. I had exactly an hour and a half before I needed to be back at Daisy’s for the closing shift. Henry had a rare spare hour between class and a strategy meeting for their game next weekend.
The first time our schedules had somewhat aligned since last week.
So yes, I was rushing. Running, almost, until I pressed the intercom. “Mom? What is it? I’ve got to—”
“There’s this article. With your name on it, Paula.”
I think someone buzzed me up. The low hum of it reverberated in my very bones, begging me to push the door open, get in the elevator and forget my mom had just said the word article and my name in the same sentence. “What?”
But this had been inevitable, hadn’t it? Did I really think publishing articles under my real name for six months, wouldn’t make at least one person in my extended family stumble upon it?
I’d never been the lucky kind.
“An article, dios mío. Someone is publishing nonsense under your name!”
And I should’ve latched onto the fact they thought it wasn’t me writing them. That they, for some strange reason, suspected someone had stolen the name and identity of Paula Castillo to write about mental health, student life and their university’s sports highlights.
Instead, I felt another word much deeper. Not with my head, but my heart. Which ached in a way I didn’t know it could. “Nonsense?”
Faintly, I could hear someone over the intercom. One of Henry’s roommates. Heather, most likely asking who it was, after I hadn’t made it upstairs—wondering if the mysterious visitor was someone she knew or just a delivery they’d forgotten about. I wasn’t aware enough to tell her.
All I could hear was the wordnonsensein María Castillo’s voice, repeated in my head over and over again until she broke the loop by saying, “Yes!” Sounding outraged on my behalf. “Your cousin found it online. On some website.Buzzweb—Newsbuzz? I can’t remember now, but—”
I didn’t feel the need to correct her, and she went on too quickly for me to say anything, anyway. I was glad it gave me enough time to find my footing. I might need a few more seconds to make whatever lie I was about to sell believable. I needed a few more just to come up with one.
“We’ve got to do something about this… this impersonator! Did you know about this?” she asked.
