“You don’t want a bag, too?” Amá had asked.
I almost said yes. I always want another handbag. But I shook my head. “I have all I need.” I gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you, Amá.”
I swear, the old woman almost smiled. Just almost, though.
She’s been like that since—almostpleasant to be around. Even me gobbling down a ginormous plate of eggplant Parmesan didn’t piss her off like normal. I take a sip of my wine and decide to push my luck by saying, “So, our mother’s in town, huh?”
Amá just about growls and looks around. I don’t know why. Sky’s in the bathroom, and I’m pretty sure my mom’s not hidingin this fancy little Italian restaurant. But that’s how Amá is. She always thinks people are spying on her, trying to figure out all her dirty laundry. Maybe the ability to see ghosts made her that paranoid, or maybe it was a regular old dose of narcissism. Who knows.
I raise an eyebrow. “Is that a yes?”
Amá shakes her head and gives me an expression I think she intends to come off as bored, but instead she looks a bit constipated. “You know your mother. We haven’t seen her in twenty-two years now.”
“But Iheardyou and Nadia—”
“You heardnothing, Teal Alegría.” She glowers at me as though I’d asked her what number facelift she was on and not whether she’d recently spotted the woman who had birthed me. “And if you keep talking like this, I’m returning everything. Even Sky’s purchases.”
That shut me up. And, to be honest, kind of ruined a fun day.
10
The first time I ranthe way I run now, as though escaping from some enormous, sharp-fanged, soul-eating monster, it was after the search teams had given up on finding Sky’s body. I had felt so helpless, so damnsadthat I didn’t think there could be an end to the despair. I’ve battled with depression since I was a teen, and only a few months before Sky fell, my doctor and I had figured out that the depression came from my being bipolar. She got me on an antidepressant dosage that made riding out those deep, raw moods more doable. But for some reason, the state troopers telling Nadia those words,Sorry, ma’am, but we’ve suspended the search indefinitely, I felt both grief and depression closing in on me at impossible speeds.
I ran upstairs, to bed, which is where I spent most of my depressive episodes. I couldn’t breathe. Outside, the weather tossed out choked, spinning clouds that darkened and darkened until they broke. Until the way I felt on the inside reflected exactly how it felt on the outside. I couldn’t get out of bed for days, maybeeven weeks. Everything—time, meals, showers—became fuzzy in the onslaught of the pain.
That year was the record for Cranberry’s yearly rainfall, and most of it happened in the weeks after Sky fell. The valleys flooded, and several homes were destroyed. Nadia’s garden was so underwater that she had to wear long rubber boots to get from her car to the porch after work every day.
My doctor upped my prescription dosage again, and that helped some. As in, for weeks there was slight rain as opposed to hurricane-inspired storms, one after the other. But my sister had just died due to my stupidity. No pill was going to cure that grief.
So one day, the day I felt like I couldn’t take one second more of that bullshit, I put on some old Nikes, and I rushed out the door.
I ran through the tangible evidence of my emotional body—calf-deep puddles, loud howling wind, fog as sticky as flan. I ran through the woods so that mud splashed up over me. I ran until I felt like my lungs were scarring, my bones shattering, my muscles all cramping, every last one. I might still be running that particular run if I hadn’t collapsed, looked up, and seen a sliver of sun breaking through the sky, through the forest canopy, thickened with the soft rain catching the sparkling light. I realized that runninghelped. Just like my prescription, it wasn’t a cure—but it somehow carved a hole of sunlight in the sky for the first time in weeks.
I only just told Sky and Sage about my being bipolar a couple of months ago, when they both tried to tell me that the amount of running I do seemed unhealthy. Not going to lie, I was really nervous. The only person I had told about it was Amá Sonya, and she basically pretended like she didn’t hear me. But that’s kind ofhow Amá works. If there’s some type of information in the air that makes her uncomfortable? It basically doesn’t exist.
Luckily both Sage and Sky just asked how they could help, and when I told them I had it handled, they stopped talking to me about how much I run. Maybe the running isn’t normal, but it’s what’s keeping me stable. It’s what’s keeping the whole of this damn town safe from nonstop hurricanes, too.
I didn’t run as much when I worked at Cranberry Fitness—I guess training and doing alternative workouts helped to ease the tide of my emotional turbulence, too. But since I was let go, I think I’ve done the equivalent of fifteen or twenty marathons in the span of two months.
That’s why I groan inwardly when I look at the steps leading to the Cranberry courthouse. I ran for over an hour this morning, as fast and as hard as I could. I couldn’t stand in the shower afterward—instead I had to sit down to wash up. And now there’sthis—eighteen concrete steps between me and my new life as a wife. Well, a fake wife. Either way, my nervous system didn’t seem to know the difference—hence my need to run until my legs wanted to fall off.
“What is this? Cold feet?”
I turn and groan for real, out loud, as I watch Amá Sonya walk up. She’s wearing a belted pale pink suit with cuffed wide legs and a dainty chain belt that may well be real gold. On her wrist is a white snakeskin Dior satchel and her heels are so high, she towers over me even though she’s one inch shorter. Her Chanel shades cover more than half her face and I feel like I am speaking to someone wearing a bizarre space helmet. “Seriously?” I ask her. “How did you even find out when I would be here?”
“We abuelas have our ways.” She raises her glasses and fixesa long glare on me. “I spent a lot of money on you yesterday. I deserve to witness the first of my grandchildren commit to holy matrimony.”
I bite my tongue. I’ve already explained to her that our relationship isn’t transactional, but I guess my actions haven’t really been backing that up. I did accept pretty clothes yesterday, didn’t I? I decide right then and there I’m not going to allow her to try to buy my love anymore. “Well,” I mumble. “I guess we need a witness.”
“I wish you had let mewitnesswhat you had planned on wearing.” She lowers her eyes over my outfit as though I’d thrown on a few layers of rotted cheese. “This isn’t a beach party. It’s your wedding day.”
I look down at my Target sundress, white with lace eyelet embroidery in blue. My shoes are sandals—my calves almost leapt out of my skin when I tried to put on heels—and my bag is one of the camel-colored ones I have, handmade from Mexico, the leather tooled into a pattern of vines.
Someone’s clears their throat behind us. “Buenos días.” We both turn to look up at Carter, who bends to greet Sonya with a cheek kiss, and then he does the same for me. Something about him, old gods know what—the cologne? Beard oil? Deodorant? Either way he smells so good I want to wrap my arms around his neck and keep him where I can just inhale like a total freak.
He looks as handsome as he did for Nate’s wedding, in a black suit that emphasizes the V shape of his torso, the thick of his thighs. He looks at me up and down as he pulls away. There’s no heat in his eyes, nothing to show that he thinks I look as good as I think he does. His previous words come over me.We’re never going to have sex, Teal.The reminder helps me to push away the low-level vibe of attraction making me want to do somethingstupid, like swoon. “Why are you wearing a suit?” I don’t intend to make my voice as sharp as it sounds, but I guess I can’t help it. I hate feeling even the suggestion that I might want Carter, especially since he’s made it so clear the desire isnotmutual.
“He’sready for his wedding,” Sonya answers for Carter, her voice approving. “Not like he just walked off a surfboard.” She scrunches her nose at my dress again.
