Yasmin wraps her arms around both of us. “Damn right she’s not alone. She’s got us.”
We stand there for a moment, the three of us tangled together in my tiny apartment, and I think about how much has changed. There’s more change yet to come. God, I’m going to miss being able to see their faces.
But even if I couldn’t, even if what little I had left went away right now, I’d still be able to feel their love.
And that’s enough.
“Okay.” I pull back and dab carefully under my eyes. “Okay. Let’s do this.”
Yasmin grins. “That’s my girl.”
My mother hands me my shoes and my clutch. Yasmin double-checks that I have my phone, my keys, my lipstick for touch-ups. “Bastian’s picking you up at seven, right?” asks Yas.
I check my phone. 6:49 P.M. “Yep. Eleven minutes.”
“Perfect. That gives us just enough time for a shot.” Yasmin produces a bottle of tequila from her purse like a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat.
My mother raises an eyebrow. “None for me, thanks. You girls go ahead—I’ll supervise.”
We gather in my kitchen, and Yasmin pours two shots into mismatched glasses. “To Eliana,” she says, raising hers, “who’s about to knock ‘em dead at the fanciest party in Chicago.”
“To my daughter,” my mother adds as she pretends to loft a glass of her own, “who has always been stronger than she knows.”
I raise my own glass, my throat tight. “To family,” I say. “The one you’re born with and the one you choose.”
Yas and I clink glasses and throw back the shots. The tequila burns going down, but it’s a good burn. A warming burn.
They both hug me one more time, fussing with my hair and patting invisible wrinkles from my dress until I shoo them away. “Go,” I laugh. “I’m fine. I promise.”
“You better text me pictures,” Yasmin demands as she gathers her purse. “Like, a million of them!”
My mother cups my face in her hands. “Have fun, baby.”
“I will. I love you, Mama. Love you, Yas.”
“We love you, too,” they chorus.
They leave together, Yasmin’s chatter fading as they head down the hallway. I wait until I hear the building door close behind them before I grab my clutch and make my way downstairs.
At the bottom, the door to the outside world opens. I step through it, leaving behind the girl who was always afraid—and becoming, finally, the woman who isn’t.
54
BASTIAN
cur·dling: /'k?rdliNG/: verb
1: when milk proteins separate and clump together due to the introduction of acid or heat.
2: the rot. the breakage. the pain. the downfall.
I’ve been staring at Harold’s spit on the floor for fuck knows how long. It gleams like gold in the dying light.
My thoughts are everywhere, but they’re headed in the same direction, circling around and around the same fetid, stinking drain. And that direction is this:
There’s only one person who could orchestrate something like this. Only one person with the reach, the connections, the sheer fucking audacity to dismantle three billion dollars’ worth of infrastructure in a matter of days.
That same man is the only person who can fix it.
