I cleared my throat, fighting back the pressure squeezing at my lungs and the heat covering every inch of my skin. What example did I want to set for Josh? That he always needed to come out on top? Some things were worth winning and other things were not. With every inch of self-control in my body, I tried holding on to the very edges of my maturity, because if someone was an asshole to you, you didn’t always have to be an asshole back.
“Christy,” I said her name calmly, “if you want to talk to me about my clothes”—fuck off and go to hell, I said to her in my brain but in reality I went with—“don’t raise your voice at me. I’m not a child. While we’re at it, you don’t know anything about me or Josh, so don’t make it seem like you do.”
Of all the replies she could have gone with, she chose, “I know enough about you.”
While I’d been friendly with the parents on Josh’s old team, none of them had ever been close enough to me to know what happened to turn us three into a family. All they knew was that I was raising Josh and Louie, and that had come up because there were Spanish-speaking parents on the team who overheard him calling metiaall the time. When they’d ask, I told them the truth. I was their aunt. I didn’t care what they thought; they could all assume whatever they wanted.
“You don’t know anything,” I practically whispered to her, balanced somewhere between being upset and really pissed. “I don’t want to embarrass you or make you feel like an idiot, so please stop while you’re ahead with the comments. Talk to me like an adult, because I bet your son is looking over here right now, and we want to teach the boys how to be good people, not big mouths with opinions and a lack of information.”
It was her turn for her face to go red and she pretty much squawked at me, “You’re going to embarrass me? You embarrassed yourself and Josh coming to a tournament dressed like that. Have a little respect for yourself, or respect for whoever was reckless enough to let you watch their kids.”
To a certain extent, I knew what she was saying wasn’t the truth, but her words were a brutal reality that managed to pick at those frayed little ends inside of me. Sticks and stones might break your bones but words could also hurt you. A lot. A lot more than they should have because I knew she didn’t knowanything.
But even being aware of all of that, this knot formed in my throat, and before I could stop it, my eyes got misty.
I looked at the fencing to the side away from her as two tears jumped out of the corners of my eyes and streamed down one cheek before I wiped them away with the back of my hand almost angrily. I think I lasted there in front of her all of five seconds before two more tears crashed down my cheeks, falling from my jaw to my chest. It wasn’t until I felt my lip start to quiver that I swallowed and turned away from her, embarrassed—humiliated—and feeling so small I could have crawled into a hole and stayed there forever. Worst, I couldn’t even argue with her points.
Instead of doing all the things I should have done in retaliation, I turned around and started walking away.
“Diana!” I heard Dallas yell.
One second later, I heard, “AuntDi!” But I couldn’t stop.
I speed walked away from the bleachers, my face angled toward the ground. One tear after another slid down my cheeks, falling into my mouth and then down my chin to my chest. My vision went blurry as I stared at the sidewalk before catching a glimpse of the small building where the restrooms were located, and I pretty much darted into it just as three times as many more tears came out of me.
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t even find it in me to make a noise as my back hit the cement wall in the bathroom. My hands went to my knees as I hunched over, my heart cringing and flexing. Aching.
Who was I kidding? I was a fuckup. I was going to ruin the boys. What the hell was I doing raising them? Why hadn’t I just let the Larsens take them? I didn’t know what I was doing. I couldn’t even manage not to embarrass them. I thought that I’d stopped making so many stupid decisions, but I was wrong.
God.
I cried more and more and more, silent tears that didn’t clog my throat because it was already full of shame and guilt and anger at myself.
Even as a little kid, I either got mad or I cried if I was embarrassed before I got angry.
“Aunt Di?” Josh’s voice was hesitant and whispered, but so familiar it cut right through my thoughts.
I wiped at my face with the back of my hand, keeping my gaze on the cement floor. “I’m okay, Josh,” I called out in a weak, hoarse voice that said I wasn’t.
He didn’t reply, but the sound of cleats clacking on the floor warned me he was coming before I saw him peek around the edge of the wall. His small face was soft and worried, his mouth and eyes downturned. “Tia.” The word came out of him in a hiss, a claim.
“I’m okay. You should go back to the field. I’ll—” I stopped talking when this sob crept up on me out of nowhere. The hand I slapped over my mouth didn’t help any.
“You’re crying.” Josh took another step further into the building. Then another.
Dragging my palm up toward my eyes, I wiped at them.Get it together. I had to get it together. “I’m okay, J. I promise. I’ll be okay.”
“But you’re crying,” he repeated the words, his eyes flicking across the stalls like he was worried he’d get caught doing something bad but obviously not worried enough because he kept creeping toward me. His hands met at his chest. “Don’t cry.”
Oh my God. Him telling me not to cry only made me cry even more. Before I could stop myself, as he got closer and closer, I blurted out, “Do I embarrass you?”
“What?” He stopped in place two feet away. He genuinely looked like I’d hit him.
“You can tell me the truth,” I said in broken syllables, sounding like a complete liar. “I don’t want you to wish I wasn’t around if it’s because of something I wear or something I do—”
“No! That’s stupid.” Those eyes just like mine went over my face and he shook his head, looking so much like a young Rodrigo it only made me feel that much worse.
“I don’t—” I was hiccupping. “I know I’m not your real mom or even Mandy,” the words kept getting broken up the more I cried. “But I’m trying. I’m trying so hard, J. I’m sorry if I mess up sometimes, but—”
