“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“For what,mija?”
“I aimed too high.”
My voice cracks in half.
“You always told me to go for the stars,” I say, staring out at the dark houses flying past, “but you never told me the stars burn.”
Silence.
The blinker ticks.
She exhales through her nose, long and tired.
First, in Spanish. Low. Furious. Hurt.
Then English.
“They had the best volleyball program in New England,” she says. “I thought it would help you get recruited. I thought?—”
Her voice breaks.
I hate that.
I hate that she sounds like she failed.
“Mamá,”I whisper, wiping my face with the back of my hand. “I can’t go back there. You don’t understand.”
She pulls the car over.
Hard.
Hazards flashing against the quiet street.
Turns fully toward me.
Eyes blazing.
“Oh no,” she says. “Don’t you say that to me. Don’t you ever say you can’t.”
“You didn’t see what they?—”
“So what?” she fires back. “He has old money? Fancy bloodlines? A last name that opens doors?”
Her accent thickens when she’s angry. Rolls harder. Stronger.
“You know who you are?”
I blink at her.
She taps her chest.
“We are from the mines. From the earth. From the people who built pyramids with their hands. We have culture. History. Blood older than theirs.”
A watery laugh slips out of me.
“Mamá…he can probably trace his family back to like… Julius Caesar or something.”
