“N-no, but—“
“Exactly,” she said, her voice harsh. “Take a page out of my book instead of this weird baby shit you do. He says jump, you say ‘how high?’ It’s pathetic.”
I was quiet.
She was right. Ihated it, but she was.
My parents, both successful accountants, viewed me as an asset to be managed. They wanted me to follow in their footsteps. They had trapped my life in a small, pristine bubble with rigid rules and standards.
It had all started when they lost faith in Camila. She’d become too much, a wildfire they couldn’t extinguish, so they let her burn and eventually, they gave up trying.
They were determined not to repeat that “mistake” with me.
“Why don’t you do something with your hair? I already told you it doesn’t look good.”
I sighed, turning back to fix my music sheets. All my sister ever did was put me down. There was nothing wrong with my hair. An unruly mess of waves and curls yes, but it reached past my tailbone when it was a straight curtain of dark silk, and even in a ponytail, it fell gracefully down my back. It was healthy, with no split ends, yet she always advised me to cut it, as if she wanted to sever the one part of me that was effortlessly perfect.
“I think that’s enough, Camila.”
My father came down the hall. He drew to the music room, a dark scowl upon his face at sight of Camila. When he appeared in the doorway he filled it completely. Tall, broad, immaculate. A wall of a man who’d never needed to raise his voice to make a room feel smaller. His presence did it for him. My spine straightened automatically, the way it always did when he was near.
He must have just gotten home. Despite the late hour, the long day he’d had at work, he was impeccably dressed in a buttoned-up shirt and fitted trousers.
The air instantly grew colder.
“Piss off,” Camila said, shouldering past him.
I cringed as the harsh words were hurled at him, but my father—Samuel Rodriguez—merely tightened his jaw. He tolerated no out-of-line behavior from me, but Camila was a lost cause.
My sister gone, his black gaze turned to me.
“Good evening, Papa,” I murmured. I hated to keep his gaze—he was so intimidating—yet if I so much as glanced away, it would set him off and he would unleash his rage. So I kept my eyes up, obedient.
“You went out today,” he said. “With friends.”
He hadn’t approved. He’d known about it, of course. Abuelita had stepped in when he refused my request this morning, and he’d backed down. Obviously he’d hoped I’d listen to his initial order instead.
He was disappointed I hadn’t. So was I now that I was facing him.
“Did you finish your classwork today?” he asked.
I nodded. “Yes.”
He probed again, looking for something to berate me with, to withdraw permissions—as if I had any. “Morning studies?”
Another nod. “Yes.”
He was quiet a moment, no angle of attack.
“I have a few people I’d like you to meet in a few weeks, and I think you’d benefit a lot from what they have to say. They may even offer you an internship.”
My father was ruthless in his ambition, and to go against his wishes would be unwise. My mother was different, maybe more lenient, although disengaged was a fairer way of putting it. Papa controlled the house. Mama just floated around it, letting him. I was outnumbered.
He looked like he had more to say, but just then, his phone rang. He answered it immediately, turning his back on me and walking out of the room without a backward glance.
I didn’t breathe until the sound of his footsteps disappeared. When they were out of earshot, I hurried to the door and pulled it closed. Then I leaned back against it, finally exhaling a breath that’d been trapped in my lungs.
Inexplicably, my mind turned to Tristian once again, as if that was its default state and the past forty-five minutes had been only a brief interruption.
