I was grinning all the way to Shark Bites, El Soldado soaring overhead. I swore he looked smug.
I had the rolling door halfway up when the storm arrived.
Years of monitoring my mother’s mood had made me hyperaware of her aura. I got the door the rest of the way up and turned around, and there she was, sunglasses on though the sun was barely up, looking flawless.
“You’re glowing.” xIt didn’t sound like a compliment, more like an accusation.
“It’s early, Mamá. We’re not open.”
“I won’t keep you.” She glanced over the shack the way shealways did, appraising it for a buyer who would never come. “I wanted to talk to you before the weekend. About the Perez boy.”
“There’s nothing to?—”
“He embarrassed me last night.” Yes, embarrassed her by choosing me over her. No one had ever done that before. “In front of my people. Refused a perfectly reasonable conversation to do a little dance. I let it go because you seemed to be enjoying yourself, and you so rarely do.” She set her purse on my clean counter. “But I’ve been thinking about it, and I’d be a poor mother if I didn’t say something. Mija, be careful with that one.”
“I’m fine.”
“I’m sure you feel fine.” She reached out and tucked a curl behind my ear, gently, all maternal instinct and claws. “But I’ve watched men like him my whole life. They come through, they take what’s interesting, and then the season ends and they go back to the size of life they actually want. He has everything, mija. A comeback, sponsors, a whole world that is not this. He does not need you.” A flippant gesture at the shack, at me. “Do you really think a man like that stays? Here? For this?”
“You don’t know him.”
“I know what he is. And I know what we are.” Her voice softened, which was how I knew the blade was coming. “We’re Torres women. We have only ever had one thing we could count on, and it isn’t men. It’s family, it’s blood, it’s the magic that lives in this place we built. That boy will be gone by Monday, and I will still be your mother, and this town will still be your home, and you’ll thank me for reminding you where you actually belong.”
She picked her purse back up, like this was over.
“And what if this isn’t where I belong?”
She froze. “What did you say?”
“You’re right, you will always be my mother, and this town will always be my home, but maybe I don’t need to stay. Maybe it’s time for me to move on.”
You’re Selena fucking Torres.
“Mija, you’re hysterical. Yes, heartbreak always does that. You belong here, with your family,with me.”
How had it taken me so long to see? Of course she wanted me here, not because she cared, but because she needed me. She needed me small so she could be big. She was the most powerful ocean witch in a small town, and I was her small, beautiful daughter, whom she could keep as the perfect foil to her power.
Fight for what you want.But that didn’t have to be teeth and nails. Sometimes the biggest fight was letting go of something you’d held onto for far too long.
“Of course, Mamá You’re right. You’re always right.”
She grabbed my face and kissed my cheek.
“I love you, mi corazón. You will see. I will be here for you, like I always have been. Wear something appropriate on Saturday.”
Then she left.
I clutched the counter to keep my hands from shaking, and it didn’t work. Tears spilled down my cheeks. Twenty-eight years of wanting boiled up and out. Twenty-eight years of wanting a mother who saw me as her daughter and not as competition. I let myself have it. Crouching behind the counter of the business I built on my own, I cried and mourned the relationship that I would never have. But I was done choosing it over what I wanted, what was right.
El Soldado flapped down onto the counter and rubbed his head against my cheek like some sort of feathered cat.
“This is all your fault, you know. I could have just lived the rest of my life in stagnation if you hadn’t butted in,” I said, petting his head softly.
He squawked, then flapped his wings so rapidly it sent my napkins flying. I lunged to hold everything down against the mini windstorm.
“Stop it. I don’t have fries for you yet…”
He flapped harder, then tilted his head back and sighed.
