And it’s so damned freeing.
It’s hard to believe that my life has almost become routine now. I spend most of my time at the restaurant. On my few days off, I try to slowly decorate the small but charming two-bedroom bungalow I bought for myself. Sometimes I sit at the beach and watch the waves roll. I even have a therapist who is helping me through my depression. In so many ways, my life feels like it should . . . in so many ways exceptone.
But I try to avoid thinking of that—something my therapist insists is unhealthy, but he has agreed we can tackle one demon at a time, so he’s let it go for now.
I’ve made new friends too. Fernanda, for one, whom I’d met briefly via video calls when I was still in Kansas City. She’s the quietest woman, with the most angry-looking face in its resting state I have ever seen. But her heart is also as big as the chip on her shoulder. With hot pink hair and a nose ring Elena keeps asking her to remove before work. But Fernanda refuses; she marches to the rhythm of her own drum.
Then there’s Mariela, second in command in the kitchen after Ricardo. Her love for cooking almost rivals my love for music. She makes the best shrimpcevicheandpescado a la tallaon the entire coast—I’m sure of it. Though I’m not as close to her as I am with Fernanda, I know we will be . . . in time.
Fernanda is hard to crack, so I focus on her first, but when she finally lets me in, I know we’ll be friends for life. It’s like she picks people, and she’s selective of who she will let in her heart, but when she does, that heart will cherish you forever with a fierce loyalty that almost makes me weep.
Not like my high school friends who moved on and all but forgot about me. Somehow, in the deepest part of myself, I know that even if we end up with a distance between us, Fernanda and I will remain friends.
We bonded over our life stories a month after I arrived, laughing through the pain over a bottle of mescal andChavela Vargastunes.
I told her all about my life in Kansas City, carefully leaving out any mentions of a certain perfect blond man I try not to think about—and given she’s a hugeIndustrial Novemberfan, she probably wouldn’t have believed me anyway. She hugged me when I told her about my parents, and we drank to their memories together.
And she told me about her life too. Her parents aren’t dead, but according to them, Fernanda is dead to them. They kicked her out of her house at seventeen when they found her in bed with her girlfriend. At the time, she was working part-time with Elena, and my beautiful, nurturingtíatook this discarded girl and gave her a home.
Ever since, Fernanda has worked full time at the restaurant, and when she saved enough, she got herself into a small apartment. I’m trying to convince her to become my roommate, but she keeps saying she loves living alone—at least for now.
But I hold out hope she’ll move in with me because the truth is, I’m pretty damn lonely without Ileana and Isael everywhere like I’d become accustomed to.
We’ve gotten to know each other well—or I thought we had, which is why when I head into the back of the restaurant to drop off dishes and I catch her singing, I am floored.
Her voice is phenomenal.
“Fernanda!”
She jumps and spins on her heel to smile wide at me. “What?”
“You can sing?”
She shrugs.
“Let me rephrase that. You cansing.”
She laughs. “Yeah, I like to sing. You know, just while I’m working, or around the house. For fun . . .” She trails off, and she looks at me with her head tilting to the side. “Why are you looking at me like that?” she asks.
“Like what?”
“Like apaleta de hieloin a desert.”
I grin wide at her. “We’re starting a band,” I say.
“What?”
No one at the restaurant knows about my secret guitar playing.
When I first got here, I cut my hair to shoulder-length and dyed it a warm shade of brown. That was enough to not be recognized from the press storm that haunted me in Kansas City.
And perhaps it was too painful to play. But sometimes, late at night, when I can’t sleep because I’m thinking about Karl and Pixel and how much I miss them, I’ll pull out the guitar and practice into the early morning hours, howling at the vanishing moon.
If I’m honest, I’ve become quite good, and I know I’ll do my former teacher proud one day.
“We’re starting a band,” I repeat.
“I don’t likebandamusic,” Fernanda says.