Page 91 of Faking It
/> “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It happened, didn’t it mija?”
“What are you talking about?” I laugh, but tears sting the back of my eyes because it feels so good to hear her voice. And it feels even better to have someone who understands me even though I haven’t really even said a word.
“You went and fell for him.”
“Mother.” Stern. Scolding. Desperate for her not to believe my tone and ask more.
“Mothers know these things.” I open my mouth to speak and then close it, opting not to say a word and hoping she does. “So?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s a yes, then.”
“No. It was an I don’t know.” I laugh, already frustrated and exasperated and this conversation has only been a few minutes long.
“You repeating it means it was a double yes.”
I twist my lip and walk a few feet closer to the shady tree I’m standing under. I take in the green around me, the little old couple in the distance holding each other up as they hobble along, and the big, black shiny coach on the other side of the park where Zane is inside working.
If there’s anyone I can talk to my feelings about, it’s my mom, so why am I hesitating?
Because if I say them out loud, then that means they are real.
My voice is barely audible when I finally speak. “I’m just trying to be cautious.”
“Why, mija?”
“Because . . .” I chuckle. “For obvious reasons.”
“You mean all of those reasons you didn’t like him in the first place? The he’s good looking, he’s successful, he challenges you . . . you mean all of those reasons?”
I hate it when she makes things sound so simple when in reality they feel like you’re trying to put a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle together while being blindfolded.
“I mean the ‘he doesn’t believe in love’ reason.”
She tsks through the line. “That’s nonsense. Everybody believes in love even when they say they don’t. Everyone wants the fairytale even though they hide it.”
“Do you still, Mom? Really? After what Dad did, do you?”
“Oh sweetheart”—her voice floods with emotion—“of course I do. Love is . . . love is the one thing in life that doesn’t need to be taught. It just is. You can’t help it when you feel it. You can fight it—God knows I have in the past—but fighting it doesn’t do you any good. You’re still going to feel it even when the fight has run out.” I sit down on the grass and play with the wild daisies woven in it. “I take it that means you haven’t told him?”
“That’s a big, fat no.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s not that simple.”
“Yes, it is. You have no problem speaking up any other time, so why does the cat have your tongue now?”
“Because this is almost over. I mean, we’re going to return to our everyday lives where we’re not forced to live with each other and play love interests every second we’re in public—”
“But from what you’ve texted me, it seems like you’re playing love interests even when you’re not in front of people.”
“True,” I muse and think back to the night at the arcade last week. The fun. The flirting. The conversation over the pinball machine. My promise to myself to just enjoy this all . . . and yet here I am still thinking about it.
“You’re living together. You’re sleeping together—”
