The Way You Make Me Feel(32)

Whoa. 100K?! Pai thought opening a restaurant was far off—like after I was married with children far off. Maybe it could be much sooner.

“What’s that?” Rose asked, poking her head over my shoulder to read the flyer.

I handed it to her. “There’s a food truck competition in August and—”

“ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS?” she screamed.

People were staring at us, so I stepped in closer to her and snatched the flyer out of her hand. “Dude, have some chill.”

“Your dad needs to enter this!” she said, her voice back to normal decibel levels.

I started to nod but was struck by an idea. “What if we entered the KoBra but didn’t tell him? It would be the best surprise if we won!”

Skepticism wrinkled her forehead. “Don’t tell him? At all?”

“Yeah!” I was getting excited at the idea of hitting my dad with this kind of killer surprise. “Can you even imagine getting a check for that kind of money?”

Rose nodded slowly. “I mean, that would be so cool. And honestly, we’re good at this now.”

“I have complete faith in us,” I said firmly.

That’s when I noticed Felix staring at me. Arms folded, eyebrows raised. “What?” I asked, my arms also crossed over my chest, the tanned limbs protecting me against his judgment.

“It’s just … wow. I’ve never seen you care about your dad’s truck before.”

Embarrassment flared through me. Felix always had this way of pointing out when people were trying too hard or being uncool. I had never been on the receiving end of it before.

“So?” I pushed by him to order my tacos.

“Nothing, jeez!” He held his hands up, all “Hey, now!” I hated when he did this. Made me feel like I was overreacting when he had clearly set me up for it. Typical boy gaslighting crap.

I folded the flyer in half and tucked it into my back pocket.

When I got home that night, I opened the laptop I shared with my dad. The apartment was dark except for the blue glow of the screen.

Folding my legs under me, I knelt down on the living room rug and stared at the application form I had filled out, the cursor hovering over the Submit button. A nervous flutter in my stomach made me pause. But then I imagined Pai’s reaction when we won. How I could do something for my dad, for once. Fast-forward his dreams.

I clicked the Submit button.





CHAPTER 15

On Monday morning when I got to the commissary, Rose was lying down on the hood of the truck, sunglasses on, limbs splayed. “Good morning,” I said, tapping her foot with an iced coffee I’d bought for her.

At glacial speed, she sat up with a groan. “Morning.”

“What’s wrong?” I handed her the drink.

She took the world’s longest sip before answering. “I just had a two-hour barre this morning.”

“Two hours? That means … you’ve been awake since, like, four a.m.?”

“Yup.” She swiveled her long neck slowly, touching her ear to her shoulder, then dropping her head back to stare up at the sky. “I want to die.”

“Why do you do this to yourself?”

Bringing her head back up, she took off her sunglasses and looked at me. “I love it, I guess.”

What was it like to love something so much you woke up at four a.m. on your summer break to do it?

We got into the truck and buckled ourselves in—me in the driver’s seat as usual. Rose glanced over at me. “Oh, I forgot to ask at the party. I heard you talking to Patrick about a trip to Tulum?”

I steered the truck toward the freeway. “Yeah, a vacation with my mom.”

“Adrian’s letting you go?”

As we waited for the light to turn green on the ramp, I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel. The morning was already hot, and I couldn’t tell whether the dampness under my arms was from that or from the mere mention of Tulum. I stared at the little sign that said ONE CAR PER GREEN. It felt unnecessarily aggressive today.

When the light turned green, I stepped on the accelerator with force—making the truck lurch forward. A couple of metal bowls rolled around noisily in the cupboards. “Not exactly. It’s still more than a month away, though, and I have plenty of time to prove my worthiness. He’ll have to let me go.”

Rose didn’t react.

I took a breath. “I never get to see her. They don’t get along, and I know my dad uses any excuse to undermine our relationship. He doesn’t approve of her life choices.”

Rose raised her eyebrows. “What? I doubt he tries to undermine your relationship. I mean, he’s raising you; maybe he just feels protective?”

“I know, but … it’s complicated.”

A few loaded seconds passed. Rose was one of those people who could never feign indifference; her do-gooderly intentions emanated from her pores. She said, carefully, “When did your parents get divorced?”

Divorced. That was an interesting way to put it. “They were never married. My mom left my dad when I was four.” The words came out before I could stop them. “I mean, she didn’t just, like, leave with a suitcase overnight. It was a mutual decision for them to separate.”

“Oh! Wow. That’s a long time ago.”