Andrea tried to end his relationship with Carol. She used sex to stop him from leaving, then counted the fact that he stayed as a victory. The relationship survived the night, but the distance between them did not.

New to the Serial? Start Here | Need the previous chapter? Chapter 5: The Lies We Told

Andrea

It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently.

~Fyodor Dostoevsky

Andrea had prepared the words he meant to give Carol, careful enough to soften the truth without humiliating either of them. He was sitting near the edge of the divan, one arm still caught in the cardigan hanging from his shoulders, when she stepped between his knees and kissed him.

He stayed there, palm pressed into the cushion behind him, as though staying upright had become easier than moving away. Carol leaned closer without hesitation. He caught the lure of her perfume first, then the warmth of her skin and the taste of her lipstick. His body recognized proximity, warmth, and the first pressure of contact.

Andrea turned into the kiss.

Read more

Lucia’s latest beating forced Carol to face how long she had looked away. Lucia survived, but the way she looked at Carol made one thing impossible to ignore: something between them had changed.

New to the Serial? Start Here | Need the previous chapter? Chapter 4: Neither Pure nor Simple

Carol

To regret one’s own experiences is to arrest one’s own development.

To deny one’s own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one’s own life.

~Oscar Wilde

Maybe I was simply stupid. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop fixating on Lucia’s new friend. Matteo.

I disliked the name immediately. It was way too Mexican and common, the sort of name shouted across crowded markets by women carrying plastic bags and irritation. Hardly the name of anyone important, much less someone worth rearranging Lucia’s life for. Not that I had done anything worth rearranging it for, either. But that was different.

Until this school year, Lucia left for school at the same time every morning. She came home after school, ate dinner, and studied at the kitchen table. Now she left earlier and returned later. Whenever Penelope or I tried to hang out with her, she buried herself in homework or claimed she was tired. The girl we called the Energizer Bunny had suddenly developed the constitution of a dying Victorian waif.

Andrea had become equally difficult to pin down. Our plans changed without warning. Telephone conversations ended before they had properly begun. He was busy or tired and usually expected somewhere else.

Suddenly, everyone had somewhere else to be.

Lucia’s secrecy and Andrea’s distance stole focus from the only future I could still control. Real estate.

I wouldn’t have to remain at home or marry some man simply to escape. Money would let me control my future. No woman should leave that in the hands of love.

That fall afternoon, I showed the Gonzales family a four-bedroom, two-bathroom home in University Heights. The exterior needed paint. Someone had carpeted both bathrooms. A brass chandelier hung over the dining room like a diseased crown. The bones were good, and the Gonzales family could afford it.

“Imagine the dining table here,” I said, standing beneath the chandelier. “You would still have room for a china cabinet along that wall.”

Mrs. Gonzales looked toward the kitchen. “The children could eat breakfast in there?”

“Absolutely. There’s space for a smaller table beside the window.”

Their youngest son ran through the doorway, followed by his sister. Laughter bounced through the empty rooms as they chose their bedrooms. The sound should have pleased me. It filled the house with the future they wanted. You sold people the dream they already carried in their heads.

My thoughts circled back to her. Every little change kept catching like a burr under my skin.

People guarded important information. Lucia’s truth would slip somewhere, eventually, when she forgot to protect it.

Mr. Gonzales asked something about the roof.

“Five years old,” I answered.

His expression changed. “The furnace,” he corrected. “I asked about the furnace.”

“Of course.” My smile arrived before the embarrassment could. “The furnace is five years old. The roof was replaced eight years ago.”

Before I could redirect him, the listing agent swept through the front door without knocking. She wore a navy suit pinned with a gold brooch and the tense smile of a woman who considered friendliness a charitable donation.

“Oh,” she said when she saw us. “I didn’t realize you were already here.”

“Our appointment began fifteen minutes ago.”

She looked past me at Mr. Gonzales. Then she raised her voice and drew out each word. “Did she explain the financing requirements?”

Racists thought volume could transform contempt into customer service.

I had heard that tone before, aimed straight at my father. His blond hair, white skin, and emerald-green eyes had done nothing for him. He dressed like a day laborer and spoke with a thick accent. That was all she saw.

Whenever my father asked a question, the woman rolled her eyes. She answered slowly, polishing each word with irritation, as though he were hard of hearing instead of Mexican.

The commission my father’s realtor earned stunned me more than her insults. Rude didn’t begin to cover it.

People could debate racism all they liked. I was practical. Racist agents created openings, and San Diego County had plenty of them. Most refused to learn basic Spanish. Understanding the culture required more effort than they intended to make.

I spoke the language. Better yet, I could change accents like jewelry.

“Mrs. Gonzales and I have already discussed the loan,” I told the listing agent. “They qualify.”

A brief smile touched Mrs. Gonzales’s mouth.

The other woman glanced at her clipboard. “The seller is hoping for a conventional buyer.”

There it was. Women like her hid racism beneath respectable words. Conventional would do.

I smiled. “Fortunately, the seller is hoping to sell the house. My clients are prepared to make an offer.”

Silence settled between us. The listing agent studied me more carefully. She had mistaken the blond hair and tailored suit for softness. Many people did.

Stupid woman.

With my looks, I had learned to become whatever the moment required. To families like theirs, I was la güerita, the blond girl who respected the community and knew how to listen.

Building their trust wasn’t difficult. They carried my father’s hard work and the quiet dignity of people used to being underestimated. Their trust stirred a pride beneath my ambition, as though every house I sold vindicated him.

The listing agent opened her mouth again.

“Why don’t you give us a few minutes?” I asked.

Her smile tightened. “Of course.”

Once the front door closed behind her, Mrs. Gonzales exhaled. In Spanish, she said, “She thinks we can’t afford it.”

“She thinks too highly of herself,” I answered in the same language. “That is a more expensive problem.”

Mr. Gonzales laughed.

The tension broke exactly as intended.

Unethical? No. That was business. When the world left an opening, you stepped through it. Pride had fed no one.

Not that I worried about feeding myself. I didn’t even own a table. Soon enough, I would have one. Imported mahogany, naturally.

While the family examined the backyard, I called the office from the telephone mounted beside the kitchen pantry. The receptionist answered on the second ring.

“Any messages?”

“Two. Andrea called.”

My fingers tightened around the cord. “What did he say?”

“He can’t make dinner tonight. Something came up.”

Again.

The ache beneath my ribs returned, quick and humiliating. Andrea had been away for months. Now that he was home, he behaved as though spending time with me required congressional approval.

“And the second message?”

The receptionist hesitated. “Penelope called. She said to tell you Lucia went to the library.”

Papers rustled near the receiver. “Then she said, and I’m quoting, ‘Same old boring shit, so Ellie can stop asking everyone.’”

Heat climbed into my face. “Was that all?”

“She also said not to drive over there.”

I hung up before the receptionist could hear my answer.

The kitchen blurred at the edges, probably because of the poor lighting and hideous wallpaper. Andrea had canceled dinner. Lucia was in her favorite place with a collection of musty old books.

Neither fact should have concerned me. Andrea would apologize once he remembered his manners. Lucia could drown in her boring history books. Friendship did not mean ownership. I understood that better than most people.

Laughter burst through the open patio door. The Gonzales children raced inside. Their older daughter stopped beside me.

“Lucia, why don’t you look at the back bedroom?” I said, the wrong name already out.

The girl stared at me. “My name is Alicia.”

“Of course it is.” I smiled with all the confidence a lie required. “Lucia was the name of another client’s daughter. Forgive me.”

Alicia glanced toward her parents. Mr. Gonzales did not smile this time.

I had called his daughter by the wrong name again. Perhaps I had underestimated the damage.

“We should probably think about this house,” he said.

The sentence struck harder than it should have. I had spent hours building their future inside those walls, and one careless name had cracked the foundation.

Even then, I pictured Lucia sitting beside a young man. Given the library, he was probably Asian, with dark eyes and a voice trained not to disturb anyone. The image arrived without permission.

Focus.

“I understand,” I said. “Buying a home deserves thought.”

Mrs. Gonzales touched her husband’s hand. “The payment would still be less than the other house?”

“Yes.”

I let embarrassment color my voice. Blushing on command helped. “The asking price exceeds what the house’s condition supports. Whatever her agent suggests, the seller knows that. Last month, a house two streets away sold for less, and it had a renovated kitchen. I recommend offering below asking. We request help with closing costs. They may refuse. If they do, we walk away.”

I opened my folder on the kitchen counter and placed the comparable sales in front of them. Mr. Gonzales examined the page.

Numbers never cared about names.

“Do you think they’ll accept?” he asked. His glance moved quickly to his wife, who loved the house.

“Nine weeks on the market gives us leverage.” Confidence returned to my voice, smooth and expensive. “They’ll negotiate.”

Mrs. Gonzales looked through the doorway toward the dining room. Her youngest son stood beneath the brass chandelier, spinning in circles. She placed a hand on her husband’s shoulder.

“The children like it.”

“Children rarely lie about houses,” I said with a smile. Adults, on the other hand, lied constantly. Usually to themselves.

Andrea’s family had opened the doors of the University City real estate office for me. Wealthy people performed favors like that without a second thought, sparing girls like me from clawing our way inside.

I was the one who worked my ass off once I crossed the threshold. When the agents tried to use my “special skills” in the Hispanic community without compensation, Andrea pointed out that no one respected free labor. I negotiated a percentage of their commission for every favor or sale.

I created a business plan and learned how to market myself. Work claimed my weekends and most evenings, a brutal sacrifice considering the social calendar I preferred to maintain.

The other agents knew I worked harder than they did. They respected me for it, even when they didn’t particularly like me.

Respect was better.

I was closing my own deals now. Surprisingly, I didn’t merely enjoy it. I loved it.

Earning real money gave me power. Every commission bought another inch of distance from anyone who thought they could decide my future.

The first locked door would be the two-bedroom Craftsman cottage in Hillcrest I had been watching. A retired Navy officer owned it and wanted several thousand dollars above market value. Most people fixated on the price or complained about the musty collection of mementos cluttering the rooms. I saw the location.

One bedroom would be mine. The second could serve as an office at first. Later, perhaps, it might belong to someone who needed a quiet place to study. Someone who worked too hard, slept too little, and deserved a door she could close.

I didn’t examine that thought too closely. Some blueprints worked better without an audience.

After the cottage came rental properties. Passive income, baby. Then I would open my own real estate office.

Not Elena Carolina Herrera Agency. Please. People with serious money did not hand it to a woman whose name sounded like it came printed on a county assistance form.

Carol Ellis Properties sounded polished and trustworthy, expensive without trying too hard.

Easy peasy, right?

Mr. Gonzales and I scheduled an appointment to write the offer the following morning. I would have to miss class. That didn’t bother me. Cs still earned degrees, and the degree was all I wanted.

The rest I intended to buy for myself.

I could admit I had hit a few bumps on the road. Fixing my current “little” mistakes would cost me several hours, several apologies, and what pride I had left. I still wanted Andrea. More importantly, I needed the sale.

Outside, sunlight struck the windshield hard enough to make me squint. The office lay in one direction. Home waited in the other.

La Jolla University library sat nowhere near either one. The steering wheel had apparently made the decision without consulting me. I would deal with its insubordination later.

Efficiency, I decided.

Lucia had already consumed more of my attention than she deserved. One conversation would allow me to dismiss her properly. A woman could call a lie whatever she pleased, provided she delivered it with enough confidence.

Author’s note

Discrimination becomes easier to excuse when everybody still gets what they came for.

An immigrant can find work or buy a house and still leave the encounter carrying something he never agreed to purchase. The other person gets what matters to the transaction, whether that means labor, business, or money. Because nobody refused service outright, everyone can pretend the system worked. The humiliation remains conveniently off the receipt.

An accent can make someone question competence they would otherwise assume. It can also provoke impatience with questions a native speaker could ask without consequence. A foreign name or appearance may trigger assumptions before anyone knows where the person was born, how long he has lived here, or whether he is a citizen.

Discrimination does not require coherent logic. Someone who resents immigrants may still hire one when the work needs doing. A business owner can depend on customers whose accents irritate him, then complain about immigrants over dinner. Economic self-interest has never required ideological consistency. Bigotry becomes remarkably adaptable when money enters the room.

The person receiving that contempt has to manage it while completing whatever brought him there. Challenging the treatment may jeopardize something he needs, so disrespect becomes another cost he has to calculate.

An immigrant may depend on the job or need the professional sitting across from him to finish the work. Walking away means starting over and hoping the next person hides the contempt better. A complaint can also make him look difficult in a culture already prepared to interpret his frustration as evidence that he does not belong. Silence can resemble submission when someone else never has to pay for the alternative.

That is the discrimination I wanted underneath Chapter 5. Carol’s father participates fully in the transaction, enough for his realtor to profit from him. His money earns her commission without earning him the ordinary respect she would extend to someone she considered her equal.

She can treat him as though he barely belongs and still take the check.

Apparently his money speaks excellent English.

Sources

U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. “National Origin Discrimination.”

U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. “EEOC Disappointed in Supreme Court Decision Not to Hear Speak-English-Only Work Rule Case.”

U.S. Government Accountability Office. Employer Sanctions and the Question of Discrimination. 1990.

What did you think when Carol turned the car toward the library?

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Andrea returned to Carol with gifts chosen well enough to keep their relationship looking intact. Carol knew attentiveness was not love, but she played along because the performance still served her. What she had not admitted was who the performance was protecting her from.

New to the Serial? Start Here | Need the previous chapter? Chapter 3: My Crime

Carol

The truth is rarely pure and never simple.

~Oscar Wilde

Penelope skidded to a stop in front of me. Her arms tightened around her body as if she were protecting herself from the echoes of the wails we had all ignored. “Did he hit her again?”

“Beat her black and blue.” I couldn’t forget the brittle expression on Lucia’s face. Under her stare, every excuse I had made for myself turned hollow.

“My mom was in the atrium when she heard the screams.” Penelope’s voice cracked. “She didn’t tell me until it was over.”

I looked toward the spot where Lucia had stood, remembering the way her wounded eyes met mine. Those wails had been part of our neighborhood for six or seven years. “You didn’t see her face. Like I had been in that room when it happened.”

Penelope hugged me. “But she can’t blame us for what her family does. It’s just not fair.”

Such a stupid thing to say. Fairness was a fairy tale people told themselves so tragedy would seem temporary. Life was indifferent. Otherwise, Lucia’s parents would not have died in that crash when she was three, or her grandfather nine years later. It wouldn’t have left her in the hands of her grandmother, who was all bitterness and retribution, or an uncle who smiled whenever someone was in pain.

Still, logic did not make me innocent. I could have been a better friend. The thought did not accuse me loudly. It only stayed.

I hated myself for it. When I thought of it, which wasn’t often. And only on Lucia’s behalf, naturally, not because guilt suited me.

“Why don’t you come over and hang out?” Of course Penelope offered a distraction. I could always count on her to make me feel better. “She won’t be mad forever.”

I bit my tongue. Really? That was all she offered? Positivity did not change the truth. It only taught people where to apply lipstick.

“Great idea.” I wasn’t ready to see my mother or my boyfriend. I drew a breath, polished my voice, and made it light. “Andrea hasn’t been himself since he got back.”

“Oh, he adores you.” She looped her arm through mine as we crossed the street. “He’s probably still recovering. You know how he gets after he flies.”

For the next few days, I tried to believe Penelope, but something in Andrea was shifting out of my reach. He no longer invited me to the beach bungalow. Lately, we met only at his parents’ house or somewhere public. So his offer to pick me up from school and take me to lunch didn’t surprise me.

But when I opened the door of his Porsche 911 Carrera, he didn’t look excited to see me. He shifted behind the wheel as though he had spent all day waiting and had grown tired of me before I arrived.

“Hi.” I focused on the click of the seatbelt. Too loud, but it was easier than letting my thoughts go where they wanted.

“Hi.” He leaned over for an air kiss. Manners, not love. “You look lovely.”

I heard it in his voice then. Andrea was tired and had already decided not to fight. His eyes settled on me. Really settled. He wouldn’t make excuses for me anymore. Or worse, he had finally finished making excuses for himself.

I had miscalculated. Visiting him in the hospital would have been the intelligent choice. Stupid mistakes were not like me, especially with Andrea, but I had already made this one. I had left him alone long enough to think.

“We need to talk.”

My stomach flipped. Fuck. It was worse than I thought. Still, I didn’t blink. “No,” I breathed. “Not today.”

“Carol…”

I unbuckled my seatbelt. My hand moved toward his waistband. Thought was dangerous, and desire easier to manage. Before he could stop me, I slid low enough to make refusal feel cruel. He wasn’t capable of humiliating me by pushing me away. Too damn polite and decent, which made decency useful.

A sharp, shallow breath escaped him as I slid into position, my heels scraping against the leather. No panic, just calculation. My perfume folded between us like silk, soft enough to pretend this was still seduction. His hand turned into a fist; guilt made a noble effort. His body did not.

My mouth moved without my heart. Time, borrowed one breath at a time.

When I finished, I climbed back into my seat. No one was around. Thank God. I smoothed my skirt. Clicked the seatbelt into place. By the time I turned toward him, I had become innocent again. With a sweet smile, I asked, “Where are you taking me for lunch?”

Those pale blue eyes studied me. I didn’t see love there, only defeat. Now he couldn’t say it. I had moved the conversation somewhere he was too decent to follow.

That, I decided, was enough for now.

San Diego never really changed with the seasons, but the light did. That afternoon, everything looked distant and crisp. The windshield reflected the low gold of early fall. Sunlight stretched thin, like it was trying too hard. Just like me.

I had delayed Andrea.

Lucia wouldn’t be as easy.

A few days later, I found Lucia on her porch with Penelope. She looked almost normal, covering most of her bruises with jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. Makeup hid the mark on her face. She had never done that before.

There was so much I wanted to say about the other night. Anything might have crossed the distance between us, or made it worse. So I said nothing. Unless Lucia brought it up, I would not be the one to make her.

The longer she remained silent, the heavier the guilt sat on my chest. Lucia would never have done that to me.

She hadn’t.

The worst moment of my life returned in a rush. My lower abdomen had been a tangled mess of pain. I was crying, not only from fear or agony, but from the relief of not being alone. Because she hadn’t left.

Lucia held my hand through the worst of it.

And me?

Not only had I failed to help her, but I had barely looked at her. Heat spread up my neck and across my face. I flicked my wrist, and the light caught my new tennis bracelet. Shame looked better in diamonds.

“Wow! Who gave you that?” Penelope squealed.

“That’s nice,” Lucia said, flat and uninterested. She didn’t bother looking at my hand.

“Andrea got it for me in Monaco.” I liked the idea of him walking through one of those exclusive boutiques, choosing something worthy of me. In reality, I had not bothered to ask, and if he had told me, I had not listened. Not that he was all that talkative since his return.

“Real diamonds,” I added, because apparently my audience needed cue cards.

“You shouldn’t have taken something that expensive.” Lucia’s eyes drifted across the street toward Penelope’s house.

“Why?” My heart spiked. Did she think I didn’t deserve expensive things because no one gave them to her? Or worse, did she think they bought me?

Penelope tilted her head. “Because you aren’t in love with him.”

“Not you, too.” I snapped. “He did give me a promise ring.” Real enough on my finger. False everywhere else.

Maybe Andrea was wrong for me. He had been such a good cover. So much fun, too, until usefulness started feeling like loss. Even before his summer trip, he had started pulling away. No more romantic weekends, just a gift here or there.

I had simply ignored it. My life was full of so much else: family, school, friends in Hillcrest, the real estate office. Still, I regretted not being more proactive. Under his cover, I was safe. Everyone knew what box to put me in. It had been pure idiocy not to sit with him at the hospital, but really, he had a lot of nerve thinking my time should revolve around him.

“What’s a promise ring?” Lucia asked, as if I were making it up.

In the barrio, a promise meant his parents had asked your family for your hand, not handed you jewelry promising better jewelry later.

“A promise that forever is coming.”

Penelope rolled her eyes. “More like a pause between ‘someday’ and ‘not yet.’ That’s why Mexican guys give you an engagement ring, so you know they mean it.”

“You spend too much time in the barrio.” Good grief. She sounded like someone’s abuela.

Before Penelope could keep talking, I turned toward Lucia. “Why are you wearing your hair in a braid?”

“Matteo’s sister taught me how to do them yesterday.”

My breath caught. A hot, churning sensation burned through my chest. Since when did Lucia have a Matteo? The pang left before I could call it anything respectable. “You look like an india.”

“I like it.” Lucia kept her voice even, as if I hadn’t just insulted her. “You’re only angry because I think you should return the bracelet and the ring.”

I huffed and followed her gaze toward the front yard. “What the hell are you looking at?”

“She loves the magnolia tree.” Penelope’s tone had changed. Calling Lucia an india had been a shitty thing to do. My comment sat on the porch with us, ugly and impossible to retrieve.

Seriously, though. That stupid tree again? It wasn’t even blooming.

Lucia stood first, taking herself out of the conversation without raising her voice. “What’s a good brand of makeup that isn’t too expensive?”

“Since when do you care about makeup?” There it was again, that slight constriction in my chest, making my breath stutter.

Other girls might want that kind of attention. But not her. She was too bright. Too Mexican, and I hated that anyone outside us might notice her. Their kind loved girls like Lucia only until love required courage.

She didn’t answer. Penelope offered the name of some brand instead.

Shifting with discomfort, Lucia said she needed to help her grandmother with dinner. We all knew Doña Eva didn’t care. At least Lucia hadn’t called me on my shit. Perhaps that was worse. Like my cruelty had not even earned a fight. No, that was idiotic.

Between my looks and my father’s money, I was the catch of the barrio. Lucia had to know it. Didn’t she?

As soon as Lucia went inside, Penelope turned on me. “What is wrong with you? How many times have we talked about her and makeup?”

“Do you know anything about this asshole?” I shot back.

“Who?”

“The guy she was talking about.”

“Matteo?” Penelope paused, as if the name had only half-stuck. “She’s mentioned him once or twice. Something about the library.”

“Have they started spending time together outside of school?”

“I don’t think so.” Penelope shrugged. “If you weren’t being such a bitch, you could ask her yourself.”

“I just don’t want her to get hurt.” Doubt sharpened my voice. Suspicion sat beneath it, dressed poorly as concern.

“You’re doing a bang-up job of that. You’re worse than a jealous boyfriend.”

“Don’t be stupid.” I bit off the words too quickly. Too much force made denial look like confession. “I’m not jealous.”

The eighties did not reward honesty from girls like me. San Diego was a conservative stronghold, and the so-called gay plague had too many hypocrites foaming at the mouth. If you were smart, you kept quiet. You lied as though your life depended on it. Because it did.

“You’ve always been possessive.” Penelope flipped through the magazine in her hands without looking at it. “Any guy she lets near her has to be doing something right. Lucia doesn’t trust easily.”

“A saint,” I muttered. I knew exactly one Matteo connected to that campus, but he was so far out of Lucia’s league that I laughed. He would never notice her.

My feelings were making me stupid, and I refused to dignify them with a name. Or worse, with honesty.

Author’s note

When Lucia says Matteo’s sister taught her to braid her hair, Carol answers, “You look like an india.” Everyone on the porch understands she has insulted Lucia.

In Mexico, indio, or india in the feminine, can refer to Indigenous people of the Americas. By the early twentieth century, its meaning could carry judgments that went well beyond ancestry. Nieves Rodríguez Valle documents Mexican usage associating the word with ignorance, undesirable behavior, and low social standing.

Mexico has long incorporated an Indigenous past into its national identity. Yet living Indigenous people and Indigenous-coded traits have remained vulnerable to contempt. Appearance, education, class, language, and assimilation could all affect where someone was placed socially.

Those attitudes did not stop at the border. Oscar Zeta Acosta, the Chicano writer who grew up in California’s Central Valley, described his mother disparagingly calling his Indigenous-descended father indio. When Acosta and his siblings misbehaved, she accused them of “behaving like an indian.”

Sometimes prejudice survives migration because nobody needs to translate it.

Carol, Penelope, and Lucia understand the insult through a Mexican American vocabulary shaped by Mexico, migration, class, assimilation, and the hierarchies people can carry with them.

That is what Carol reaches for when she calls Lucia an india. She sees the braid, feels threatened by the mention of Matteo, and chooses a word capable of making Lucia’s confidence waver. Instead, Lucia keeps the braid.

Sources

Real Academia Española and Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española. “indio, india.” Diccionario panhispánico de dudas, 2nd ed. Accessed August 11, 2026.

Rodríguez Valle, Nieves. “Paremias étnicas en el refranero mexicano.” Acta Poética 26, nos. 1–2 (2005): 465–483.

Aguirre, Abby. “What ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’ Owes to Oscar Acosta.” The New Yorker, July 13, 2021.

Tumbaga, Ariel Zatarain. “Indios y burros: Rethinking ‘la India María’ as Ethnographic Cinema.” Latin American Research Review 55, no. 4 (2020): 759–772.

Carol managed to stop the breakup conversation, but was it victory, or just strategic procrastination?

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Carol had the boyfriend, the image, and the future people expected. Andrea’s summer away made the performance harder to hold.

New to the Serial? Start Here | Need the previous chapter? Chapter 2: Unsaid

Content note: This chapter contains domestic violence and verbal abuse.

Carol

Yet each man kills the thing he loves…

~Oscar Wilde

Something shattered next door and jolted me upright. Both of my parents froze.

Lucia lived next door, but to them, she might as well have lived in another country. Her screams crossed the wall without permission. They entered our living room, climbed over the furniture, and settled among us like an accusation.

Six years of listening should have taught me how to ignore them. Another cry tore through the plaster. Ignoring it became actual labor. The sound cut straight into the pit of my stomach.

Across the room, my parents exchanged a tired glance. Resignation looked so much like wisdom when cowards wore it long enough. My father kept his attention on his Reader’s Digest.

My mother’s knitting needles kept clacking. “Elenita, we cannot get involved.”

It was the first of the month. Doña Eva had received her retirement check, which meant Bruno had crawled out of whatever cave he drank in to collect his tribute. Money for liquor, card games, and whatever else he had not earned but still knew how to demand.

Bruno understood the barrio better than anyone. He knew where every boundary ended and every excuse began. No one interfered with another family’s business. No one called the police. Everyone listened through the walls, lowered their voices, and thanked God the violence belonged to someone else.

A fresh wail ripped through the room. I shot to my feet.

Before I reached the door, my mother caught my elbow. Her grip was rough enough to bruise, which felt almost insulting considering what was happening next door. “Elena Carolina Herrera, stop.”

Yanking free, I pushed past her.

“José!”

My father understood the command before she finished his name. Strong and quick, he reached the door first and planted himself in front of it. “Mija, this is a family matter.”

“How can it be a family matter when the entire street can hear her screaming?” My arms flew wide. The gesture was dramatic, fine, but the truth deserved presentation. My parents became the audience. “What does he have to do before someone stops him?”

“We do not have to approve.” My father’s voice remained gentle. That made it worse. “But her uncle has the right to discipline her as he sees fit.”

Lucia did nothing wrong. Doña Eva had shaped her into a grateful orphan who studied, worked, attended Mass, and apologized for occupying space. Whenever obedience failed, the old woman dragged out her dead daughter’s memory and wrapped it around her grandchildren’s throats. Johnny occasionally slipped the leash. Lucia carried hers like a cross.

Parents like mine dreamed of daughters like her. Devout and silent, the perfect Mexican girl, trained to accept suffering as proof of character.

Meanwhile, they had me.

Another scream broke through. My mother raised the volume on the television even as tears gathered along her lower lashes. Her knitting needles continued their stubborn little rhythm.

Click. Loop. Pull.

My father lowered his magazine. One hand tightened around the arm of his chair, and for a moment, I saw the man he wanted to be. A man who didn’t need his wife’s permission to be a protector.

Then he looked at my mother, and as expected, he remained seated.

Trapped, I told myself. He was trapped, too. The lie almost comforted me.

Silence fell without warning. Through the window, Bruno staggered toward the truck waiting crooked at the curb. The engine coughed twice before catching. He tore I stood, sat, then stood again.

Calling the police would do nothing unless someone pressed charges. Doña Eva would never permit it. Lucia would be told to forgive him, pray harder, cover the bruises, and remember everything her grandmother had sacrificed for her grandchildren.

By next week, the marks would turn from purple to blue. Green would come after that. Finally, the yellow-brown shade that made damaged flesh look rotten.

There was nothing I could do about it.

At twenty-one, I was old enough to drink and vote, but adulthood meant very little in the barrio. A woman remained a daughter until she became a wife. Marriage was the only respectable escape. Another cage, perhaps, but some cages came with large houses, private bedrooms, and bars that knew how to shine.

Across the room, my mother pretended not to notice me watching her. Perhaps she felt my judgment anyway. I wanted it to mark her with two words: coward and hypocrite.

Better her than me.

The thought arrived so quickly I almost missed it.

I had tried to reach the door. That mattered. Surely intention separated me from everyone else in the room. Courage still counted when someone stronger stood in the way. I was not responsible for my father’s body, my mother’s grip, Doña Eva’s silence, Bruno’s fists, or the entire barrio’s devotion to looking away.

Lucia’s bruises would fade. They would return. Next time, I promised myself, I would do something. Promises were beautiful that way. They required nothing until later.

I was wrong. When it came to this girl, I was always wrong.

Everyone pretended a quinceañera was the moment a Mexican girl could begin dating. Not that I had ever followed that stupid rule.

A ridiculous Cinderella gown swallowed me whole. White, of course, traditional and immaculate, which only made the punishment more insulting. Buried beneath layers of tulle and fake magic, I struggled to move all night.

Lucia wore the court’s mermaid dress in Mexican pink, and my eyes followed every line the dress refused to hide. The fitted skirt hugged her hips and thighs before the double hem opened around her narrow frame. A halter neckline widened her delicate shoulders, while the razorback left the long line of her spine bare.

The dress required no cleavage. Good thing, because she didn’t have any. The color warmed her olive skin until she seemed lit from within. Lucia was stunning.

As if that weren’t enough, a parade of boys asked her to dance. I told myself I simply couldn’t tolerate them choosing her over me. It was my day. Yet she moved from one boy to another as though she had forgotten I existed.

Only when Lucia was ready to leave did she remember whose party it was. She rushed over and told me I looked like a beautiful princess. No one was more beautiful. I was a storybook dream.

My heart did a backflip. Just like that, I forgot I had been angry.

By the next morning, she was back in her ill-fitting hand-me-downs, hiding everything worth seeing. You would think I’d have gotten over it. I couldn’t. Lucia had become interesting.

I caught myself leaning closer whenever she lit up over some revolution or tragic queen, even though I hated history. Asking her to read her dull novels aloud. Laughing too hard at the ridiculous things she found funny. Each time she looked at me like that, nervous energy overwhelmed me.

Nothing made sense. I did what I always did back then and turned to my mother.

I wasn’t stupid enough to say it outright. Just a hint. Girls seemed smarter, sweeter, and prettier. Easier to talk to.

She waved the whole thing away and assured me it was normal to find girls more interesting at my age. Fifteen-year-old boys were boring. They matured slowly. She solved the problem by telling me to date eighteen- or nineteen-year-olds.

A typical Mexican mother’s response. No talk of finding yourself. Just find an older man.

The news kept showing gringas marching and burning their bras, but in our barrio, that meant crazy White girls with money to waste. No one I knew burned hers. Bras were expensive. That wasn’t freedom. To us, it was stupidity.

Gringos simply didn’t know how to parent.

We heard even less about gay people. The television argued about homosexuals, priests muttered about them, and adults lowered their voices, but in our world, gay meant men. Men like Lalo, the best seamstress on the Southside of San Diego. Girls? No. Not in our telenovelas or the barrio.

College gave me what the barrio never could. Freedom.

It did not take long to realize my mother had been wrong. Boys became guys, but they never became more interesting. Girls were always more. More beautiful. More complicated. More of everything.

The first real secret had pink gloss and sparkling fingernails pressed into my thighs. I gasped as though she had stolen the air from my lungs.

So, I stopped pretending and gave in to girls who made boys feel decorative. After the third girl, I stopped going to confession. I would not repent, so there was no point in asking for forgiveness.

At home, those types of girls never entered the conversation. Still, my mother began watching me more closely. The unspoken question sharpened every time she looked at me.

Naturally, I gave her an answer she could tolerate. I became agreeable. Flirted with the right guys and dated the boys my mother could survive.

It helped that Lucia was still in high school when I began attending Collwood State University. No one there knew her, and I rarely saw her when I came home.

As the old saying goes, never dip your pen in company ink. Apparently, that included girls next door who hummed over real-estate law.

The realtor’s exam refused to respect my ambition, so I finally admitted I needed help. Lucia had always offered to help me with anything school-related, so I finally turned to her.

She said yes.

Her fingers moved across the page as she made that little hum of hers. The sound came whenever she worked through a difficult section, soft and distracted and somehow capable of getting beneath my skin.

Of course I regretted asking. By then, she was already too close.

Too often, I became lost in her gestures. The shape of her hands. The funny way she pronounced the “ch” and “v” sounds in certain words. That was when the old problem found its way back in.

Perhaps there was something in my voice or in the way I looked at her. Something gave me away.

Doña Eva, her grandmother, began insisting we leave Lucia’s bedroom door open when I was there. Later, she decided we should work at the dining-room table. Her eyes followed me before shifting toward Lucia, who remained blissfully oblivious.

My mother noticed, too. I saw it in the way she looked at me whenever I mentioned Lucia. Heard the silent objection beneath her words, “you are spending too much time together.”

I had to protect myself. There was nothing else I could do. So I became the sharpest thing in the room.

Teased her mercilessly, told her she dressed like a scarecrow, called her Crater Face, anything ugly enough to make distance look accidental.

She needed to step away before I reached for her. Before I pulled her against me. Kissed her. Told her the truth.

Instead, I dated Andrea.

I got my Cartier watch, my Hermès silk scarf, and all the couture makeup I could wear. But no ring.

When I stepped onto the porch, Lucia was rushing from her grandmother’s house. She wore a peach floral babydoll dress, too sheer, too light, too frayed.

The cool breeze caught the fabric and, just like that, revealed every welt. Old bruises. New ones already forming.

There was one on her face.

Shit.

Lucia looked at me, and I forgot how to breathe. It wasn’t the flip in my stomach that frightened me. It was the drop. Her eyes held what her mouth refused to give me. You didn’t help. You let it happen again.

I opened my mouth. Her fists clenched at her sides, telling me to shut up. She didn’t want explanations.

Lucia didn’t care about what I had tried to do. All she wanted was the one thing I had failed to give her.

Guilt slid down my throat with the bitter burn of cheap wine. My world was tilting, as though gravity had forgotten me, and somehow she was the cause.

The girl who wasn’t anyone’s choice.

Lucia was far too smart, possessed the wrong kind of stubbornness, and wasn’t pretty enough to get away with either.

Her face? Interesting. Large, dark-brown eyes that gave away feelings, secrets, and every thought better kept hidden. High cheekbones framed a mouth that formed a perfect heart when closed, but that she rarely used to smile. A waste, honestly. Also a mercy.

She did nothing with her frizzy curls, letting them fall freely to her waist. Her olive skin looked sickly, and the dark circles beneath her eyes did not help. They made concern too obvious, and I hated obvious things. Worse, she was too thin. All angles, until her hips ruined even that argument.

The hand-me-downs she wore clung or sagged in all the wrong places. Summer was the only season when I didn’t see holes in her sneakers, and that was because she wore sandals.

Yes, the girl was a tragedy with bad shoes. Case closed.

And yet, one glance from her was enough to wreck me. Maybe that was why we called it a crush. It crushed every sensible thought right out of you.

My gaze dropped to the straps of my Italian sandals, desperate to escape her eyes. She had never looked at me that way before.

Like I wasn’t the prize.

Author’s Note

In 1985, corporal punishment of children remained widely accepted in the United States. A lot of people believed that children sometimes needed a “good, hard spanking” as discipline. Americans had made physical punishment ordinary enough that nobody needed Mexican culture to explain its presence.

The distinction matters because ethnicity cannot explain Bruno’s violence when the bruises are hard to defend. Once violence enters under the label of discipline, people can argue about methods while avoiding the harder question of what the child is actually enduring. Discipline sounds responsible. It suggests correction carried out for a child’s benefit.

Bruno began hitting Lucia when she was young, giving the adults around her an explanation they already understood. Years passed, and the explanation stayed put. Bruno kept hitting her. By then, the supposed connection between punishment and correction had become impossible to defend without considerable imagination.

A neighbor who called Bruno strict could condemn his methods and still leave the matter inside the family. Someone who described his temper could dislike him without accepting responsibility for Lucia. Calling what he did abuse would force a different calculation, because adults who recognized the danger would also have to account for their own silence.

Adults often imagine that complicity requires malice because it feels easier to identify. Ordinary fear can accomplish the same damage with far less drama. People worry about overstepping, insulting an elder, provoking a violent man, or becoming responsible for whatever happens next. The child keeps paying for that caution while everyone else debates jurisdiction.

Lucia reached nineteen with the evidence written across her body.

Words such as correction, strictness, and family problems can keep serious harm inside familiar categories long after those categories have failed.

Sources

General Social Survey, NORC at the University of Chicago. “Favor Spanking to Discipline Child.” GSS Data Explorer: Spanking Trend

Buriel, Raymond, Rosa Mercado, James Rodriguez, and John M. Chavez. “Mexican-American Disciplinary Practices and Attitudes Toward Child Maltreatment: A Comparison of Foreign- and Native-Born Mothers.” Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences 13, no. 1 (1991): 78–94. SAGE Journals article

Calzada, Esther J., et al. “Incorporating the Cultural Value of Respeto Into a Framework of Latino Parenting.” Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology 16, no. 1 (2010): 77–86. PubMed record and Free full text at PubMed Central

Which bothered you more: Carol’s family looking away, or Carol convincing herself that trying was enough?

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Andrea spent the summer in Spain while Carol waited for the relationship, access, and future his name promised. His return ended in a hospital stay instead of the reunion she expected. Now she intends to put the story back in order.

New to the Serial? Start Here | Need the previous chapter? Chapter 1: Work of Fiction

Andrea

Much unhappiness has come into the world

because of bewilderment and things left unsaid.

~Fyodor Dostoevsky

Andrea kissed the inside of her thigh. The heat of her skin didn’t reach him. He remembered where to linger, how much pressure it took to make her gasp. Sex with her had once been kinetic, intoxicating, a bright blur that made thought feel unnecessary. Now, he simply waited for it.

Her thighs tightened around his head. She said nothing. Her hips rolled upward, demanding more. She curled her fingers into his hair. He followed her rhythm without meeting it. She came. Loud. Breathy. Triumphant. She pushed her hips toward him in that final, familiar arch.

Even then, she moaned his middle name. Andrea. Not his first name, the one he actually preferred. The name stayed with him for a second. Then he hoped she would fall back onto the divan, satisfied. He could give her the gifts first, one last finished gesture, before anything uglier had to be named.

No such luck. Her hand moved with purpose, traced his stomach, slipped beneath the loose waistband of his linen pants. His body answered without asking him. He was hard. Of course he was. His health was unreliable, not absent.

He looked down at her flushed skin, her heavy-lidded eyes, her shallow breath. Her body was open to him, willing, impossible to mistake. He moved with what she offered him, steady and unsentimental. Nothing in him reached back. Just the pressure, steady and direct.

She gasped. He could no longer retreat within the motion. Whatever had once been theirs was gone now. Andrea closed his eyes, and let his body find its rhythm. Nothing in the motion belonged to him. Desire had become a borrowed function.

His body remained focused, need severed from longing. Carol clung to his shoulders, moaned his name, and tried to reassert her pace. When he came, the strength of the shudder surprised him, because the release changed nothing.

He pulled out. Rolled onto his back. She curled up to him. But his body had forgotten how to want her. He closed his eyes, not because he was tired, but to disappear. The ceiling fan spun above them.

Carol traced a slow circle over his chest. “You said you brought me presents.”

Andrea opened his eyes. Peace was over. The ceiling fan continued its dull rotation, stirring warm air that smelled of chlorine, sweat, and the jasmine climbing outside the pool house. His pulse had settled, though his body still felt separate from him. Heavy in some places and hollow in others.

“Yes.”

“How many?” The question came too quickly for him to pretend she did not care.

He shifted out from beneath her. The movement sent a small current of dizziness through him, gone before it could settle. He sat at the edge of the divan and reached for his trousers. “Several.”

She pushed herself up onto one elbow. Her beautiful green eyes glimmered, so vibrant and alive. He had spent so long trying to borrow some of that brightness.

“Several?” Her voice brightened.

He stepped into the loose linen pants and tied them at his waist. Behind him, the sheet whispered as she sat up.

“You made it sound like there was one,” she pouted in that way he had once found so adorable.

He suppressed a sigh. “I said I had presents.”

“You said it like someone announcing bad news.”

Andrea glanced at her. “Would you prefer bad news?”

“Not before the presents.” She smiled, pleased with the answer she had made for him.

Two large shopping bags stood inside the teak cabinet. Andrea had placed them there himself that afternoon. He had checked the tissue paper, the ribbons, each receipt folded into its envelope. He had removed the prices because she liked to ask but hated being told.

Carol smiled widely at the bags when he lifted them. Her mouth opened. “Oh, my God.”

He carried everything to the low table. Burgundy leather boxes, cream paper with gold lettering, and an orange box tied with brown ribbon. Beneath them waited the pale gray Dior box, larger than the others. He had seen the same display spread across the bed in Mallorca while packing, arranged like proof of something already finished.

Carol drew the sheet around herself and slipped from the divan. “You were hiding all of that?”

“I wasn’t hiding it.”

“You absolutely were,” she teased before she knelt beside the table. Her earlier disappointment disappeared so completely that Andrea understood how quickly he had learned to ignore it.

“Which one first?”

“It does not matter.”

“It matters to me.”

He had not meant to sound rude, so he lowered himself into the chair across from her. His legs felt heavier than they should have. Perhaps he had stayed in the sun too long; the flight, the hospital, the medication. There was always an explanation available if he wanted one.

Carol reached for the smallest Cartier box, then paused. “No. You choose.”

Andrea looked at the packages. “The Hermès.”

She drew the orange box toward her. “I knew it.”

“You knew what?”

“That you love me.” Her smile was sweet as she looked at him from beneath her lashes.

Andrea rested one ankle over the other. “You will love your gifts.”

Carol loosened the ribbon without cutting it. She never destroyed expensive packaging. Even empty boxes held status when displayed correctly.

The lid came free. White tissue covered the scarf beneath it. Her hands slowed. Andrea remembered the first hint. They had been leaving a restaurant in Del Mar when a woman passed them wearing silk knotted over her hair. Carol had watched her cross the pavement and said the blue was almost right, though the pattern was too busy.

Two weeks later, she had stopped before an Hermès window and mentioned that true red made cheap silk look cruel. After that came a magazine left open on his kitchen table. He had understood.

Carol folded back the tissue and lifted the scarf. The silk opened in her hands, ivory at the center with a border of deep blue and restrained strokes of red. Not too bright, detailed without becoming crowded.

For several seconds, she said nothing. Then she looked at him. “You remembered.”

He nodded, his smile soft, feeling like the same nail struck by every want she had.

“The blue. And the red isn’t vulgar.” She stood and crossed to the mirror beside the cabinet. The sheet loosened at her shoulder as she draped the scarf around her neck. She adjusted it once, then again, bringing the blue closer to her face. “This is the perfect one.”

“Yes.”

He could tell she was not merely pleased, but vindicated. Some offense had been corrected without his knowing the charge. Her reflection smiled at him as if she were back in control.

She returned to the table and bent to kiss him. Her lips touched his briefly, careful not to smudge her lipstick. “See, you do love me.”

Andrea looked toward the open doors. Beyond the patio, the pool held the last light of evening. Gold moved across the water in narrow pieces. He could hear voices from the main house. One of his sisters laughed, a door closed, and silverware was set somewhere far beyond them.

Carol sat on the rug and reached for Cartier. “This one now?”

“If you like.”

“I do like.” She lifted the burgundy lid. Inside rested a gold bracelet, narrow and clean, with three interlocking bands. Carol stared at it before touching it.

Andrea had bought it in Madrid after she mentioned, more than once, that a woman should not have to choose between yellow, white, and rose gold. The remark had sounded casual. Most of her instructions did.

“Andrea.” She lifted the bracelet from the velvet and turned it beneath the light. “You found it.”

His shoulders tightened at the name. “Yes.”

“They didn’t have my size in San Diego.” She slipped it over her wrist. The bands settled against one another with a soft metallic sound.

“I was not in San Diego.”

“It fits.” Her eyes widened. “You know my wrist measurement?”

“You asked me to fasten enough bracelets.”

Carol laughed and held her arm out, admiring the gold against her skin. “No man remembers things like that.”

Andrea watched the three bands shift as she moved. He had remembered the size because precision prevented inconvenience. A bracelet too large would disappoint her. One too small would become an accusation against her body. It had seemed easier to be exact.

Carol leaned toward him. “Say something.”

“It suits you.”

“That’s all?”

“What would you like me to say?” He watched her study him for a moment, then she smiled again, as if choosing not to notice the question.

“That you imagined it on me.”

The words required little of him. He was tired enough to give her the shape of what she wanted. “I imagined it on you.”

Her expression softened. The distance inside him widened. Carol kissed his cheek this time and reached for the second Cartier box.

“There’s more?”

“Yes.”

The second Cartier box held small gold knots set with diamonds. She had hinted at them months ago, casually enough to deny it. These did not try too hard. She pressed one to each ear and turned her head.

“Perfect.”

Andrea looked at them. “They are.”

She rose again to inspect herself in the mirror. The scarf framed her shoulders. Gold rested at her wrist. Diamonds caught the light when she moved. He knew each piece belonged exactly where she had imagined it. Carol looked more alive with every addition.

Andrea felt himself retreat with each success.

The gifts had seemed thoughtful in Europe. He had visited the shops, spoken with clerks himself, and compared shades under natural light. When the correct size was unavailable, he arranged for it to be brought from another city. Nothing in the process had required longing. Only memory and money.

Carol returned to the table. “The Dior.”

“Open the other one first.”

Her eyes moved to a long cream box. “What is that?”

She pulled the box toward her and lifted the lid. A pair of sunglasses rested inside, dark tortoiseshell with softened square frames. Carol made a sound halfway between a laugh and a gasp.

“No.”

The smell of his mother’s paella reached the pool house. He was tired and hungry.

“Andrea.”

He allowed a faint smile. “They suit you.”

Carol placed the glasses on top of her head, then touched the Dior box. “This one is big.”

He said nothing.

Her smile spread. She pulled the ribbon loose and lifted the lid. Layers of tissue filled the box. Carol moved through them carefully at first, then faster when she glimpsed the leather beneath.

The handbag was structured and cream-colored, with dark red trim and a small gold clasp. The shape was elegant without looking delicate. Large enough to be useful, small enough to require restraint. Carol lifted it with both hands.

She had rolled her eyes at a woman holding the bag and said, “Cream, not white.”

Carol ran her hands over the leather. Her eyes shone as she looked at him. “You got the cream. With the red trim.”

“Yes.”

She held the bag against her body and crossed to the mirror again. She laughed, a bright, breathless sound.

Every package had brought her closer to the version of the evening she expected from him. The reunion, the sex, the proof of devotion laid out in silk and leather. Andrea could almost see the script fixed behind her eyes.

In that story, a summer apart had not changed them. The gifts explained everything. His silence had been illness, and his distance had been his grandfather’s demands.

She turned toward him. “You missed me.”

Andrea looked at the open boxes surrounding her. Tissue paper covered the rug. Ribbons curled along the table. The room had taken on the faint smells of new leather, perfume, and warmed silk. “I thought of you.”

Carol’s smile faltered only slightly. “That’s what I said.”

She crossed the room and settled onto his lap, the Dior bag still looped over one arm. Her weight pressed against the soreness in his thighs. He placed a hand at her waist to steady her.

“You were probably miserable without me.”

“I was very busy.”

“You know what I mean.” Her fingers touched his hair. The shorter length still seemed to confuse her. She arranged the front, trying to restore something that was no longer there. “These prove it.”

Andrea’s gaze moved toward the gifts.

“Prove what?”

“That you know me.” Carol said it with such certainty that he felt an unexpected ache beneath his breastbone. He did know her.

He knew her wrist measurement and that she preferred gold. The difference between cream and white, and which red she considered elegant and which one offended her. Diamonds small enough to suggest restraint and expensive enough to defeat it. The shape of sunglasses she believed softened her face. The knowledge sat before them in perfect boxes.

None of it brought him closer to her.

Carol kissed him, slower this time. Her mouth was warm and familiar, the pressure practiced. When she pulled away, satisfaction had settled over her face. “You got everything right.”

“Yes.” The word barely carried.

Carol rested her forehead against his. “You always do.”

A quiet recognition moved through him. Perhaps that had been the problem. He had learned her preferences so thoroughly that every small disappointment arrived already managed. She called it love because the results pleased her.

Andrea had called it love because that was the name his parents had given the performance. He moved his hand from her waist. Fatigue had settled into his bones, threaded with hunger and dizziness. He would regret entering the house, where his mother would suffocate him with attention, but he needed to be done. “I’m sorry. I’m not feeling well.”

“Oh, let me get dressed,” she said, jumping off to pull her clothes on.

The gifts had worked. Otherwise, she would have given him the “not again” look.

Author’s note

Dostoevsky wrote that much unhappiness has entered the world through bewilderment and things left unsaid. I chose that line because this chapter examines the damage silence causes before anyone recognizes it for what it is. Confusion gathers around what neither person will name.

The mind dislikes a vacancy and fills it with whatever evidence happens to be available. A remembered preference suggests devotion. Good manners discourage scrutiny, mostly because scrutiny has a nasty habit of ruining dinner.

Competence gives Andrea somewhere respectable to hide. His behavior causes no obvious alarm, so he can postpone examining why his feelings have gone quiet. Everyone sees a considerate man performing the role expected of him. The emotional paperwork remains immaculate.

Carol draws the conclusion she needs from that performance. His memory proves she matters. Each gift confirms the future she already believes they share. Her interpretation contains enough truth to withstand casual inspection, which makes it harder to challenge.

By the chapter’s end, Andrea has given Carol something beautiful and emotionally useless. Courtesy protects the arrangement until honesty requires more courage than either person can manage at that moment.

The story between them keeps growing, fed by everything Andrea cannot bring himself to say.

Which is colder: Andrea giving her everything she wanted, or Carol acting as though the gifts proved he still loved her?

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Paid subscribers receive early chapter access, bonus scenes, and The Grumpy Writer.

Work arrives by email. No ads. No noise.

Copyright © 2026 Angelica Thorne

For permission requests, contact angelicathorne@icloud.com.

Carol

A woman’s face is her work of fiction.

~Oscar Wilde

There is nothing sweeter than excitement properly staged: slow at first, then tightening, then impossible to contain. It started with La Jolla Cliffs’ ocean breeze, the kind of air that knew exactly who it was meant to touch. Cool, curated, ever-so-exclusive. I stepped onto the patio just as George Michael’s “Careless Whisper” slid around me.

Andrea was finally home. It had been three long months. I adjusted my gold bracelet, heavy for its size, the way only expensive guilt felt, and reminded myself what was at stake.

Something in me had shifted over the summer. Fine. I missed him. There. A truth offered briefly. Everyone should appreciate it before it expires. Good thing no one was there to hear it.

My summer had suffered without him. Music swelled, couples moved, girls laughed too loudly near men they wanted to impress, and I remained tragically grounded. Not because no one asked me to dance, but with Andrea I felt weightless.

More importantly, his family name opened every locked door in the room. Andrea’s name was a skeleton key. Mine only became one when attached to his. Without him, invitations had been sparse.

That was the part people liked to pretend didn’t matter. Position required strategy. Love, if we were being honest, required a good jeweler.

Naturally, he would make the summer’s inconvenience up to me. His family had raised him to know an apology required form. The champagne flute waiting on the balustrade was the beginning. I took a small sip, chilled, perfect, and apologetic. The rest would follow. Men like Andrea understood that champagne was only the opening gesture. The real apology came after the glass.

I had asked for nothing. Asking cheapened the mood. Some women begged for attention. I preferred to create an environment where generosity could discover itself.

Besides, he knew disappointment looked terrible on me. That alone gave him direction. Nothing that needed explaining.

I almost quickened my step because, yes, I needed him to look at me as if I was the most beautiful woman in the world. Not because it was true, though it was, but because he was mine. He would remember his place in the scene. Some men only needed to be shown the script once.

The real gift? A ring, the one that mattered. I could never be the one to suggest it. His parents were doing all the work. The promise ring they had insisted I wear was not the point. That ring was for them. My summer didn’t require one.

More annoyingly, his body chose the hospital before it chose me. I mean, who gets sick after a long flight? Apparently, Andrea’s body considered altitude a personal attack. Honestly? I wasn’t about to rearrange my entire week to sit in a hospital, no matter how upscale his room. Even sick boys needed to return to the story properly. Romantic dramas had rules. I didn’t do behind-the-scenes.

Then again, it took little for him to fall apart. The semester before Spain, he’d relapsed and gone back on medication. The side effects were corrosive and constant, but they only enhanced his ethereal look.

We had agreed to meet at his parents’ mansion, the type of house that made restraint look like bad breeding. The place had rooms no one needed and still made need look embarrassing. God had probably stopped counting. Even the grounds seemed designed to punish modesty.

And yet, he preferred his little bungalow in La Jolla Shores. I had to agree with his parents. He was being ridiculous. The estate was better because it understood what he kept pretending not to need. When we got married, we’d move back to the family home. It was what his parents wanted. Conveniently, what they wanted and what I wanted looked identical.

Andrea had once said he’d never move back home. Too bad. I’d already returned him to that bedroom and arranged the curtains around his surrender. His poor health gave me the perfect excuse to call control concern.

The loss of muscle, the fading tan, and the quiet drain of strength should’ve dulled his beauty. But somehow, it didn’t. Quite the opposite.

Illness had only revealed his luminous alabaster skin. He was my Botticelli angel, golden hair, high cheekbones, and those melancholic blue eyes. Delicate, divine, with beauty wearing him like a mask.

After a summer in Spain and a week in the hospital, he was finally standing beneath a gold-hushed sky of early evening, cloaked in an ivory tunic I decided was Middle Eastern. The fabric hung loose, catching the light as it painted him out of shadow.

When my presence touched him, he looked up. What the fuck? The scene I’d so carefully crafted stuttered. A half-second too long. This was not my Botticelli angel. This was some shorter-haired boy the sun had gotten to first.

I had to revise my script. Fast.

I ran to him, expecting him to sweep me up like the last shot of An Officer and a Gentleman. Grand. Cinematic. Andrea caught me, but he didn’t whirl me around. He had forgotten his part.

His face held the detached stillness of an old portrait. Lips parted in thought, eyes distant. No spin. No lift. Nothing moving the way it should.

Maybe he still wasn’t feeling well. He’d left the hospital only two days before. When I pressed my lips to his, he let me in but didn’t kiss me back. He shifted, pulling away just a little. Not tired. Distant. Like part of him hadn’t returned from Spain.

“Hi.” His voice was soft, hesitant. A beat too late, as if he’d had to find me first. Then he adjusted. “Carol.”

I decided it was tenderness and kissed him. He didn’t say I missed you. Not even the flicker of a smile. I leaned in a little more, feeding him the cue. But the soundtrack didn’t kick in. Just silence.

What the hell? I looked amazing. Hair blown out to perfection. The dress? Cinched at the waist, breasts framed, not flaunted. But maybe effortless wasn’t what he needed today. “I missed you so much.”

“I have presents for you.” Not like him to jump right into the gifts. He was skipping steps, and Andrea never skipped steps.

He built moments like rooms and waited for me to step inside. He knew how to make a reveal feel earned.

He set me down gently, eyes averted, as if I had entered a scene already moving without me.

“I couldn’t wait to see you.” Hospitals always had the wrong lighting. So not enough to make me overlook the setting. He couldn’t possibly be upset about that. I mean, what could I do? Sit there while illness ruined the shape of him.

Now I was being punished for making the wrong choice. Not every man offered what Andrea had. He was leverage. Access. An investment in my future. I still had time to rewrite the scene.

“Not yet.” I pulled him toward the pool house. His mother had made it clear: his bedroom was off-limits. But we had managed just fine in the pool house before. “I’ve missed you too much to wait.”

His hand didn’t move. And for a second, neither did he. The scene had slipped. That’s when the star enters. Takes control.

I caught my reflection in the window. Natural cinnamon-blonde hair, curled into cascades. Emerald eyes, lined just enough to dazzle. Skin porcelain, glowing, unblemished. That used to be enough to bring him to his knees. Now he looked puzzled.

His fingers moved over me by habit, not hunger, as if he were replaying a scene he didn’t want to relive. I pressed my mouth to his neck, but he didn’t lean in. When he finally closed his eyes, he kept them shut longer than the moment needed. Like he was putting something away before he could look at me again. I took it as surrender.

Sex with Andrea was easy because it never felt like dominance. He had always been generous. Eager to please. He used to go down on me and take his time. Enjoyed the feel, the taste, as if his wanting only became useful once it served me. But his mouth was the only one ever fed. Like a gentleman, he never asked for mine in return. He also waited, patiently, for me to allow his body inside mine. And I felt safe. Adored. Powerful.

This time he didn’t give me that wicked little smile that told me just how much he wanted me. I pretended not to notice and smiled for us both. A missed beat, nothing more.

I could fix that. Silence only stayed silent when no one knew where to press.

Author’s note

Mean girls have excellent public relations.

Experts and storytellers often describe them as wounded people whose insecurity curdled into cruelty. Faced with the right consequences, they will supposedly become decent. This explanation comforts everyone except the people they hurt. It converts cruelty into a symptom, then leaves someone else holding the bill.

I wanted to write one of those women without softening her for public consumption. Carol has almost nothing in common with me, yet her nerve impresses me. She works hard to secure her position, reads social power quickly, and refuses to beg for access.

What she does with those qualities is another matter.

Carol uses cruelty when it serves her. At other times, another person’s pain barely registers. She also hurts people simply because she can, which may be the most honest reason of all. Her beauty buys patience, while charm postpones judgment.

She rarely needs to threaten anyone directly. People tolerate her behavior because exclusion from her orbit feels worse than watching her wound someone else. Fear handles most of the labor. Let’s be honest: people prefer comfortable cowardice.

We are also told that consequences will humble her and love will uncover the frightened child beneath the expensive confidence. Then one sincere apology will supposedly place the universe back in order.

That fantasy belongs to the people still trying to cover for her.

The reality for some mean girls is that healing holds no appeal. A few understand themselves quite well. They may resent consequences without regretting the choices that caused them. Forgiveness offers little value to someone who has never granted the injured person moral authority.

Self-knowledge does not guarantee compassion. Sometimes it gives cruelty better aim. A character can recognize the exit and keep driving. Not every story is about change.

Oscar Wilde wrote, “Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.” Carol has a future, and she intends to shape it herself. She may live rent-free in the minds of people she touches. They will replay what she said, what she took, and the moment they realized she understood the damage perfectly.

By then, she will already have moved on.

Be honest: did Carol win you over, or did she make you want to hide the good silver?

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