Page 49 of A Curvy Girl’s Hurricane Survival Guide

“Oh, that’s ok, I was going to meet Trevor at the cafe this way anyway.” I regret it as soon as I say it.

Sonny visibly tenses. “Oh, great. Glad to hear it.” He speaks the words through clenched teeth.

He reaches for the door handle, turns to me, and says, “Thanks again, Cai. This has been…” He appears to be searching for the right words.

Before he finds them, I lunge forward and wrap my arms around him. He stiffens for a second and then relaxes, wrapping his arms around me in return. Then he kisses the top of my head, releases me, and gets into the car. I stand and wave as the car pulls away.

SONNY

I regret leaving the moment I close the car door, and the driver pulls away. I have to flex every muscle and exercise every bit of self-control to keep from asking to stop the car and go back to her. My knuckles have gone white from the effort.

I try to relax and lean back. She is going to see him. He doesn’t deserve her. She shouldn’t be giving Trevor the time of day after what he did. She is too good for him.

I pull out my phone to try to distract myself, but I can’t focus on anything. My mind keeps going back to the last twenty-four hours. To the time I spent with Cai and her family. The smells of the food and laughter. The way they took me in, as if I were already part of the family, making me feel like part of something bigger.

If I wanted to be really masochistic, I would think about having her in my arms, in her bed. Cai felt so right against me, as if she’d been made just to fit in that area against my body. The way she says my name in the dark made my heart race. Her lips on mine were a feeling I would dream about for days to come.

Outside, Miami is already moving again. People are clearing debris, kids are on bikes, and everyone seems to be getting back to the way things were before the storm. Cai is probably doing the same.

When I think about her being with him… I think I might be sick. I should’ve pushed harder; I was being polite. But if she had told me her feelings before she knew who I was, I could have felt more secure in that confession. I just need to know that she likes me for me, not because of what I created.

I am reflecting on my own family. The loneliness I felt growing up. My family didn’t understand my proclivity for games or programming. They thought it was odd that I didn’t have friends and spent hours alone. My cousins picked on me incessantly. They would have called me a nerd, but even though I spent all my time reading or on the computer, I didn’t do well in school. School bored me, and my grades reflected it.

Instead, I got called a freak or dork; dumb and strange was the perception of me they had, with the word “special” whispered behind closed doors like it was a cancer diagnosis. But I didn’t care so much about what they said about me. I just wanted to be left alone. Left to pursue the vision I had to design, create, and innovate technology and games.

I finally started making some friends later in high school, and they seemed to appreciate my insight and even encouraged my ideas. I went to college, and there, with a more challenging curriculum and a focus on the topics I enjoyed, I excelled. My first success, a little indie game that some friends and I did as a project, came in my junior year. It was a hit and already showed promise to future employers.

A year later, as I was set to graduate, several companies were bidding to hire me. I took the one that promised me the most freedom, even though it wasn’t the one that paid the most. It took me a year to create games that surpassed their previous success, and it propelled me to buy the company and gain full control. That’s when I created Silent Knights. That put not just my games, but also my name in the books.

My family is obviously proud of my success. They may not fully understand it; to them, video games are a waste of time and will “rot your brain,” but they can’t argue with the success, and I have that. I paid off my mother’s house and all of my sister’s student loans like a dutiful son. Looking back on it now, I think I did it to help them accept me, and so they’d tell me they were sorry they didn’t understand. Sorry for pegging me as weird or unusual growing up. But those apologies never came. It is as if they have forgotten all about those years of ostracizing me, and instead they pose as the caring family that I should now support in their time of need. Distant relatives crawled out of the woodwork looking for handouts, and when I refused, I wasn’t met with understanding from my sisters or mother, but instead with a sense that I should be more generous to family, after all they’ve done for me.

The space between us has grown larger and larger. I rarely speak to them now, except by text or message, and usually only when they need something. I have an assistant who tracks their requests and keeps some funds just for them. I prefer that to dealing with the constant guilt or the sob stories.

Frankly, I think my family is like most families. The time I spent with Cai was the first time I saw something different. A caring, mutual respect: sure, they teased each other and argued, but they ultimately wanted to be together for the sake of being together. Their praise wasn’t followed up by a request, and their offers weren’t conditional.

I begin to wonder how Cai feels about her family. How she feels almost embarrassed by how they depict her. She has been gone for years, trying to create a version of herself that feels different than the version of her they describe. Cai feels that she isn’t seen, when of course she is. She just isn’t seen the way she wants to be seen.

I am drawn back to her siblings, who just want to spend time with her. Her father wishes she was around more. Her grandmother was taking me in so lovingly. It’s as if family feels different for those of us in it. Would Cai see it differently if she saw my family? Is my family doing their best? Do they miss me? Do they wish I were around more, not just because of my wealth, but because they want to spend time with me?

Maybe I have been afflicted by the same misunderstanding; by the same lack of awareness. Where Cai thinks she has to be in the perfect relationship or job to be seen as an equal in her family’s eyes, I have the same hang-up with thinking I need to be accepted for my past. The odds are that my mother was just doing what she thought was best; I am the one who feels like she owes me an apology.

I suddenly feel the urge to reach out to Cai. To tell her about what her family has meant to me. To tell her what she has meant to me. To see if it is my own pigheadedness that has led me to see strife and hardship when, in fact, there was only a lack of communication. Maybe even find out if Cai’s change of heart has anything to do with my income after all.

It is only then that I realize that I haven’t gotten her number. I have no way to get hold of her. How have I made that type of mistake?

My phone rings, and I answer, hoping it’s Cai, but of course she doesn’t have my number either. It’s just my business partner wanting to go over some focus group feedback.

Good. Something to distract me.

As Cai’s dad said, whatever needs to be will be.

Rule #20

STORMS CHANGE YOU; LET THEM

CAI

La Vaquita is a small cafe that sprang up when I was in high school. It used to be a gas station. Now there are small tables and plastic chairs inside and outside. They serve strong coffee, sandwiches, and bottled drinks from a fridge. They aren’t open in the evening, and they aren’t fancy, but the coffee is consistently tasty, and they are open even right after a hurricane.