Page 12 of Raspados & Regret

My brain goes buuuuurrrrr, like a dying blender full of rocks.

“¿Qué?” I ask too loudly.

My mom narrows her eyes at me and smirks. Fuck. She knows.

Mothers always know, which is unfair and should probably be illegal. They know when you’re lying, when you’re hungry, when you’re about to say something stupid, and apparently when you’re standing in a parking lot at noon on a Saturday having an emotional emergency over another man’s stomach.

She looks from me to Fabián, then back to me.

“El hielo,” she says slowly. “The ice, Elías. I asked you to check the ice.”

“Right. Yeah. Ice.”

“You were staring into space.” She tuts, setting her purse down inside the trailer.

“I was thinking.”

Her face scrunches. “That looked painful.”

“It was.”

Across the booth space, Fabián glances over because my mother speaks quietly until she wants to expose me. Then suddenly she has theater-level projection. His eyes meet mine for half a second, dark and flat under his scowl, like he came into this world disappointed and has spent twenty-eight years collecting reasons to hate everyone and everything.

I hate that face.

I do.

I’ve hated it for years.

I hated it when he got into that parking lot fight after the Chivas game and dented my cousin Ricky’s car with some guy’s back. I hated it when he refused to apologize because, according to Fabián, “the dent was already there.” Or when he showed up to my sister’s baby shower with a gift, ate three plates of food, fixed my aunt’s car in the driveway, and still somehow looked like he was doing everyone a favor by existing.

I hate his little silver hoops.

I hate his shaved head and muscular arms that look like he could bench me no problem.

I hate the silly little crop tops and his happy trail. But my body apparently doesn’t understand hate as a concept and keeps filing it under “possible bad idea, please investigate.”

My mom snaps again. “Elías.”

“I said I got it.”

“You said ice, then stood there like Windows was updating.”

I point at her. “That was mean.”

Behind her, my sister Anita snorts into a cup of coffee.

I turn on her. “Don’t you have a child to parent?”

“I do,” she says. “But she’s with my husband because unlike some people, I make good choices.”

“You married Julio after he got your name tattooed on his arm spelled wrong.”

She shrugs. “He fixed it.”

“Riiight, keep telling yourself that’s what it is.”

She lifts her chin and jabs a finger in my side. “That’s between me and my illiterate man.”