CHAPTER TWO
Natalia
It’s been two months since I last saw Luke, and for that, I’m all too thankful. A few weeks after my ride home with him and I still wasn’t able to get him out of my head. He’s everywhere I look, and I often find myself searching for him on campus—which is just absolutely crazy because I’ve never seen him on campus anyway. Luke Caldwell might as well be a ghost. He’s untouchable. After a few weeks, I am slowly—but diligently—purging him from my mind and getting back to the way life was before I ever met Luke Caldwell. Work and school; work and school.
The fall semester is going to start in a few weeks, so I’ll need to prepare myself for another busy workload. I’ve already talked to my boss CJ at the Bar and Grille, asked if I can leave early on Tuesdays and Thursdays for classes. The class I’m most excited about taking is Psych of Personality. It’s required for my major, which is psychology, but unlike most other students, I’m looking forward to it. I’ve always wanted to be someone with a career that actually helps people, especially because of the way I grew up. I didn’t really know my mother all that well as a child, and I think that undoubtedly messed with my childhood. My dad was married with a child of his own—Georgina—and he went off and found himself a little sidepiece who turned out to be my mother. He traded in the older model, which was Gina’s mother, for a newer model who was my mother. She was from Mexico, and she wasn’t a legal documented citizen. My dad knocked her up and, well, lo and behold, here I am. Instead of being the better man and divorcing Gina’s mother to marry my own, he strung her along until she had me—he strung both women along, actually.
I briefly remember parts of her but not everything a young girl should remember about her mother. I remember what she smelled like—coconut and vanilla bean meshed together. I spent most of my teenage years searching for a fragrance that matched hers to a T. It took me a while, but I finally managed to concoct a fragrance similar to hers. I can hardly remember what her voice sounded like. She would sing to me in Spanish when I was just a little girl. It was beautiful. I can’t remember the song or the words, but I do know that whenever she sang it, I was happy. I vaguely remember what she looked like. Usually, I have to stare at the pictures I have of her until they spur buried memories of my childhood. Three damn pictures are all I have left of my mother. The first, her holding me as a baby. The second, our smiling faces shoved in front of the camera. And the third, my mother sitting on a rock somewhere, smiling at something in the distance. That one’s my favorite. It captured her beauty perfectly. Tan skin, full red lips tipped into a smile, with big brown doe eyes, and long thick strands of dark hair blowing behind her. She was the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever seen to date. The epitome of beauty. I can easily see why my father fell for her. She was stunning in every way.
Gina’s mother was furious when she found out my dad knocked up another woman, so she did what all scorned women do when they know they’re close to losing their happily ever after. She sabotaged my mother by having her deported back to Mexico. I was only four years old at the time.
Can you say fucked up? I know I can.
We kept in touch with her as best as we could, but my father would never let me go visit her or my family in Mexico. Eventually, he stopped allowing the calls, and I lost contact with my mother. It was hard. Especially since I didn’t understand why any of this was happening. I was just a kid.
I still don’t know why he kept me away from my mother, the woman who I’m positive would’ve given her life for me. I can’t ask him about it because the conversation always turns into a heated argument. I get that I was born as an American citizen, but what I don’t get is why couldn’t she take me with her? I mean surely Gina’s mother would’ve preferred that instead of my father moving me in with his family. It’s hard to believe becoming a Mexican citizen is harder than becoming an American citizen. My only guess—my mother didn’t want me to be stuck in Mexico with her. She had to have been working here for a reason, and maybe it was to get away from the place she grew up in.
Around the time I turned twelve, my father sat me down and told me my mother had passed away. Something about pneumonia or asbestos in the chest. It was devastating. I was hurt. Beyond hurt. Because my mission was to one day meet the family that should’ve been mine. I had a plan—once I turned eighteen, the first chance I got, I would find my mother, and make up for lost time. Instead I got stuck with my father and Gina. Yeah, my dad loves me, but not like he loves Gina. He’ll do anything for her, and he almost always does. As for me, he can’t ever find the time to make an effort—which is fine. I get it. He didn’t ask for me, yet he ended up stuck raising me while my mother, who would’ve done most of the work, died. But sometimes I can’t help but be angry and let the hate fester. I didn’t ask for any of this. I didn’t ask for my father’s wife to hate my very existence. I didn’t ask for my half-sister to loathe me. And I sure as hell didn’t ask to grow up without a mother. Call it naïve, but how is any of this my fault? I didn’t ask for it. The few pictures of her that I stole from my father are all I really have left, no other ties binding us together.
I just wish I was given the choice to leave with her instead of being forced to stay here with a dad who doesn’t love me like he loves his first born. This is the main reason I don’t date, because of the fear of dealing with something like this. Yeah, it’s a little far-fetched that it will happen to me too, but you never know. That’s not a chance I’m willing to take. When I’m ready, I’ll find someone who is worth everything, someone who can’t live their life without me in it, someone who is willing to put me first, and we’ll spend our lives together happily. No drama, no fucked-up family issues—just us. For once in my life…I just want to come first.