“Pau, you can’t go,” I said, feeling the slicking cool of panic slipping in. Yet another thing was changing, something else leaving me. Moving on without me. I couldn’t let it go.
He just clucked his tongue. “You still do not listen. I am notgoinganywhere. I’ll be right here, come by anytime. I still expect you to show me photographs of my darling Lila whenever you can.”
“And what about you? What will you do?”
“I will manage. I'm old, I’ve lived my life and I'm still living it the exact way I want to. I want to see you do the same. Yes?”
My eyebrows pulled down. “I guess Ihaveto say yes. It’s your store.”
“That’s right.” He nodded, then he flicked his fingers at the air. “Now leave. I’m done with you.”
“Pau?” I asked.
“Hmm?”
“You’ll still hold a booth at the Women's Festival won’t you?”
“Yes, bimbosa,” he said. “Now go. You have much work to do. Just nothere.”
“Pau?”
“What is it now, Celestia?”
“What did you mean?”
“You will have to be more specific.”
“That one time when we first met, you said that I was nothing like my family, not even a little bit. What did you mean by that?” I asked. I don't know what had gotten into me—masochism probably—but I was a glutton for punishment lately. “That I'm not as smart as them or something?”
Pau gave me a look that soured his entire face. “You are such a silly girl. You know this, yes?”
I didn’t know how to answer that, the old asshole.
“I did not mean you were stupid. Or that you are so unevenly matched in your family as you seem to believe yourself to be,” he said, his hands going to his hips. “Little Celestia, when I look at you—from thefirst timeI looked at you, I saw fire. You have so much heart you burn hot and bright and bigger than I think you see for yourself. You do not throw your fondness around at just anything. You pick your passion carefully. You are not like them because you aren’t afraid to beunlikethem—to be different. Or at least this is what I thought. Was I wrong?”
“Pau.”
“What is it, Ant Girl?”
“I’m going to give you a hug okay?” I said.
He scowled but opened his arms up wide.
Squeezing me tight, he said, “You are not like everyone else, Ant, and that is not a bad thing. So, stop doubting and make your choice. I know you have one in mind by now.”
Chapter Forty-four
CECI
One, two.
One, two.
One, two.
“Woah tiger!” a peppy Nina said as she came up to me in the back room of the shelter. “Put the guns away. We’re supposed to beconvincingthe ladies to join this, not scaring them away.”
Straightening, I threw a fake smile over my shoulder. Fake only because I was trying to convince myself to stop moping around so much. I’m glad she stopped me. Three more hits and I was afraid I would be spiraling back into a cycle of mindlessly pummeling yet another bag. It was a miracle Jenny had been so patient with me lately, seeing as I could only keep my focus when there were students on the other side of me. When I was the student, my head was one place and one place only. Back on that beach.
