Penelope smells like the ocean. The familiar scent permeates the bedroom, and thoughts of home overwhelm me. It doesn’t matter how long I’ve been away or what new city I land in, the island is never far from my thoughts. A scent, a familiar phrase uttered by someone, a song. Signs are presented to me on a daily or sometimes hourly basis, beckoning me back.
My cousin throws herself on the bed. Seconds later she grabs my shoulders and forces me to join. I allow myself to topple with her. I close my eyes and settle into pangs of homesickness mixed with the painful betrayal I’m trying to conceal.
“Aaron is so sweet,” Penelope says. “He gave me this.”
She shows me a heart-shaped gold necklace, the type of jewelry we would have wished for back when we were younger. I try my best to seem interested, to continue to pretend that everything between us is fine.
“I know. It’s not like we are in junior high. It’s mad corny. Still I think it’s cute,” she says. “Aaron’s definitely going to get some.”
Penelope places her head against mine. We stay like this for a while, a position we would hold for hours when she would come visit me.
“Prima, Mami mentioned Pheus came by asking for you.” She’s eager for Pheus and me to be something. Perhaps she thinks Pheus can save me, a distraction to lift me out of this darkness.
“Yes, he did,” I say. I move my head away from her. She notices.
“You don’t like Pheus like that?”
There’s a long pause. Pheus and my family think I’m losing it, and maybe I am. It’s impossible to explain what is unexplainable. Each time I open my heart and tell the truth, I am crushed. I can’t do it anymore. I will seal myself off from feeling anything. Lock myself up in my aunt’s apartment until the summer is over. These walls will keep me safe from Ato. For now.
“No. I don’t like him like that.”
Penelope sits up straight and stares at me. She waits for me to break from what I said. Penelope wasn’t there when Pheus doubted my story. Pheus heard the windows shaking. He was just as scared as I was. We witnessed it together, and yet it wasn’t enough.
My phone buzzes again, and I know it is Pheus leaving me another message. I’ve ignored every one of them. Seconds later, Penelope’s phone goes off. Pheus is trying to contact me. Penelope glances at her phone.
“What is going on between you two?” she asks. “Did you see him today? Was this the reason why you didn’t want to go the beach? If you wanted to see him, I wouldn’t have stopped you. You’re not telling me what’s going on. Why aren’t you letting me in?”
This isn’t simple. I’m angry at her for telling her mother and at Pheus for proving he’s a coward. As for me, I’m mad at exhibiting any vulnerability to them. The longer we sit in silence, the more my resentment grows. How could she turn on me when I asked for help? I can’t contain this any longer.
“Why did you tell Titi?” I ask. “After I begged you not to, you told her anyway.”
There’s a slight recognition. Penelope can’t deny it. She broke her promise.
“I was scared. I still am. I want to help you, but I don’t know how,” she says with such defiance, as if betrayal was her only option. She won’t apologize for what she did.
“And you wonder why I’m not telling you anything important? I can’t trust you,” I say. “When we were kids, you didn’t even blink when I told you a little boy talked to me. You said, ‘Okay, what does he look like?’ And I described every little detail about him. Do you remember what you said after? You said, ‘I believe you.’ Time changes everything, I guess.”
I get up, locate the remote, and turn the volume on the television up. There’s nothing else to say. Let the Weather Channel keep me company instead of this disappointment.
Penelope stands in front of the television screen. Her arms are on her waist. She will not move. Nothing hurts Penelope more than being ignored. She’s not used to it. It’s worse than a slap. I look down and let my hair cascade over my cheeks.
“Prima,” she implores. I don’t look up. This hurts. I want her to feel what I feel.
“Prima!” she yells. Her voice cracks. It’s hard for me to sustain this. There’s nothing valiant about going through pain alone. I only want one person to understand. Maybe not even to understand but just be there for me. Her running to Titi proved once again this anguish is to be endured alone.
“Don’t do this. We’re family. Don’t shut me out.” She doesn’t hide her emotions. I can’t keep this up because I’m not heartless, no matter how angry I am. I know she comes from a place of love. Penelope’s afraid for me.
“Please, prima,” she cries.
I finally look up. My tears flow too, even though I don’t want them to.
“I don’t have the tools to help you, so I went to Mami. I won’t apologize for that,” she says. “We just want you to be safe. We love you, Eury.”
I want to stay mad, to keep the rage burning, but I can’t. I get up and hug her. We cry into each other’s shoulders.
“I know you love me. I do,” I say. “But what is happening with me can’t easily be solved by talking to a doctor.”
“How do you know?” Penelope says. “Your mother will only let you speak to priests.”
“This isn’t just anxiety from within,” I say. “It’s more than that.”
“You say you are seeing a boy, but no one else can see him,” she says. “What if it’s a jumbling inside your mind? What if it’s stress? Didn’t this start right after Hurricane María?”
Penelope’s scared the visions I’m seeing are only getting worse, that I don’t have a strong hold on what is real or not. The episodes with Ato happened, and I can’t simply capture them with my phone’s video camera. Ato is coming for me. It’s only a matter of time. This is my truth. I can’t keep saying the same things over and over. I can’t.
My head hurts. I sweat and start to shake. I don’t know where to look or turn to. Penelope keeps asking me to explain, but I can’t, and I’m failing. A black hole opens beside me, and I’m right at the edge of it.
“Eury, please. I’m trying to understand. Help me …”
It’s getting harder for me to breathe. The walls in the room seem to pitch in toward me. I can’t breathe. I can’t. I bury my face in my hands.
“I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know …” I can’t stop saying those three words. The abyss I’m falling down is endless. I can’t stop. Penelope wraps her arms around me. “I don’t know. I don’t know …”
“Shhh. It’s okay, Eury. Shhhh. You’re not alone. I’m here. Your cousin is right here. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” She rocks me like Mami used to do when I was young. We stay like this until my breathing returns and I am no longer spiraling.
“You can’t talk about it right now. You don’t have to. I’m so sorry I tried to make you,” Penelope says. “I’m a horrible person. See, I don’t even know what I’m doing.”
“You are not a horrible person. How can I explain this?” I say. “Sometimes there are no solutions. Sometimes I don’t know what I want or need. Right now I just want you to listen with an open mind. And if I’m too afraid to be alone, please stay by my side.”
“I will promise to be here for you,” she says. “But if I can’t handle it, I have to find someone who can. That might be my parents, that might be another adult. It’s not fair for you to expect less from me. Please don’t ask me to.”
I understand the terrible position I placed her in. The only way we can get through this is if I’m honest. Brutally honest. If that means she must talk to Titi afterward, I have to respect her wishes.
“I won’t,” I say. “I promise.”
“There’s something you need to know.” She wrings her hands. This isn’t going to be good. I brace myself for the news. “I heard Mami talking to your mom. Mami wants to take you to see a therapist friend of ours. Your mother had a fit. They really got into it over the phone. Your mother got so angry, she decided to pick you up earlier. She’s coming next Monday.”
Practically a week from today, Mami will scoop me up from the Bronx. I don’t want to go back to Tampa. I need to hide. Go somewhere else.
“Going back to Florida won’t make a difference,” I say.
“So what do we do?”
We rack our brains for any type of solution, a sign that will show us there is a way out of this hell.
That’s when I hear it. The strumming of a guitar floats from outside the window. Pheus sings a sorrowful bolero. The song is “Sombras Nada Más” by Javier Solís. A lamentation meant for me to hear.
“Apparently someone is in their feelings tonight,” Penelope says. This finally breaks the tension, and we laugh.
The song continues. It stirs something deep within. What is it about Pheus and his music that confuses me? He hurt me. Yet, he tries to serenade the hurt away. It must be easy for him to do such things, to discard a girl’s feelings simply with a verse.
I don’t even realize when I’m standing by the window. I close my eyes and no longer see Pheus looking downcast nor do I see Ato’s rage. What I see is my home the way it used to be. The smell of the papayas ready to be eaten. The sway of the palm trees. With each strum of Pheus’s guitar, I am transported to a place where there is no anger or fear. Of course that doesn’t exist, only when my head allows me to imagine it.
How can a song so sorrowful fill me with such a yearning for home?
The melody ends and Pheus starts another. This time the song is Agustín Lara’s “Noche de Ronda.” He continues and sings another. A soundtrack of grief and beauty blankets the summer sky.
“I lied,” I say. “I do like him.”
“Psss. Girl, I know you do.”
I reach for my phone and read the many messages he left me. So many apologies. He wants to help. There are links to articles about spirits. Images from pages out of books from his home. Even a verse from the Bible.
Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. John 14:1
I chuckle at this. I’m not sure if he’s taken the scripture out of context. It doesn’t matter. The gesture is real.
Meet me in the hallway, I text.
“I’ll be right back.”
Without having to explain, Penelope joins her mother in the living room and stops her from following me to the door. She distracts her by showing Titi the necklace Aaron gave her.
I open the door just when Pheus arrives.
“Hi,” he says.
I don’t say anything. I stare at him and take in every feature. His full lips. His bushy eyebrows. The lines of his haircut. He is perfect and flawed, like me.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
I take his hands and feel the hard skin on his fingertips, obtained from hours of playing the guitar.
“I’m sorry,” he says again. He draws nearer. With his other hand, he tucks the long strands of my hair behind my ear. “I believe you, Eury. For real.”
I exhale. I hadn’t realized I was holding my breath.
“I believe you, Eury.” Pheus says again. He presses his forehead against mine. Our fingers are now interlocked.
Pheus won’t kiss me. He is too much of a gentleman. Instead I take the lead. I lean forward, tug on his shirt until we are both so close. His lips are soft. Sweet. The kiss doesn’t last long, only enough to remind me how our time together is limited.
“Ato won’t hurt you,” he says. “Not if I can help it.”
His words will erect a wall around me. Penelope is also committed to me. Maybe it’s possible. Pheus kisses me again, and this time there is an urgency. Only a handful of days to avoid Ato. Then I leave the Bronx and return to more of the same.
At least I don’t have to do this on my own. Penelope will stand by me. And Pheus? He believes me. He believes.