Act 2, Scene 7

MELI

The picture he had painted of his folks did not really fit the people I had met in the Distrito Federal. Mellow old folks that were hard to read, which goes to show just how close the apple falls from the tree.

It was a good distraction from the chaos of my Dad’s passing, anyhow. Still, distractions have to come to an end and real life has to get you in its claws eventually.

On the red eye flight Fede looked catatonic, as if me meeting his parents had gone horrifyingly, which it hadn’t, I think. I knew that I wouldn’t get much if I asked directly, so I tried taking his mind off whatever was going on by asking him: “hey, what should I do with Dad’s company, now that it is my company. You know, cause he died?”

I knew I was gonna end up scaling it down and giving away the excess, but I guess I just wanted to hear my boyfriend’s voice, which was a sound that I was hearing less and less those days.

He gave out a gruff “anything that you want” in a tone that was less “I think any option is good in a way” and more “who cares”.

I dropped the subject; I had more things on my plate to worry about.

The main thing being the Fulbright scholarship, of which the results awaited me in Monterrey.

I won’t drag it out. I did not get it, and I know that just feels like the obvious result.

The rejection came in a letter which I read while I was taking care of Mom, who looked like she had aged 10 years in the past weeks.

It felt like time to come back home, my home inside Fede’s head. Unfortunately he may have had a similar idea, because he already had gotten inside mine and wouldn’t come out until two weeks after I had gotten my results.

Thankfully, a girl always has her work, and so I buried myself there instead. I recreated at least five versions of the sculpture I had made of him. Each new iteration looked less and less like him, it felt like.

I had come back to a punk style, and who knows how it reflected inside my head since Fede was not around to describe it.

            END OF SCENE