Just Breathe

Chapter Twenty Eight

"I'm in the 6.7%," Lia sang the phrase to herself for the umpteenth time after rereading her acceptance letter since she had opened it in the elevator twenty minutes prior. It was somewhat arrogant to equate herself to MIT's acceptance rate, but she didn't care. She got into her dream school. She could afford to be a bit arrogant.

She went straight into her bedroom when she came back into the apartment. It hadn't been hard considering she didn't see anyone around. She assumed her dad had either ventured off on his own or to find her mom. A large triangle of pizza had been cut out so she assumed her abuela was somewhere with the twins. She didn't mind, if she was being honest. She wanted to revel with the news for as long as she could.

Lia's phone pinged with an alert that put an even wider smile on her face.

Just wanted to say I had a great time with you earlier. Hope everything's okay.

She sat up in her bed, quickly typing out her response.

I did too! Can't wait for Thursday. Everything is fine...

Lia bit her lip as she thought about how much of her life she wanted to divulge. She was starting to trust Justin, and didn't want to make it seem like she didn't. But he also wasn't her boyfriend and the issue with Stella and her parents wasn't her story to tell. Besides, he seemed like he also had his own family stuff to deal with.

Just family stuff. She read over the text one more time before pressing send. She glanced over at her acceptance packet before typing a new message.

In better news, I heard back from a school today!

She wanted to share the news with someone and she did like talking to Justin. He didn't make her feel childish or silly for still being in high school. And they had been having a great time before their afternoon got cut short. The bane of her existence, the speech balloon, popped up in the messages thread. Before she could see what his response was, there was a knock at her bedroom door.

"Come in!" Lia called out and quickly stuffed the packet from MIT under her blankets.

Luz walked into the room, with a kind smile, "The twins are both laid down for the night. I always forget how much energy those two have," she laughed lightly before sitting down on the edge of Lia's bed, "I wanted to check in and see how you were doing,"

Lia offered a small smile, "I'm fine," She could tell by her grandmother's expression she wasn't convincing, "Honest! It's not the first time I've seen mom and dad fight."

"They said some pretty harsh things to each other. I know your dad was beating himself up pretty badly before he left out,"

Lia wasn't shocked. "Where did he go?"

"Get some air." Luz hadn't been surprised when Lin had asked if she could stay a while longer to watch the twins. Ever since he was a young boy, he had always processed things better on his own. For as extroverted as he was, he was also very intuitive.

"Do you think he still resents mom for not telling him about me?"

Luz took a few moments to gather her own thoughts before responding to her, also intuitive, granddaughter, "No. I think they both said things out of anger. He'll always wish that he had been in your life since the minute Vanessa found out she was pregnant, but I think he understands the reasons she made the choices that she did."

Lia nodded, quickly glancing at her phone as the screen lit up but she didn't respond. She knew that would be rude towards her grandmother, "Dad's just usually not the one to freak out like that. I agree with him though. Mom was acting pretty nuts."