Foster kid Emilia Pérez is placed in a shiny new family and will be starting at a new school, but always finds her way back to her only home after the tragic passing of her parents years ago - the wrestling ring.
Until a stranger falls through the c...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
﹙✶﹚
"𝙄𝙨𝙣'𝙩 𝙞𝙩 𝙟𝙪𝙨𝙩 𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙛𝙚𝙘𝙩?"
Emilia tried at a smile as it grew into a grimace. It was hideous. A monstrosity. A crime against nature. Worst of all, it was topped with cottage cheese.
"It's..." she tried, her voice withering in her throat. "It's a, um...I'm at a loss of words."
In front of her on the table was a platter of tacos. Tacos. At 7 AM.
"Are those..." Emilia cleared her throat for emphasis, voice getting smaller and a bit strangled. "Are those pancakes?"
Mrs. Watson smiled wide. "Cinnamon oatmeal!"
"Uh huh. And apples in there?" she asked. The woman in the apron nodded with a painfully wide smile, her graying auburn hair sticking to her face. Sweat. The woman was sweating over a stove to make the abominations. What was she supposed to do with that? "Obviously cottage cheese, can't do pancake tacos without...cottage cheese."
The words only barely left her mouth without gagging.
This was only the end of the first week, and Emilia already suffered through four other "Mexican inspired" meals. Meatloaf enchiladas was not a phrase she ever wished to utter again for the rest of her existence.
Lori, her social worker, promised she'd like this one. That it was stable and a great neighborhood to grow up. She was mostly grown up already, but that wasn't the point apparently.
At least the nice older couple next door greeted her the first time with normal chocolate ship cookies. Philip, her new foster father, tried to invite them and their nephew over for potato salad nachos and the woman politely declined for her husband and the absentee nephew. Goody for them.
"Don't forget—" The happy homemaker paused and her husband, literally set down his newspaper and did a weird little half-hearted drumroll on the tabletop. She took out a plastic container and opened the lid, sprinkling out something dark and round. "Raisins!"
"Oh. The raisins. Yes, that'd be tragic." Her voice was flat as the sad pancakes. They waited there, staring expectantly, and Emilia knew inherently what it meant — cause she'd do it, just like at all the other ones. This was far from her first rodeo. She hesitantly went for the mini pancake taco — holding in her first and foremost complaint, the one in which she was Dominican, and making tacos in celebration of her presence was a tad bit racist. It was fine, because it had to be fine. If everything's fine, she wouldn't screw up and go back into the system. Enthusiastically kind and obliviously racist with terrible food was exponentially better than what the next place could be.
And hopefully, with time, she could say those things without the chance of being dumped somewhere else.
She bit into it and remembered how she hated the texture of cottage cheese. She chewed a bit too long and smiled as it slithered down her throat. "So good."
