Plane Ticket To You

Chapter 7

📍LIMA, PERU

ELIAS

The next day, Lucia and I spent the day in Lima.

Our clothes stuck to our skin as the heat bore down on us. We feasted on servings of picarones, which was a Peruvian doughnut with a drizzled sweet syrup. We had bought them from a street vendor, and we were now eating them in the Plaza de Armas, Lima's main square.

I moaned embarrassingly as I bit into the sweet dough of the dessert.

Lucia glanced over at me for a moment before laughing, the sides of her light brown eyes crinkling.

"This tops any doughnut we could ever have back home," I said.

"I agree," Lucia said, nodding. "Screw Dunkin Donuts."

"Well...." I hedged. "Their coffee is my lifesaver, though. Whenever Jas is being a headache for no reason or Penny put on the wrong shoe on the wrong foot."

"The way you speak about them you would think they were three years old," Lucia remarked.

"Oh trust me," I said. "They're preteens, and handling that is no joke. But... I still enjoy it, somehow."

"You must be quite the superhero," she said, licking her fingers. "Being basically a parent figure at eighteen."

I shook my head. "No, I'm the opposite. I've never felt like a superhero in my life. But thanks for the sentiment."

Lucia crossed her arms. "I don't believe that for a minute."

I sighed. "Sometimes I get angry. At my mom and dad, for not being the responsible parents they were supposed to be. And then I feel guilty for being angry, because at least they're alive. Lots of kids are orphans."

"You're allowed to feel that way about your parents," Lucia said. "Trust me, you are."

"Do you ever... think about your dad?" I asked. "Sorry, that was a stupid thing to ask, of course you think about him."

She shook her head. "No, it's okay. To be completely honest, he's only really at the back of my mind now. It used to hurt a lot more, knowing that he'd left. But now it's just kind of like a distant ache, I guess. But I will admit that it's really hard to see other people interacting with their dads. Those are the times I miss the relationship I had with him."

She huffed. "But who am I to complain about my issues? I know you've got it far worse."

"No, it's different. You actually had a relationship with your dad before he left. My mom was always short and distant with us, and Dad was always in and out of jail. It felt like we were always saving him from himself, or trying to at least. Once, my mom made me give up some of my earnings from work to pay for his bail."

Lucia gasped. "I'm so... sorry. That's horrible."

I waved it off. "It's okay. At least I've got my own little family now. My sisters and I don't need our parents to live comfortably and happily."

"Damn right," she said. 

If only I believed that, I said to myself, then erased that thought. Just because I had doubts about my being a good guardian to my sisters did not mean that we weren't a whole and perfect family in our own right.

We sat in companionable silence for a few minutes before I asked her a question.

"So what destination on our trip are you most excited for?"

"I have two," Lucia said, holding up two fingers. "Objectively, Paris. I mean, duh. But subjectively... I guess I've always wanted to go to China."

"Isn't that where your mom's from?" I asked.