Fatal Attraction

Chapter 22

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Camila jolted awake, recognizing her phone's ringtone.

Groaning, she reached for her phone, and checked the caller ID.

Incoming FaceTime Call: Mama 🙅🏻🚫

Camila rolled her eyes, unable to figure out what she could possibly want, and accepted the call.

She checked the time: 9:14 AM.

Why would she be calling so early?

After a few moments of network connectivity problems, her mother's face popped up on the screen..

.. Next to her father's.

Fuck, Camila thought to herself. There's no way that this can be good.

"Hola, mama."

"Buenos días, míja. We need to speak to you. Right now."

Camila rolled her eyes. "Mama, it's barely 9:30. What is going on?"

"Don't give me an attitude when you're the one fucking up in school!"

Fuck. The school had contacted them, after all. Usually, universities are not allowed to contact parents without the student's consent, but her father, Alejandro, made sure that he was made to be an exception.

And boy, did they not let her forget about that.

"Mama, stop yelling, please. Listen, I can explain-"

"Explain what? How you're going to throw your future away on some hussy who broke your heart? No, not on my watch. How could you disappoint your family like this? Endangering your scholarship? You cannot let your personal life affect your school life. This is exactly why papí and I didn't want you leaving home in the first place! Díos mio, why do I ever doubt myself in the first-"

"Mama, for the love of God, let me speak! Yes, I missed a few classes. But it was only because I-"

"Because you let this rich bitch take over your life. Yes, míja, I know. No need for a recap!"

"Sinu, honey, please. Let our daughter speak. Regardless of the fact that she's messing up a little bit-"

"A little bit?! Alejandro, are you high?!"

"Sinu. Enough." Alejandro took a deep breath, then took the phone out of his wife's hands.

"Now, sweetheart, tell us what happened."

Camila explained the entire situation to her parents, then further described the toll that it took on her, and how hard it was for her to get out of bed in the morning.

".. And the fact that she also counts tardies as absences doesn't exactly help, either. I mean, I know that I used up all of my absences, but I really am trying, I swear. Besides, I even got a tutor for the course, and she's been helping me a lot. I mean, you guys know better than anyone that abstract material has never been easy for me to understand, and that's all that this course seems to focus on! Honestly, I've never been more confident in a course until we started seeing each other-"

"Whoa, whoa, seeing each other?"

Camila sighed. "I mean, tutoring-wise. However, mamí, she is a really nice girl. She's from Miami as well, she's also on scholarship-"

Sinu abruptly shook her head. "I love you baby, but I don't want to hear about it. I don't want to know that you're running around with any other girls until you've fixed this mess. Now, I don't want to see one more letter from the school for the remainder of your college career. You will not disappoint this family. You will not be an embarrassment. Do you understand me?"