Bitter Sweet

7. Dinner

Julio's phone started vibrating as he ate dinner with his family. He cooked some spaghetti for his siblings. Lorena ate loudly as she slurped the pasta making a mess on her face. Sergio was eating silently, probably thinking about his young love. His mother poked at her food but was not eating.

"You're not going to answer that?" asked his mother without looking up.

"Answer what?"

"Your phone," she replied. "It's been vibrating for a while now."

Julio cursed under his breath, he was hoping they couldn't hear it from his pocket.

"It might be your girlfriend," Lorena suggested.

"I don't have a girlfriend."

"Who is it then?" Sergio asked.

"Since when did my phone become so interesting to you people?" he asked a he pulled out his phone to see he had two missed calls. Both of them from Natasha. "It's just a friend. He probably wants to meet up for drinks."

"On a school night?" asked Lorena innocently.

"Wait, it's a school night? I must tell him I can't go!" he replied as he texted Natasha, I can't go right now, I'm with my family, he pressed sent and put it back in his pocket. "There, problem solved."

"Who was it, Julio?" asked his mother firmly.

"A friend."

"Which friend?"

"From High school."

She watched him intently as if expecting him to break and tell her the truth. "What's his name?"

"Nathan," he replied without missing a beat. Her phone number was under Nathan, he had already put a lot of thought into the story, he already had every detail figured out specifically for moments like these.

"Nathan," she repeated. "I never heard of a friend called Nathan."

"Yeah, well you don't know all my friends." He was rude, but he had to be in order for his mother to drop the subject. And it usually worked.

"Where does he live?"

"In Tucson," he replied naming the closest city to Tumacacori.

"You are lying," his mother said taking him by surprise.

"What did I do to deserve this?" Julio responded angrily. Sergio and Lorena focused on their plate. "Did I do something wrong? Is the pasta under cooked?"

His mother dropped her fork on the plate and replied, "I need you to tell me the truth, Julio."

Julio looked down at his lap thinking of a response. She had noticed his was sneaking out late, she wasn't as out of it as he thought she was.

"What truth? The one that you keep imagining in your head?"

"Julio," she said now trying to calm him down. "I know where you go."

He shook his head. She was trying to trick him, that was her signature move. There was no way that he knew he was sleeping with the rich lady down the street. There was no way that she knew that he did it because she paid him handsomely so he could pay off his father' debts. If she did know, her reaction would be very different.

"You mean out to the bars in Tucson with Nathan?" He didn't want to lie to his mother anymore. He stood firmly and exited the house with a slam on the door.

He went to his studio apartment like room and texted Natasha, on my way.

He grabbed his jacket and walked out into his car. The only time his mother seemed to be able to speak to him was when she had something to complain about. He knew her mother was becoming suspicious, but he was sure there were more civil ways to approach the subject. Though he knew it was wrong, he found himself disliking his own mother more and more. After his father died, she became intolerable. She spoke to any of her children with so much disdain, as if she blamed them for what happened to her husband. She never seemed to be happy which made it difficult for Sergio or Lorena to be happy. Too many times had he had to console his crying sister because his mother snapped at her with no reason. Too many times had he had to speak to Sergio when he became frustrated with his mother's irrational rules she had to come up with to cope with her husband's death.

It was taking his sanity little by little and being with Natasha was the only way he felt like a man. Like a true military man. He didn't love her, of course her didn't, but he liked the way she made him feel.

It took him seconds to arrive to Natasha's house, the minute she opened the door, he pulled her into a kiss and made her his right in the living room, with the blinds of the many windows down, he needed a way to vent, and this was it.