The One She Loves • George Springer

Doubt

|L I L I A N A|

"When am I going to meet your family, Lils," Carlos asks me for the millionth time tonight.

"I don't want you to meet them," I say annoyed. I sit on my bed and run my fingers through my hair. Carlos sits down next to me and looks at me with pleading eyes.

"I just want to know the rest of them."

"You will when it's the right time."

"Why isn't now the right time?"

"Because it's not."

"Why don't you want me to meet them?"

"Because."

Carlos stands up and looks at me in the eye, "Is it because you don't think they'll like me?"

I lean back and lay down on my bed groaning, "No it's not that!"

"Then what?!"

"It's nothing."

"Am I not good enough or something?"

I sit back up quickly surprised that he would even ask that. "What?!"

"You just seem like you don't want them to know me because there's something wrong with me."

"There's nothing wrong with you Carlos. It's.... it's something else."

"What? Do you think we won't last?!"

I furrow my eyebrows, "Of course not! It's not you. It's me and my family."

"Oh so you're gonna play that card now?!"

"It's just how you might react." I mess with the hem of my shirt and whisper, "I don't want you running away."

I guess he heard me because he scoops me up and sits on the bed placing me on his lap sideways.

He laughs a bittersweet laugh, "Nothing could make me leave you."

"I don't know if you'd want to be involved with all my family's mess, alright?"

"If they could possibly be my family one day, then I want to know everything. Bad and good."

I sigh, "My family's messed up."

He lifts my chin and tilts his head till our fourheads touch," tell me everything." 

I sigh and whisper, "Ok...so I grew up a pretty happy life, I had a huge Mexican family and my mom raised me as a single parent. She was a big actor and had a lot of money. It wasn't till school when I started asking what a dad was. I would sit in class and watch the other kids dads come in on Father's Day. I never knew what it was and I thought it was strange so I went home and asked my family. They told me my dad had died in a car accident, some said he was always at work so that's why I never saw him. My mom got upset with me and told me he was in jail and that he went there because on the night he did what he did he said I was a mistake and that he didn't love me. He cheated on my mom with a stripper and he's been in jail since I was two... I was only four when I found out..."

I start to tear up and my voice is shaking, "How-w how can u tell a four year that!"

He starts to rub my back, "Lily.."
I start, "No it's fine.. I started to get depressed and I went to counciling. I never got to eat with the other kids. I had to eat with the concler because I would make the kids too sad. It wasn't till fifth grade when I started to hide my feelings. I was happy and jumpy and I had everything. I had the clothes and new phones. I was popular. I grew up with my mom not caring what I did so I only had my siblings. Thank God there were all of us. We always had each others back. my mom remarried and I left as soon as high school was over. A little before that, I met Sam. We moved in to together and got matching tattoos on graduation night. " I sigh, "My family is messed up and I don't really like to show how I really feel so I just ... yeah."