someone like you (joel pimentel)

chapter one

• vanessa •

"It's been nice and all, but—"

I'm not ready to date a mother. It always ended like that. Boys always came up to me and Brandon, and automatically assume that Brandon was my younger brother and not my three— almost four— year old son. He looked very much like me, but if Antonio was here, people would just know that Brandon was our son.

"Tati, I don't know what I'm doing wrong," I told my best friend. I had my eyes on Brandon as he was playing on the playground meant for toddlers. "Why can't I find someone who wouldn't mind dating a single mother? Why is it easier for Antonio to find a girl willing to date a single father?"

"You're not doing anything wrong, V. They're just thinking, 'holy shit if I date this girl, I'm basically going to be a father. And I ain't ready for that shit.' But in reality, how many of them had a pregnancy scare with their exes?" Tatiana questioned. "Maybe you need to find a single father. There must be some nice, young single fathers that are looking for someone to have a playdate with them."

"Because they'd rather have girls without kids so whenever they don't have the child for the night they could go out," I responded.

"Is he always going out?" Tatiana asked. I knew exactly who she was talking about.

"He was never one for going out," I told her.

"But?"

"Why does it hurt that he does whatever she wants him to do? Antonio and I were together for almost five years, and I was genuinely happy with him— and maybe, did I ruin our relationship?"

"Bub," Tatiana responded. "You two started dating at fourteen. You guys were just kids, babies even. Babies that had a baby at sixteen years old. Some people don't end up with their first boyfriends, and if I'm going to be honest. And I'm going to be honest. There is someone more worthy of you than Antonio has ever been. He may be a great father to Brandon, but he'd never be a great boyfriend to you again."

"Mami!" Brandon slid down the slide and ran towards Tatiana and I. "Quiero helado. Porfa," he smiled.

I frowned, looking at my watch. 10:23. "It's too early for ice cream, babe. We can get some after lunch?"

"¡Pero Juliana me deja tener helado!"

"Oh shit," I heard Tatiana comment beside me. I gave her a quick glare for cursing in front of Brandon.

"Who's Juliana?" I calmly asked Brandon, knowing the answer. The tagged pictures of Antonio, his Instagram stories of dates he'd been on with her.

"Juliana is daddy's friend," Brandon responded in a 'duh' tone. "She's really nice and gives me ice cream for breakfast."

"Vanessa, no!" Tatiana said grabbing my phone straight from my hand. I had told Brandon to go back to play on the slide and went straight to my phone to call Antonio. "You don't need to make a big deal about—"

"Why is his friend giving my son ice cream for breakfast? Who does she—?"

"Just talk to Antonio when he picks Brandon up this weekend," Tatiana told me. "Don't talk to him about it now, because if you do you're going to be the jealous ex-girlfriend."

"This isn't because of jealousy, Tati. This is about Brandon," I responded. She gave me a look, and I sighed. "Brandon gets attached to people. He was devastated when Ariana left, and—"

"Ariana will be back during the summer," Tatiana explained. "She's just gone for school, and Brandon will be happy to see his aunt."

"Still, he gets too attached. And he already likes this Juliana chick, and next thing we know is that she and Antonio break up," I rambled. "He and I made a pact that we wouldn't have Brandon meet whoever we were seeing until—"

"Maybe it is getting serious, V. You need to take a small chill pill, and relax," she told me. "I'm sure Antonio will tell you about Juliana whenever you two see each other next because you two are still friends. Still cordial with one another. No blocked accounts." I nodded. She handed me my phone back, which felt like a millennium. "You are not going to text Antonio anything except Brandon. You're not going to mention the name Juliana until you see him in person, or until he mentions it. Whichever comes first."

I stuck my phone back into Brandon's backpack and zipped it shut.

"So when does he go back to school?" Tatiana asked, changing the subject completely.

"In a couple of months," I responded. "It's his second year of preschool, and this time next year he's going to be a kindergartener."

"Have you started planning his birthday yet?"

"Antonio and I have been throwing ideas around for the past couple days," I replied. "So far, Brandon's been wanting a Paw Patrol or a Spiderman themed birthday."

"What about your birthday? You're finally going to be twenty," Tatiana smiled. I shrugged. Age was just a number to me, especially after I gave birth to Brandon. I had to grow up and mature faster than the rest of my classmates and friends. My birthdays didn't matter to me. They only mattered to me because Brandon was born on my birthday. And it will forever be his day.

"I won't be a teenage mother anymore," I responded. "Maybe I'll stop getting looks when I tell people I'm a nineteen-year-old mother," I added with a sigh. Tatiana gave me a soft smile.

<><><>

Okay, i'm not entirely sure how this story is going. Like any of my stories, but I'm going to try and keep it going.

I hope you can enjoy this story.
😊

also since the entire cast is of hispanic heritage, there's going to be some Spanish in this book. In example, brandon saying "¡Pero Juliana me deja tener helado!"
Also, I'm not fluent in spanish, so if you see a mistake please tell me so i can fix it.
i only took 3 years of spanish in school, and i'm slowly relearning spanish with telenovelas, and music. And telling my dad to only speak spanish to me every once in awhile

thoughts?

also, it's gonna be a while until joel is fully introduced bc i want to write in vanessa's relationship with her family and ex-boyfriend/brandon's father because it's kind of important to the story. But he's mentioned in the next chapter!!