—I was wondering if you were gonna pull another Thanksgiving on me, Omar said almost right away, after sighing at hearing me say, It’s me, it’s El.
Despite what I’d thought up to that moment, it felt good to hear his voice, to hear him say he missed me. He’d just gotten home from his own family’s party and was sweet instead of angry because he’d been drinking. But only a little, he said. We were flirty, joking around in a way we hadn’t since we’d first confessed to liking each other. He told me some of our friends had called him to go out, telling him to let me know too, since no one had the apartment’s new number, but that he was waiting on me to call him first.
—You’re the one visiting, he said.
He admitted he did and didn’t understand what was up with me, but that he knew I was freaked out about school and the hearing results. I know how you get, he said—the same phrase my dad had used at breakfast to warn me about my mom.
—I thought maybe they’d given you the electric chair or something, he said. You never called me back. How bad was it?
I kept quiet. Only a few days had passed since my last exam, but it all felt so far behind me that I couldn’t go back to it, not with his voice so close in my ear, with how easy it was to talk to him about anything else.
—It wasn’t bad, I said. It was a big misunderstanding. It’s fixed now, it’s over.
I closed my eyes, praying he wouldn’t ask for more because there was nothing else about it I could bring myself to say to him.
—So you don’t have to come home?
—No, I said. Are you sad?
I meant it sarcastically, but he said, Yes and no. He said he’d been thinking a lot about me, about how I pushed him away whenever I got stressed, but that he figured we were meant to be, so neither of us had to work too hard.
—What we are is bigger than talking every night on the phone, El, he said, and every little hair on my arms stood straight up. Maybe I was making my own problems. When he asked if he could come over the next day, on Christmas, I twirled the phone cord around my finger and said, Why? You got a present for me?
—I do, he said. Got it a while ago.
I let the cord unravel back into place. I hadn’t gotten him anything and said so.
—I didn’t expect you to, he said. Your roommate what’s-her-name made it sound like you’d moved into the library. Still though, a Rawlings T-shirt would’ve been nice.
He waited and said, It’s not like you don’t know my size.
I pulled my knees to my chest. A tiny plastic Christmas tree on the dinette table was the only sign in the apartment of what tomorrow was; my mom made us leave Zoila’s before any presents were given out or the leftover food divvied up, so there were none of the annual post-Noche Buena trappings: foil-covered containers on the kitchen counter; hunks of flan in the fridge; gift boxes of cheap booze—matching tumbler included, a shiny bow the only attempt at wrapping—left on the floor by the couch. There were no cards from anyone either—the only ones we ever got being from our optometrist’s and dentist’s offices, from the public library I’d volunteered at one summer, people reminding us of some obligation—and I wondered if my mom had forgotten to update her address with these places.
—I’m sorry, I said. You know people asked about you at Noche Buena?
—Really? he said.
—Yeah. It was kinda bad tonight actually. My mom?
I struggled to think of how to work the entirety of my mom’s behavior into one sentence, the way she’d shoved me then let me just drop, the march around the block she took before deciding to come back and eat, the way she’d pushed Leidy away when she asked my mom to hold Dante while Leidy served herself some food, how she’d acted like nothing had happened when she talked to Zoila or Tony or anyone else who’d messed with her about Ariel, but then the minute after she’d helped clear the plates—when the party traditionally really got started—she’d yanked Dante off the floor and told us to say bye to everyone while she strapped him into his car seat—We’re getting out of here, she’d said, and not added another word the whole ride home.
While waiting for me to say something, Omar let out what sounded like a little burp or a sigh, then said, You there? So I abandoned any hope of nuance or complexity and just said, My mom is super pissed at me, I think. She’s not talking to me.
—Uh-oh, he said.
His voice sounded like he was ready to hear the rest of a joke, and I knew it could turn into that, so I said instead, You know they set a place for you at the table?
—Ha! Why’d you tell them I was coming?
—No, I didn’t. It just existed. It started this bad fight with my mom.
He shushed me. He said, Everything’s cool now, we’re talking again, El. It’s cool.
—Okay, I said. I was sort of thankful he didn’t want to hear it, because it meant I didn’t have to think hard about anything for a little while.
—Listen, I said, come whenever you want tomorrow. No, wait. Come as early as you can.