Page 27 of Last First Kiss
Alejandra narrows her eyes at me. “This needs to be realistic, Clara. I would never throw myself at you.” She laughs, and I know it’s a joke, but I can’t help the sting.
“You don’t know what you’re missing,” I say, tossing my head, pretending it didn’t hit a nerve.
“Whatever.” Alejandra chuckles.
“What else do you think your family will ask?” I add, trying to think about literally anything else.
“Depends on the family member. But I think if we stick to what we already told Lala, we will be fine. Not everyone is as nosy as her.” She smirks.
“True, but what about your mom? Don’t you think she’ll want to hear this from you?”
Alejandra’s gaze drops, and her shoulders sag. “Yeah, I need to talk to her,” she says quietly, more to herself than to me. “I’m going to tell her the truth. I don’t want to lie to her. I didn’t think about how Mom would react when I pushed you into this. I’m sorry.”
I nod, because I don’t want to lie to Cathia, either. She’s done nothing but care for me as one of her own, and I don’t know how she’ll respond to me “dating” her daughter. She raised us like sisters, so it feels a little strange, as if I’m crossing a line I shouldn’t.
I’ve talked to her a few times since Alejandra and I started our fake relationship, and she hasn’t brought it up—but she’s also not the prying type. She operates on more of an “I’ll be here when you need me” philosophy, so it’s notentirely irrational to think she knows and has been waiting for either me or Alejandra to bring it up.
My mom’s choice of making Alejandra’s mom my guardian was a gift I didn’t understand at first. I had been fourteen, and all I could see was the gaping hole my mom had left behind. I couldn’t focus on the future, not when the present felt like it had shattered in my hands. But it’s been sixteen years since my mom’s passing, and looking back now, I see it for what it was. My mom gave me a soft place to land in the middle of the worst storm of my life.
The first six months after I moved in, I slept in Alejandra’s room almost every night. Cathia had given me my own space in their home, but I could never actually sleep there; it felt too empty.
At first, I barely spoke to anyone—not even Alejandra. I was drowning in grief and anger, and this emptiness that made everything seem distant. I resented Cathia for a long time—not because of anything she did, but because she reminded me so much of my mom that I couldn’t stand her. They were copies of each other. They reacted the same way to things, used similar phrases—they even sounded alike, and I didn’t know how to deal with that.
Alejandra was this tiny, stubborn little beacon of joy in the middle of all of it. She didn’t try to make me talk or try to fix me, didn’t throw clichés at me or tell me it was going to be ok like Diana did. She just existed near me, shared her charger when I forgot mine, and played our old playlists on low volume, a reminder that parts of me still existed, and would even when sadness took over.
She was my person before my mom passed away. After, she became my everything. From our shared grief blossomed the most beautiful friendship I could have ever asked for. She’s the reason I kept going when everything in mewanted to stop. The one who reminded me day after day that I was still here. Still alive. Still loved.
Sometimes it felt Alejandra was the only person who cared deeply and loved every version of me, including the one I didn’t recognize after the funeral. Not that Diana and Cathia didn’t care, but it was different with them—Cathia was grieving one of the most important people in her life, and Diana, desperate for me to feel happy again, sometimes brushed my pain aside.
But even through the rough patches, living with them hadn’t just helped me survive—it had helped me grow. I learned how to exist in a space that wasn’t mine but became mine through love and time. I learned what family can be when it’s built, not just inherited, and I learned how to let myself be helped, even when I felt like a burden. And slowly, so slowly it almost felt like nothing was happening. I started to breathe again, not because the pain disappeared, but because Alejandra, Cathia, and Diana made it bearable. Eventually, it didn’t feel as all-consuming as it once had. Alejandra’s home becameourhome. Cathia became “Mom” when I was too tired to say anything else, and our relationship strengthened through our love of my mom and how deeply we missed her.
I don’t think I would have made it out of the all-consuming grief I had been in without Cathia. So yeah, lying to her in particular feels wrong, so I’m glad Alejandra is going to tell her the truth.
“Thank you for doing this.” Alejandra hugs me tightly. “I’m sorry I put you in such an uncomfortable position.”
“It’s okay, I’m not uncomfortable,” I say, hugging her back and taking in a big breath of her. “I could have backed out, and I didn’t. I went along with it.”
“Still ... thank you,” she says, holding on to me tighter.
“The story you told Lala was good. I almost believed you’d wanted that,” I say with a painful flutter in my heart.
“I wasn’t lying.”
I lean back, holding her gaze. “What do you mean?” I ask, my voice low as I swallow past the lump rising in my throat.
Alejandra’s eyes flick down to her hands for a second before meeting mine again. “I really do want someone to love me like you do,” she says as she twists the ring around her thumb.
My heart stops. I swallow, my throat suddenly dry, and tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, before running my fingers down her face. “No one will ever love you as much as I do,” I say without thinking, the words rushing out before I can stop them. My hand finds her cheek, and I let my thumb rest there, tracing the softness of her skin.
I give her the most genuine smile I can manage, even though I’m coming apart at the seams. I attempt to keep my eyes on hers, but they drift down to the way her lips curve into that shy smile I’ve memorized a thousand times.
“You know what I mean,” she says, bumping her shoulder against mine.
I smile weakly and run a hand through my hair, trying to act normal.
I know she’ll never see me like that—not in that way. But I can’t help wanting her to. Yet even if she never does, my heart’s completely hers.
CHAPTER NINE
