⚝──⭒─What We Make For Ourselves─⭒──⚝

Chapter 13: Selena and Delilah

After crossing New Mexico's border, we find ourselves in a little town called Beckton that claims to border three states at once: New Mexico, Colorado, and Oklahoma. Four, if you count our hunger.

In Beckton, it seemed that people preferred to walk since everything was within walking distance. You could leave your car at the body shop for a repair, eat a diner, and pick up some groceries without walking more than a hundred steps in between. Which is exactly what Reyna and I did.

She parked at the body shop, only to discover a sign that said it had moved to the other side of town, so we couldn't change vehicles.

We peer into the windows to find rusted car lifts, empty tool boxes, and old oil smeared across the floor.

I shake my head in disappointment and begin limp-walking to the diner across the street, Delilah's Diner.

Reyna hooks her arm through mine and leans in close. "What are you doing?!"

"I should be asking you that." I respond, ignoring the skips in my heart.

"You're drawing too much attention to yourself with your walking!" She hisses.

I look around to find tourists and locals staring at me and my leg.

"Look," she begins, "people don't enjoy, er, public displays of affection. Do I need to continue?"

I tuck a piece of her short hair behind her ear and lean in closer, smiling. "No, I don't think so."

We enter Delilah's where a hostess flips through laminated menus. "Can I help you?"

"A table for two, please." I answer. " And could we get a table away from the windows? My friend here is sensitive to light."

Reyna, who hadn't taken off her glasses since we stepped out of the car, smiles politely at the hostess, though it looked like Reyna wanted to kick my left thigh.

"You can follow me." The hostess says, selecting two menus.

Delilah's had kept the vintage charm of the fifties. We walk on black and white tiled floors and pass by teal vinyl booths. at the back of the diner was a bar serving brunch martinis. The hostess sits us at a table in front of the bar.

"What can I get you both to drink?" The hostess asks.

I open my mouth, but Reyna answers for me. "Iced water, please."

When the waitress leaves, I scoff. "Water, really? I was going to get coffee!"

"Coffee's no good for combat." Reyna replies, flipping through the menu. "It'll fry your nerves."

An elderly waiter named Todd brings us our water and asks for our orders. Reyna selects whole-grain pancakes with Canadian bacon. I order sausage and biscuits with eggs sunny-side up.

When our food arrives, so does a group of businessmen who decide to sit at the bar. Every once in a while, Reyna would glance around the diner for any signs of trouble. Her watchful eyes would drift from families and other patrons, but they would linger on the men at the bar.

Since I didn't know Portuguese, I spoke to Reyna in Spanish. "¿Conoces a los hombres?"

She shakes her head. "No los conozco, pero me parecen extraños."

"¿Por qué?"

"¿No te parecen extraños que-"

A ginger-haired construction worker whistles at Reyna. "¡Chica, ven a verme!" His minions cackle.

Reyna smiles with sugar, but stares with poison at the man. "No me caen para los rabos verdes."

"Alright Selena, cut the-"

"If you want to talk to someone, at least acknowledge them by their correct ethnicity," I spit.

A salt and pepper haired man turns to me. "Hey kid, if you've a wedgie, you could've just said so."

"What did she even do to you?"

"Because her kind took our jobs." Ginger says. "We're here because we got laid off and replaced by a bunch of Mexicans-"

"She's not even Mexican, so leave her alone. And it's not their fault that you all got fired from your jobs."

"John." Reyna tugs at the sleeve of my jacket. "Sit down, please."

I didn't even know I was standing up. Obeying Reyna, I sit back down in my seat.

Salt-and-Pepper sneers. "Good thing we don't have to put you in your place, because you're already in it-"

Without thinking about the consequences of my actions, I stand, twist Salt-and-Pepper's arm behind his back, and slam his chest into the bar table. His ribs break like eggshells. He screams like a rooster. Food and martinis soar through the air in liftoff.

"LEAVE HER ALONE!" I roar. Behind me, Reyna stands and drags me away from the men and the restaurant without a word. I don't care that the whole diner is staring at us. I don't care that the men are calling us every name in the book because I'm yelling every profanity I can think of.

Quietly, she shoves me inside the car. Without waiting for me to put on my seatbelt, Reyna pulls out of the body shop and out of Beckton.

I looked at her for the first time since the restaurant. Her hot chocolate eyes had cooled to a dark roast.

"Reyna I-"

"Don't." She bares her teeth. "Don't apologize. Don't explain yourself. Don't. Even. Try."

"You can't just let people do that to you."

"Don't I know it?"

"Reyna, those men were stereotyping you."

Reyna steers sharply to the right so fast that I have to hold onto the car door. She puts the car in park and turns to me with angry tears in her eyes.

"And what makes you think you're the bigger person by standing up to them?" She cries. "If you had left them alone, none of this would have happened!"

"Well would you rather have them continue stereotyping you?"

Reyna sighs and shakes her head. "What do you know about these things? And why do you care? Do you even care about this mission at all? Because you almost threw it all away back there. You probably sent me on this mission as a guinea pig."

"That's not true." I shoot back. "I chose you for this mission for a reason." And I'm going to find out why.

Reyna turns on the ignition and pulls out of the shoulder of the road. "Don't waste your time figuring out why."

"You're so cynical."

"I prefer realistic."

I turn to the window again and fume. Did Reyna, who threw a metal aisle with her bare hands, always have to concede to this?

I could have just let the men pick at us like pelicans diving for fish. I could have thrown away the mission right then and there. But I didn't.

"Thank you." Reyna whispers.

I tilt my chin upwards and close my eyes. "I'm your partner in this mission. It's what I do."

Reyna jokingly shoves me, failing to hide a smile. "Get real."