siempre

flutters

That night Emilia was left to her own thoughts. Moy finished up his homework and began to play his guitar, but the music he played could not drown out the noise in her head. The conversation with Esther replayed in her mind over and over not only that night, but for the days afterward as well. 

A couple of weeks go by and September starts. Her diner job has been awkward to say the least, but she still makes good tips, so she powers through. She avoids Javier at all costs, and she tries not to burn the bridge with Esther. She's still her best friend, and she could not imagine a world without her. Emilia so desperately wants to apologize, but she could never find the right time-- or that's what she told herself. 

At the law firm, she has been getting her work done well enough to get her boss's attention. 

"Great work, Ms. Díaz. You sure you wanna be a secretary still?"

"Well, I only have my bachelor's and any other position requires more education, but I'm working on that."

"Let me know when you go back, I have the perfect position for you."

"Thank you, Mr. Reeves," she beams at him and he goes into his office.

He basically just gave her a promotion without giving her a promotion. Now she seriously needed to consider going back to get her master's.

After work, she searches online for master's degrees in immigration law. She is one step closer to becoming a lawyer. She writes down all possible options, then looks at the cost. 

Yeah. 

That's not gonna happen. 

Defeated, she closes her laptop and leaves it for another day. Going into the kitchen, she sees a semi-crumpled up piece of paper sitting on the dining room table. Upon opening it up, she finds it's Moy's mid-term report card and he's failing all of his classes. Fuming, she goes to his door and knocks. 

"Moy, what is this report card?!"

She hears him walk to the door and he opens it. 

"What?"

"Kitchen. Ahora," she has gone full mom mode. He slumps his shoulders and walks to the kitchen, sitting at the table. She places the paper in front of him. 

"Wanna explain?"

"What's there to explain? I hate school."

"And I hate working, but I still have to do it," she retorts. He sighs in return. "Are you not understanding the material o qué?"

"I just hate it, okay?" he yells out, clearly frustrated. Emilia can see the anguish in his eyes and sees he's on the verge of crying. Something is wrong. She sits down and takes a deep breath.

"Okay, Moy. What's going on?" she tries to look him in the eyes, but he avoids it while remaining silent. "I can't help you if you won't talk to me."

"People think I'm... weird," he finally admits in a hushed tone.

"Weird? What do you mean?"

"They found out I have epilepsy, so now they think I'm weird."

"Well, what about Kevin and Ethan? Aren't you still friends with them?"

"I mean, kinda. They are pretty popular, so they don't ever have time to hang out, and even when they do, it's only just us three. They never hang out with their other friends when I'm around."

Upon hearing this, Emilia's blood boils. How could they treat her brother like that? 

"Have you told them this?"