She pulled her knees tighter but said nothing else.
“Maritza, you can’t quit dance, it would be such a waste! Is this because of Rona?” She stayed silent. “Come on, dude, I’m sorry for lying to you, but you have to talk to me.”
She turned halfway around. “Something happened and I really want to talk to you about it, but I don’t trust you anymore.”
I fell silent. Maritza was the type of person to lord that over somebody, but that wasn’t what she was doing. She was hurt.
“I’m sorry,” I said softly. “I’m really, really sorry. I can’t imagine how you felt walking into my house last weekend.”
“Like someone had punched me in the stomach and then told me I should’ve expected it.”
“I’m sorry,” I said again.
“Yeah, you keep saying that, but it doesn’t mean anything anymore. You made me feel like I was the stupidest, smallest person in the world, like I could never compare to all those people standing in your kitchen. You must’ve had so much fun with them this summer, drinking and partying and all kinds of stuff you never did with JaKory and me.” She paused, and her voice quivered. “Are you ashamed of us?”
Now I felt like someone was punching me in the stomach. “No, Maritza, of course not.”
“Then why?” she asked, her voice breaking. “Why did you do that?”
I was silent for a long, long moment. Then I asked, “Can I tell you the whole story?”
She neither nodded nor shook her head. I started talking before she could decide.
I told her about the night I’d come upon Ricky in the trees, and how he’d been upset, though I didn’t explain why. I told her about everything that grew from there: the night at Taco Mac when I’d first met Ricky’s friends, the conversation in Lydia’s room when I’d first suspected she liked me, the moment on the swings when I’d missed my chance, and the moment on the front steps when I’d gotten it back.
“But why couldn’t you tell me all this before?” Maritza asked, looking pained.
I hung my head. “I just—I wanted it for myself. You know how much I love you and JaKory, but sometimes it feels like you try to tell me who I am based on what you see. I met Ricky that night, and suddenly it felt like I could be whomever I wanted to be because he wouldn’t know the difference. I needed to know I could do that. And I needed to know I could do it without you and JaKory. I wanted to feel like I was becoming myself, not ourselves.”
Maritza was quiet. She breathed in, slow and deep.
“I’m sorry,” I said again. “It was selfish.”
Maritza swallowed. She shifted on the curb so her feet were now in the grass with mine. “It wasn’t selfish.”
“It wasn’t?”
She sighed. “Remember last year when you asked if you and JaKory could come to Panama sometime?”
“Yeah. I was serious.”
“I know.” She paused. “A few months ago, Mom and Dad told me I could invite you guys this year. They said I could bring you for a whole week, even two if you wanted. They’d already cleared it with my grandmother and everything. Mom was so excited; she kept saying, ‘Aren’t you going to call your friends and share the wonderful news?’”
I looked at her. “But you had the dance job lined up.”
She shook her head. “No, not at that point, I didn’t. It’s just—Panama’s always been my thing, you know? It’s the one time a year I feel like someone different, like an alternate-universe version of myself, if I had been a regular Panamanian girl who grew up with her whole family around her. You and JaKory won’t ever understand that because your whole family is here, in the States. And I adore my family, but I think what I love even more is who I am when I’m with them. I don’t have to be the girl who’s trying to prove something all the time. When I’m with my cousins and everyone, I get to blend in, and—and I feel like they love me just for the sake of loving me.”
I smiled sadly. “And it would’ve been hard to share that with JaKory and me, because then you would’ve felt pressure to act like the version of yourself that you are around us.”
She winced apologetically. “Yeah. So I guess I understand where you’re coming from.”
“Thanks.”
She busied herself with the grass for a moment, plucking up blades and laying