“Oh, Xochitl,” she said. “I know this must be hard, but I want you to know that I will be here regardless.”
“Really?” I said, and I wiped the tears from under her eyes. “You mean that?”
“I think it’s my turn,” she said, “to become a cuentista.”
I opened my mouth to disagree, to refuse her, but she kept talking.
“Not like that. Not like you. There is no one like you, Xochitl.”
She kissed my forehead.
It hurts, Solís, please. Wait just another moment. I’m almost done. I promise.
“We are the stories we tell one another. That’s what las poemas were for. I needed to tell my story to someone, and you found them. You brought them back to me.”
Another kiss, between the eyes.
I’m almost there. Please.
“So, let me tell you a story,” she said, her eyes red and watery. “Or two. Or a thousand. I will remember all of this for the both of us, and no matter how many times you need it, I will tell it to you all over again.”
On the lips.
“I don’t know what we are. I only know what we can be. Is that good enough?”
A smile.
“It’s perfect,” I said.
She stepped back, an arm’s length from me, and she was still crying, but they were not tears of sadness.
No.
I think she was proud of me.
She wiped at her face. “I’ll wait for you to be done,” she said. “I’ll be right here.”
“Lo siento,” I said.
She shook her head. “You have nothing to apologize for, Xo. Never apologize for being yourself ever again.”
I left her there without another glance because if I didn’t go right then, I could have stood there forever, staring at her, her beautiful hair, her face of angles and sharpness.
I walked toward the whitethorn.
I knelt before it, underneath all of las estrellas.
I began.
And now I am here, Solís. That’s all of it. That’s why I left. That’s why I kept the stories, and why I am kneeling here.
The sun is out now. You have burned away las estrellas, and I hope you have been patient as I told you all of this.
I’ve never done this part. I have given you every story before this, and I don’t even know if this is going to work. But I have to try.
I hope you understand. I hope you grasp why I had to tell you everything, why I waited so long, why I am willing to give it all up. It’s not just for her. I promise. She is important. She means everything to me.
But this was all for me. It always was, and I am not afraid to say that anymore. I chose this for myself, and if you took my whole life from me, if you sent me back to my birth, I would do it all again.
Every last decision.
It hurts. I can feel them quivering in me, anticipating the inevitable, and they’re latching on to everything as they prepare to leave my body. How much of me will they take? How much of this will I forget? Will you take all of me? Will I be an empty shell?
A desert, empty and vast.
I don’t think you can. I don’t think you care. I think you sit up there and you hear us. You observe, and then you move on.
I believe that there is too much of me for you ever to take. I believe I am more important than the role you cast me into, and when all of this is over, I know I will never take another story from anyone.
Instead, I will tell stories. I will listen to them, too, but not take them. And unlike you, I will do something about them.
No more obedience. No more bowing before someone who does not bow back.
See the truth. Believe the truth.
Because the truth is … we should not have this. No child should be granted this power. No one person should have this. What good has it done us?
Maybe that’s what was missing. Maybe when this settles, if I still remember, I’ll tell the world that we need a change. That las cuentistas are overburdened and overwhelmed. It’s time for a new honesty, one that cannot be corrupted by greed or ambition or fear.
But I know you’re there. Waiting. Watching.
I’m ready. The bitterness is here, in my throat, waiting to pass out of my mouth and into the willing earth.
The price is worth it. I am not ashamed of who I am or what I did.
I just hope that you have been listening.
Because this is the last story I will ever tell you.
Acknowledgments
Thank you.
To my agent, DongWon Song. You have been a force of support, love, inspiration, and creativity in my life. You encourage my ridiculous ideas (and trust me, there are so many more to come), you told me to write the book of my heart to follow up Anger, and you have gone beyond the call of a literary agent to make my life better. I would not be here without you.
To Miriam Weinberg. I handed in a horror novel set in a dystopian landscape to you over two years ago. You loved it, but you had the courage to tell me that I had written the wrong book, that the story I had given you was a scathing polemic, but was this really the novel I wanted to release next?
It wasn’t, and we set out over 2018 to drastically change this manuscript, which went through two complete rewrites. You pushed me to write fantasy. You pushed me to throw caution to the wind and compose the most complicated, ambitious book I’d ever attempted. When I told you that I realized that Xochitl’s voice would work best if the entire novel was a single prayer, you didn’t shut me down. Your eyes went wide over plates of French pastries, and you ordered me
