When they’d notified Chloe and I they’d selected us, there'd been nothing but shock. A shock that had come the day after graduation and the day after Odina turned her back on us for the last time. In the week since, I hadn't seen her or heard from her once.
My life was far more peaceful without her in it, and that only made my guilt worse.
"Promise me you'll call us when you land," Dad said, hugging my head to his chest. They'd set me up with an International Calling plan despite the expense, needing that ability to contact me in case of an emergency.
"I promise," I said with a tight smile to prevent his shirt fabric getting caught in my mouth. His face was too thin as I pulled back, too affected by the absence of his other daughter to eat a decent meal. I had to hope that my being gone would help.
He wouldn't have to look at Odina's face every time he looked at me.
Mom held out her arms for me to step into her embrace, her face tight with the threat of tears. "You have your Euros?" she asked.
"Yes, I have Euros and the debit card and traveler's checks from the program. I'll be fine, Mom," I said with a grimace. She nodded, wiping the tears away from her eyes.
"My baby girl," she whispered, stepping back and cupping my cheek in her hand. "You stay away from trouble, you hear me? A place like that is bound to be filled with it."
"We live in Chicago," I laughed. "It isn't exactly a Mormon community."
"I've looked at pictures on that internet," she said with a frown. "It's one big party. One with very few clothes. Did you know there are beaches where people don't wear bathing suits!" She shivered back her revulsion, looking at me in warning. "Don't you dare."
"Mom," I groaned, rolling my eyes as my grandmother chuckled in the background.
"How else is she supposed to land herself an affair with a handsome Spanish stud to show her the ways of passion?" she asked, nudging my side playfully.
She loved to rile my mother up, even as my Dad groaned, "Mom."
"What? Sex is a spiritual act. She should know what she wants from a man if she's ever going to settle down and teach her husband one day," my grandmother inserted with an innocent smile.
My mom's Catholic upbringing begged to differ. "Can we not?" I groaned. "My sex life, or lack of one, is none of anybody's business."
Mom swallowed but nodded, looking at me with expectations in her eyes. The good daughter didn't have sex with boys at school or men she met in Spain. The good daughter didn't drink or do drugs or dance in no clothing.
The weight of those restrictions came down on me, pushing me further into the place where I knew I had to belong.
Because the good daughter was the only one she had left.
I was mostly silent in the backseat while Chloe sat up front with her mom, who chewed her bottom lip so hard I wondered if there would be anything left when we came home. No parent wanted to see their barely legal daughter go to Europe without adult supervision.
Glancing out the window as we drove, I tried to quell the nerves in my stomach. I'd never left Chicago. What business did I have going to Ibiza? I didn't even know who I was without my responsibilities to my family to dictate my every action.
I steeled my spine, sitting up straighter as I exhaled. My grandmother was right. The trip was my one opportunity to forget about who I had to be at home. It was the only chance I'd have before immersing myself in the college experience and my studies, I'd be a fool not to take it.
I didn't know what that meant for me. If I'd lose my virginity to a Spanish stranger, drink for the first time, or go to a nude beach and try to let go of the insecurity that I was unattractive. Boys were never interested in me. Not the way they were Odina.
Every time I thought maybe, just maybe, one would ask me on a date, it never came. Given that the last boy who'd seemed to want to touch me had overdosed on heroin two weeks after, I wondered if I was cursed. Maybe I'd finally find out.
Chloe's mom dropped us at the airport, sharing an excited hug with her daughter before she confirmed we had everything out of the van and went back to get in the vehicle.
Hugo and his brothers were already waiting at the curb with their bags. Hugo looked at my suitcase like he wanted to carry it for me, but his own bags limited that ability. He sighed when I pulled the handle up and wheeled it toward the machines to print our tickets. Flipping him off only made the twisted bastard laugh.
"Are you two going to bicker the entire flight to Spain?" Chloe asked as she gave me a saccharine smile and stepped up to a kiosk to print her ticket.
"Probably," Gabriel said with a bright smile.
I stuck my tongue out at the middle Cortes brother, ignoring the scowl Joaquin gave him and the sharp elbow to his side. I didn't understand the eldest of the three in any way. His demeanor was always off, like his brothers were foolish for not treating me as if I was made of glass and required kid gloves.
The one time I'd suggested spending my birthday money on a kickboxing lesson, he'd practically bugged his eyes out of his head. Girls like me didn't need to worry about things like that,
