by Gaby Triana
Mary flickered in silence. Above her, Jesus wept. And above Him, dancing lamplight bounced off the crucifix, creating a shifting reflection on the ceiling. For a moment, it looked like a wolf, howling at the moon.
TWO
The only thing that could wake me up early, besides school, was the occasional South Florida sunrise. Summery rays of golden light broke through pink and blue candy floss clouds. Temperatures were not yet boiling. One might even call it comfortable. Herons pecked the sawgrass for dragonfly breakfasts.
Seeing Cami again two weeks after graduation was also a plus.
In the car, she rambled about her sister. I didn’t mind. It gave me something else to think about on the drive besides my predicament. “I told her, ‘Silvie, stop giving yourself away for free. Don’t you see that the reason he does this is because you let him? He’s a taker; you’re a giver. You guys are a recipe for disaster.’”
Taker. Giver. A repressed memory from last summer snaked through my mind, but I pushed it away. “You said that?” I asked.
Blurs of telephone poles whizzed past at fifty miles an hour. I couldn’t stop thinking about the wolf mirage on my ceiling last night, the way it had danced and leaped and howled for just a moment before disappearing.
“Yes, she needs to hear it. Don’t you agree?”
Cami loved making her older sister out to be a lost soul. I was sure it made Cami feel like the mature one, but Silvie didn’t need a savior. Silvie was a free spirit, unafraid of living her life through trial and error. So what if things weren’t working out with her boyfriend? At least she was living, owning her own mistakes.
“I think you should let your sister figure things out for herself.” I stared ahead, fingers tightly coiled around the steering wheel. “It’s her life.”
“Ay, Vale, you always give her the benefit of the doubt.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
We drove in silence, as she thumbed through her phone and laughed at whatever amusing snippet caught her attention. I toyed with the idea of telling her I was heavily considering ditching the retreat, dumping her ass curbside, then going home again. It would mean facing a million questions from my grandmother and mother, yes. And I’d have to admit lukewarm feelings about the way I’d been raised. Catholicism was more Cuban than coffee, croquetas, and media noche sandwiches all rolled into one.
Approaching the turn in the road, I slowed. Cami pointed to the familiar campground sign, freshly painted and adorned with flowerful landscaping. “I can’t believe we’re back. How did a year fly by so quickly?”
“We must’ve been having oodles of fun,” I deadpanned.
Vehicles were lining up. Cami sat on the edge of her seat, waving at everyone digging out bags from their trunks. Familiar faces in green baseball caps and matching shirts displaying our “Live the adventure!” slogan over a cross made it all too real.
A dull soreness ached in my chest.
“What?” Cami asked.
“What?”
“You sighed. Are you nervous?”
“Nah, I’m good.”
“Is it Antoni?”
“I already told you no.” I scoffed. She asked me this the other night, too.
Antoni Piñeda, a youth group leader from our sister church, Sacred Heart, joined us on the retreat every year. Last year, I shared a super-brief “thing” with him. A year older than both me and Cami, Antoni and I were somewhat close. We sometimes held hands, talked late at night—innocent stuff. We even prayed, always at his suggestion. Everyone said we made a cute couple.
I was curious where it would go.
On the last day, he pulled me into an empty men’s bathroom behind the chapel while everyone was out by the campfire singing hymns. Surrounded by urinals, it felt alien and wrong. I assumed he wanted to kiss me away from prying eyes. What was the big deal doing so in public? He was eighteen—I was seventeen. It wasn’t like people didn’t know we were an item.
Well, we did kiss. Awkwardly. We didn’t click at all. Kissing Antoni was like getting my face sucked off by an octopus. To make matters worse, he kept taking my hand and sliding it across his crotch, which I might have considered later on, in a different setting, but we were surrounded—by urinals. Not to mention I kept having intrusive flash thoughts of him with a guy.
After a few agonizing minutes of me redirecting my hand and him trying to force romantic alchemy, he pulled away, stood at the sink, and unzipped his jeans. Then, he…groaned. And relaxed. He was done. I felt repulsed, shocked, cheated out of a legit experience. The worst part was the way he then ushered me out of the bathroom in a hurry, like I was his dirty secret. No regard for how I felt. His needs had been met. I’d been nothing but an accessory to him, a used baby wipe.
“Are you sure?” Cami’s voice snapped me out of it. “Because I could understand. I’d feel weird seeing him, too.”
It had taken me a month to tell Cami about the incident. But only Cami, because who else would believe that charming, beloved, squeaky-clean Antoni was an ass? I never told her about the intrusive thought either, because I didn’t know what was causing them.
“I’m fine.”
I was. It could’ve ended worse. If anything, I was grateful for the experience for opening my eyes to the dual nature of people. Because of Antoni, I was more careful before trusting. Because of Antoni, my feelings about this community had changed. Not that he represented the whole of Catholicism, or even men, but maybe he had. In a way.
The little cross hanging from my rearview mirror swung back and forth. I reached out and steadied it then turned off the engine. Cami and I gathered our bags and headed toward the compound, while moths frantically demanded exodus from my stomach.
If I stayed…fifty of us would pray together, sing together, cook, eat, and share devotion to God together for two weeks. Some, like Antoni, would fake moral fortitude. Father José, Father Willie, and Sister Agatha would run the show. Activities would bring us closer to God—supposedly.
Why, then, did I want to turn and run the hell out of there?
The greetings began, the hugging, the air kissing, the questions about how the school year went, the blessings in Spanglish, the assurances that God would save us. I floated through the motions like a scuba diver giving the all-OK thumb’s up, even as my oxygen levels neared the red zone.
Clutching the little gold cross around my neck, I blinked back tears. What would you do, Dad? It’d been five years since I heard his voice, but I knew he’d want me to be happy.
“Vale!”
I turned. “Oh, Father Willie. Hello.”
With his big-cheeked smile and lumbering gait, the middle-aged priest looked like a friendly friar. I’d loved him since I was a kid. He was one of the few genuine people left in the church who gave it a good name.
He folded his hands over his belly. “It’s so good to see you. I was so very sorry to hear about your grandfather. I was in Guatemala on missionary work when it happened.”
“It’s okay. Thanks for remembering him.” I faked a smile.
“He was a good man, a pillar of this community, but you already know that. And so proud of you.” He reached out to tap my arm. “Always with high hopes that you’d lead the next generation into the ministry.”
“I…”
If Father Willie could only see the vortex of uncertainty swirling inside my mind. I heard my grandfather’s voice reminding me I could talk to Father Willie. Father Willie was good with kids. He was nonjudgmental and might provide wisdom and guidance. Sadly, nobody here could understand what it felt like to have the dark side of the universe breathing life into my soul every night.
“Bueno, see you at the campfire,” Father Willie said, ignoring my inability to form a coherent sentence. “Don’t forget your letter.”
Ah, yes, because someone here might need my encouraging words. Me, for example. “I will. Good to see you, Father.” I ducked my head and got out of the hall fast.
In the e
vening, Cami and Yeni, an elder leader, were busy setting up their cabin spaces. Yeni was pleasant, if a little overexcited about the shower caddy she’d bought to carry All Her Things. The moment she stepped out of the cabin to grab something, Cami nodded to my duffel bag on the bed.
“Aren’t you going to unpack?”
“In a minute. Cam…”
I tried.
I waited for the right words to come.
“What is it?” Her deep brown eyes searched mine.
I couldn’t even tell my best friend of fourteen years how I felt.
“Heyyy,” Yeni drawled, poking her head into the cabin with a scandalous smile. “Did you see who’s here? Antoni.” She made wide eyes that made me want to punch her.
“Can you give us a minute?” Cami glared at Yeni. Turning back to me, she took my hands. In her heart, I saw love and understanding. “You haven’t been okay since you picked me up. What’s up?”
I shook her hands. “I don’t think I can do this.”
“Do what? The leader role? Vale, it’s little more than you’re doing now, and—”
“It’s not the leader role, Cami.”
“Then what is it?”
A familiar clanging sound rang, the dinner bell. There were cheers and laughter and lots of movement toward the dining hall, kid voices and adult voices all mixed together. Every cell in my body resisted it. “I’ll tell you after dinner.”
I walked out.
Cami followed, mystified by my sullen attitude.
Then I saw him across the center courtyard, talking to a group of boys, nodding at whatever anybody said, as though he actually cared. He was probably imparting advice from his frosh experiences. I didn’t care. In fact, I hadn’t heard from Antoni all senior year, further validating my belief that I’d meant nothing to him. I was quite proud of the fact that I’d managed to push the bathroom memory to the back of my mind. I’d done such a good job of it, in fact, that I sometimes questioned whether it actually ever happened.
I could feel his gaze on my back. I ignored it, as we filtered into the dining hall—kids, leaders, aged-out members all talking about summer plans. I heard myself telling Yeni how I was starting FIU in the Fall. That was true, but that was all I knew. No idea regarding major or career direction. Everyone else seemed so sure of where their lives were headed.
Yet, I remember the exact moment my uncertainty began unfolding.
It was last summer. I was in bed, casually scrolling through Instagram, looking for inspiration for senior pics, when I saw it—a filtered photo of a little black cauldron, thin smoke rising from its belly. The photo of the tiny iron kettle was framed by chalky sketches of stars, moon, and candles. Cradling the cauldron was a pair of beautiful slender hands with black, pointy, sparkly fingernails.
There was something gorgeously enigmatic about the photo. It was a whole mood.
When I checked to see who in my IG feed would have posted such a goth-inspired gem, I saw it was Savannah, a recent graduate from Ministerio High, a girl who, a few days after graduation, had begun wearing blue lipstick, gotten bicep tattoos, and was making amazing cosmic art of naked nonbinary people.
Savannah was different. In Economics, she gave the best answers. Once, Ms. Halley asked, “What are basic needs in life?” Kids answered the usual—water, food, shelter. Then, there was Savannah: “Sex.”
Everyone either laughed or clutched their pearls. What a complete badass. I never understood why she was in Catholic school to begin with.
I dove into her profile to stalk the rest of her gallery and found myself spiraling down a rabbit hole of bottomless intrigue. Each photo was more beautiful than the next—crystals, oil burners, bundles of herbs that she dried herself in a massive armoire. Before I knew it, I was googling half the words she used in her posts—energy, manifestation, vibrations, Universal source.
I began following many of the same accounts she followed, posts with hashtags like #witchy #witchesofinstagram and #metaphysical. I bought a Tarot deck along with several books to help me interpret them. I began learning about Buddhism, Celtic runes, law of attraction, stuff that would never fly in my household. We all knew that God was to thank for any good that came into our lives, not our own powers.
Until I made up my mind about how I felt regarding the new information, I kept it a secret. If I was going to worry my family, I’d wait until there was something to actually worry about. So far, I was only intrigued by this mystical new aesthetic. I wasn’t about to run off and join a Satanic cult.
Then, last night I’d asked for a sign.
The silhouette of a wolf showed up. I believed in signs—always had. When a double rainbow appeared on a shitty day, I believed God was cheering me up. When a butterfly fluttered over me in the courtyard at school, I knew it was my dad checking on me. I didn’t know what to make of the wolf, though.
At dinner, I felt like an imposter. Like I was watching someone else’s life unfold behind a sheet of glass.
“I’m worried about you,” Cami whispered. We were helping wipe down tables littered with corn kernels and spilled chocolate milk after dinner. Several yards away, Antoni stood with another clueless fool who thought he was so wonderful, trying to make eye contact with me.
“I’m worried about me, too.”
“Can you tell me now? There’s more to the story, isn’t there?”
“What story?”
“The bathroom story,” she muttered.
“It’s not about him, I told you.” Why Cami couldn’t fathom that something besides boys might be wrong with a girl was a mystery to me. “Don’t be upset with me, but I have to go.”
She stopped wiping and stared at me. The sponge in her hand dripped milky water down her wrist. “What do you mean?”
“I should’ve said this before—I can’t do this.”
“Do what?”
“This. The retreat.”
“Vale, it’s fine. We’re going to have a great time. We always do! We look forward to this every year. Come on.” She took my hand. Someone greeted us. We smiled. But in her grip, I felt her fear that something was wrong, that I was leaving not just the retreat, but her.
I plucked the sponge from her hand and tugged her around the corner of the building. Outside, the sky had darkened to a velvety royal purple. “Cami, you look forward to this every year. I only came because of you.”
“That can’t be true. You love this. Unless you’re suddenly good at faking?”
“Maybe I am.”
I saw the hurt in her eyes and felt guiltier than I ever have in my life. I searched the sky for answers. No wolves in the clouds.
“Look, I don’t know what’s going on, but I can assure you it’s nothing we can’t resolve without God’s grace. We can talk to Father Willie. Father Willie loves you.”
“Father Willie can’t fix this. Trust me, Cami. My brain’s a mess…”
“What am I supposed to tell them? Valentina, they’re naming you a YFJ assistant leader tonight!”
“Tell them I got sick.” I took off toward the cabin to grab my bag. I felt like a complete loser for ditching, but it would’ve been worse to stay and fake it.
“I can’t believe this.” She lingered in the cabin’s doorway. “What am I supposed to do without you?”
“We’ll talk when you get home in two weeks, okay? I promise. I love you.” I kissed her cheek and pushed past her rigid stance.
“Valentina Callejas, what…the hell…”
I shot through the courtyard and out the camp gates, largely unnoticed, like the ejected ghost of an accident victim, rising from its dead body into the unpredictable liberty of the universe.
“Vale…”
I turned and saw him—the impossibly handsome Antoni, lingering in my peripheral vision. He reached for my arm. “Hey, can I talk to you a second?”
“No. I’m leaving,” I said, pulling away before he could touch me. “I’m sorry.”
“Wait, really?”
; Yes, really.
“Bitch.”
I bolted out, chastising myself for apologizing when I had nothing to apologize for. He was the one who took advantage of me in a smelly bathroom, not the other way around. Talking to him would only call the memory back again.
The campers’ laughter melted away. One of the leader’s voices blared through the megaphone, announcing campfire time. I left it all behind. Explanations would be demanded of me, but I wouldn’t worry about it now. Once I was off the compound, the chorus of swamp crickets cheered me en route to my car.
I started the engine and navigated the gravelly dark path back toward the highway. Once on the road, I let out an exhale and opened my window for fresh hot air. The break wouldn’t last for long, though—I was headed home.
THREE
When I pulled into my driveway, I turned off the engine and waited for my courage to replenish. No sense in delaying the inevitable. I grabbed my bag and made it up the walk, stopping outside the front door.
In the silence of the night, I could hear my grandmother and mother arguing through the walls from inside my mother’s room.
“My fault? How?” Mom fought hard to keep her voice down.
Either she knew about me leaving the retreat, or my grandmother told her about the tarot cards in my room last night.
“Claro que sí. Who else’s fault would it be?” Abuela said. “You’re her mother.”
Keys in hand, I pressed my forehead against the door and let out a sigh. I wished I could steal into the night like some mysterious bird, fly-fly-away until I could breathe again. But I wasn’t raised to run from problems, and despite the fact I was about to get the third degree. I turned the key and entered the house.
“She’s here,” Abuela said. It took less than two seconds for both of them to appear in the foyer. “Gracias a Dios!” My grandmother saw me and glanced at the ceiling. “Valentina, where have you been?”
“Driving home.”
Mom followed me through the living room. “I called you. You didn’t answer.”
“I know.”
“We didn’t know if you’d gone somewhere, if you’d gotten into an accident…”
