“Boys are so disgusting. And they are all the same. In fact, people in general are all the same. They’re boring and they annoy me.”
Rafaela was starting another of her brooding rants. Aleighna knew it. Instead of stopping her, she focused on the road ahead and breathed a few silent breaths.
“Whether they’re mean or they’re nice, they are all the same. Boooring. And disgusting. Of course.” She flipped down the mirror in Aleighna’s passenger seat and checked her black eye liner for the second time.
“How are they boring? You sure are making a lot of assumptions for a person whose never had a boyfriend.” Aleighna was secretly proud of this fact for her daughter.
“Well. They all have bad breath sometimes.”
“I hate to break it to you, but you have bad breath sometimes too, Rafaela.”
“Mom! Geez, so do you.” She crossed her arms and cocked a perturbed eyebrow. She looked like a beautiful bronzed pouting statue. With black eye liner and jewelry. She continued on. “Anyway, they all say the same things. Come-ons, you know.” She looked at Aleighna out of the corner of her eye.
“I know you get hit on, Rafaela, you’re my beautiful girl.”
Rafaela sighed heavily at her mother’s utter dorkiness.
“Thanks.” She grinned cheesily.
“You’re welcome.” Aleighna smirked. “Be careful.”
“I knew that was coming...”
“I’m just saying.”
“I know!” With a grumble, she tightened her crossed arms. “They are just… all the same. That’s all. I don’t see how girls get married anyway. How can they want to dedicate their lives to something so disgusting? Boys disgust me. They’re stupid. They’re inferior. They don’t deserve me.”
“That’s right, dear.”
“…They can be hot.”
“You’re saying that to annoy me.”
“But they have bad breath.”
“That’s more like it.”
Aleighna looked over and smiled at her daughter. From the moment Rafaela could form any opinion at all, she had reminded Aleighna of herself. A little bit angsty, a little bit picky, a little bit scared whitewashed with grandiose statements and girl power. Aleighna was impressed by her own gorgeous spawn. She found she didn’t mind so much being the mom in the background.
Still, at the same time that Rafaela’s similarity to her delighted her, it also scared the crap out of Aleighna sometimes. She couldn’t tell Rafaela why she was so hard on her. She didn’t want her to understand. Aleighna had fought so hard to be the kind of person who could have a beautiful daughter like Rafaela with a beautiful husband like Ignacio. She had fought so hard for this version of herself. She did not want her daughter to ever fight like that.
“Rafaela one day you’ll understand. But to be honest, you’re not supposed to right now.”
“Understand what? I do too understand. Boys are not worth my time with their disgusting, stupid selves. I will never get married. I can’t be with one person forever. I will live alone my whole life because the only person I can stand is myself.”
A chuckle escaped Aleighna as she pulled up at the high school.
“Look, believe it or not, one day --not today, or tomorrow, or in the next five years… ten years, whatever-- you’ll meet somebody who doesn’t irritate you. Who doesn’t have bad breath even when he does have bad breath. You’ll meet this person who will be good to you, won’t make you cry, and will want to know everything about you. And he won’t care what it is that scares you about yourself. He’ll love every piece of you, even the gross small pieces like your bad morning breath.”
“Gross, mom. You’re really weird, you know that?”
She hopped out of the car and swung her bag up onto her shoulder before rolling her eyes a little bit.
“I love you too!” Rafaela shut the door halfway through this, to avoid anyone hearing the whole thing, Aleighna knew, before waving warmly, then turning around and stalking off toward the front door.
Chip off the old block, Aleighna thought. Then she checked her eyeliner in the rearview, and drove around the loop toward the school parking lot exit.
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