Flores and Miss Paula: A Novel

by Melissa Rivero

This period—the three months that stretch from his birthday to his deathday—is the heaviest of the year. My mother says it is because he comes around during this time. I say it is because the memories do.

The trope about the first-gen kid who must succeed because of all the sacrifices her parents made. Like I ever asked for that debt in the first place, but yeah, that’s me, and that is a debt I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to repay.

I wonder if any of us will ever really be satisfied with what we have. If we truly wanted what we have in the first place.

absence strikes like that sometimes, coming at me out of nowhere. Sharp, quick, a pang that erupts in tears on a subway car or a tea-lit table at a restaurant or, like now, in an uncomfortable silence. Other times, it wells up, rips at a seam I thought I’d stitched up good, a slow bleed that plunges me into an abyss.

How fortunate and fragile that is—to be so young and protected that one can find magic in something others find terrifying.

Her muted pink dress fails to soften her armor.

Maybe every stage in life is, in some way, a transition. A movement we can learn from and hopefully build on. A constant state of flow with no end.