THE GRAVITY Of US

You never expect the phone to ring at that hour unless someone’s already dead. 1:42 a.m. I’ll remember that time forever. It’s etched into my memory like a knife wound—sharp and burning every time I glance at a clock. I was folding laundry on my dorm room bed. Pajama pants. Faded yellow with stars. I remember that too. Dumb detail, but grief doesn’t care what’s relevant. My roommate Mariana had passed out hours ago after studying for her organic chem exam. Her laptop was still open beside her, illuminating her sleeping face with blue light. The whole room was dim, quiet, peaceful in that fake kind of way peace always is before your life explodes. Then my phone buzzed. Unknown number. I almost didn’t answer. My thumb hovered over the screen like maybe if I waited long enough, it would go away and take whatever news it carried with it. But I answered. “Hello?” There was a silence. Just a second too long. I knew then—I knew. I felt it in my chest before the voice even came through. That invisible punch, like the air had changed density around me. “Is this Miss Criselda Robin?” The voice was male. Professional. The kind of voice that had said this kind of thing before. “Yes,” I answered slowly, my gut twisting. “This is Officer Bennett with the NYPD. You’re listed as the emergency contact for Joseph and Marlena Robin?” I sat down slowly on the edge of my bed. My hands felt wrong. Heavy. Numb. “Yes,” I said again. “There’s been a car accident. I’m very sorry to inform you... they didn’t make it.” My ears were ringing. “What?” My voice sounded far away, even to me. “There was an accident on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Their car flipped after colliding with a truck. They were pronounced dead on the scene.” I didn’t cry. Not then. I stared at the laundry pile. I looked at my hands. I felt like someone had just opened a trapdoor under me, and I was still falling, endlessly, silently, into something cold and unending. Mariana woke up. I didn’t notice her until she was kneeling beside me, her hand on my arm. “Cris?” she whispered. “What’s going on?” “They’re dead,” I said. My voice didn’t c***k. My face didn’t move. “My parents are dead.” The next forty-eight hours were chaos. Phone calls. Flights. Lawyers. The kind of sterile procedures that follow the most personal loss imaginable. Nobody warns you about the paperwork. About the coroner’s report. About how little time you get to scream before someone asks you if you’re the one paying for the casket. I flew back to Brooklyn in silence, my phone buzzing with condolences from people I hadn’t spoken to in years. “You’re so strong.” “Let me know if you need anything.” “God never gives us more than we can handle.” I wanted to throw the phone into the ocean. The house smelled like dust and lemon furniture polish when I walked in. It had only been nine months since I left for school, but everything looked smaller now. Duller. Even the family photos on the walls felt like lies, versions of us that didn’t know what was coming. Elijah met me at the door. My brother was fourteen and already looked taller. Too tall. His eyes were bloodshot. He didn’t hug me. Just stepped aside and let me in like he was the man of the house now. He wasn’t wrong. The twins—Myra and Jonah—sat side-by-side on the couch, knees touching. Myra was clutching her favorite pink throw pillow like it could keep her from breaking apart. Jonah stared at the TV, which wasn’t even on. And then there was Lani. Four years old. My baby. The one Mom always joked came by accident but changed everything. She didn’t understand what was happening. She kept asking when Mommy and Daddy were coming back. I told her, “They’re not,” and then locked myself in the bathroom and screamed into a towel for fifteen minutes. The funeral was small and ugly. Not the ceremony—just the reality. We couldn’t afford anything fancy. No floral archways or white doves. Just a gray sky, a bitter wind, and six people who knew how to survive heartbreak. When it was over, a social worker named Denise pulled me aside. “You’re twenty,” she said gently. “Not legally a guardian. We’ll need to place the children into foster care until further arrangements are made.” “I’m their sister,” I said. “And I’m not letting anyone take them.” Her voice was calm, measured, like someone who’d seen this movie before. “Love doesn’t make you a legal guardian, Criselda.” But desperation? That did something. I spent two nights reading every New York State guardianship law I could find. I dropped out of medical school the next day. I signed every form they gave me. I wrote letters to judges. I called every contact my parents had left behind, begging for signatures, support, proof that I was capable. And eventually... I won. But it didn’t feel like winning. It felt like standing in the middle of a burning building, waving a court order and pretending the flames couldn’t touch me. I applied for jobs. Anything that could pay more than minimum wage. But I was twenty. No degree. No experience outside part-time summer work. Nobody cared that I had once been pre-med with a 4.0 GPA and a full ride. And then I saw the listing for Cappuccio Prime. A café, sure—but not the regular kind. It was upscale. Sleek. Coffee with foam art and ingredients nobody could pronounce. The kind of place with four-dollar tips and ten-dollar lattes. I got hired after a fifteen-minute interview. I lied and said I had barista experience. They barely checked. Now, every morning at 6 a.m., I put on a stiff black apron and fake a smile behind a cash register. The morning I met Felix Santiago, I was on the edge. Lani had spilled cereal on the floor before I left. The twins were fighting over a broken tablet. Elijah had locked himself in the bathroom, refusing to go to school. I left the apartment half- dressed, half-awake, and fully running on fumes. Cappuccio Prime was all gleam and glass. Music too soft to enjoy, lights too bright to relax. Our manager, Taylor, was a perfectionist with a superiority complex and a whistle she actually used when someone forgot to wipe the counter. I had barely made it past the first rush when he walked in. I didn’t know who he was at first. Just another suited customer with expensive shoes and cold eyes. “Order for Santiago,” someone called out behind me. I turned, took the paper cup, and moved to the espresso machine. I pressed the buttons the way I’d been trained, added two pumps of sugar-free vanilla, and poured the milk in a slow stream, drawing a heart on top because... well, habit. “Name?” I asked without looking up. “I already gave it,” came the reply. His voice was smooth, clipped, a little too annoyed for someone ordering coffee. I glanced up. He was... sharp. That’s the only word I can think of. Not just handsome, but cut. Like someone had carved him from glass and then forgot to give him a soul. Black suit. No tie. Cufflinks shaped like knives. His hair was jet black, neat, and not a strand out of place. I placed the cup on the counter. “Santiago,” I said flatly. He took it. Glanced at the label. His mouth twitched. Just a flicker. Not a smile. Not quite. Then he walked away without a word. I should have known he was important. Should have guessed from the way people looked at him when he walked in. The way the manager whispered something to the assistant supervisor the second he left. That man didn’t just buy coffee. He owned the damn building. And me? I’d just handed him a cup with a foam heart and called him by his last name like he wasn’t probably worth more than the GDP of a small country. I didn’t know then how that moment would change everything. How that coffee would become a beginning. But life doesn’t announce turning points. It just gives you a Santiago with a sharp mouth and colder eyes. And waits to see what you’ll do next.