THE GRAVITY Of US

CHAPTER 3

By the time lunch rolls around, my hands are blistered from the steam wand. I scarf my rice in the back room in under five minutes. I stare at my phone but don’t open my messages.

I know what’s waiting.

Another electricity bill. The landlord’s “final warning.” A missed call from the counselor about Elijah’s attitude. A group chat with Myra’s school saying they need volunteer moms for something she’ll cry about when I can’t show.

I put the phone away.

I cry in the bathroom.

Just five minutes.

Then I wash my face and go back out.

By the end of the shift, my smile is cracking. My feet feel like bricks. I drop a cup and apologize ten times. I almost forget a regular’s name and he laughs like it’s a game.

But then, right before closing, he walks in. Felix Santiago.

Sharp suit. Cold stare. That kind of aura that makes other people step back without realizing it. He looks like he owns the room.

Because he does. The air around him changes.

Everyone straightens up. Me? I lower my eyes.I make his drink without asking. He always orders the same thing. I never speak unless spoken to.

But today, as I hand him the cup, he looks at me. Really looks.

His eyes flick down to my name tag.

Then back up.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

The words are so unexpected I don’t know how to process them.

I nod too quickly.

“Yes. Thank you, sir.”

He hesitates. Like he wants to say something else. Like he’s not sure what made him ask in the first place.

Then he turns and walks out.

I stare after him for a long time.

Not because he’s handsome.

But because for two seconds, someone saw me. Not as a barista.

Not as a problem.

Not as a sister or a substitute mother or a walking paycheck.

Just... me.

I close the shop with numb fingers, sweep the floor, lock the register, and clock out.

Outside, the air has that cold bite again. Rain threatens. My coat is still too thin. My heart feels thinner.

I start the long walk home.

I’ll be home in twenty-three minutes.

Dinner still has to happen. Homework. Baths. Lani will need a lullaby. Elijah might still be angry. Jonah might need silence. Myra might ask if I’ll ever get a day off.

And I’ll lie.

I always do.

Because that’s what you do when you’re the last one standing. You carry.

And carry.

And carry.

Until something gives.

But not today.

Today I keep walking.

Flashback – “The Last Time We Were Alone”

It was a Thursday night, just past midnight. Everyone else had gone to bed — Lani snoring in

her crib, Myra sleeping sideways across her twin mattress like a fallen tree, the twins murmuring in their shared bunk like they were still arguing in their dreams.

I was supposed to be studying. I wasn’t.

I was sitting at the kitchen table with my books closed and my face in my hands, trying to remember why I ever wanted to be a doctor in the first place. My eyes burned. My chest felt tight. I hadn’t slept in two days.

And then she walked in.

Not dramatically. Not like in the movies.

Just soft footsteps in slippers. A slight cough. The smell of eucalyptus and sleep.

“You’re still up,” she said, not surprised.

I didn’t lift my head. “I’m trying.”

She didn’t ask trying what.

She already knew.

She opened the fridge. Closed it. Opened a cabinet. Rattled a teacup down from the shelf. Filled the kettle with water, slow and careful, as if even her silence was something gentle.

When she finally sat across from me, she didn’t speak right away. She just watched me. Like she was studying a map she’d seen a hundred times but was only now realizing was changing.

Then: “You don’t look like yourself.”

“I haven’t in a while.”

She nodded, stirring honey into her mug even though the water hadn’t boiled yet.

“I thought once I got into med school, it would get easier,” I said. “But it’s like... it never stops. The pressure, the reading, the tests. I feel like I’m constantly sprinting with no finish line.”

“Is that why you’re hiding your grades from us?” I looked up, startled.

She didn’t sound angry.

Just tired.

“I’m not—”

“You are. You think I don’t see things? I do. I see everything, Criselda. You come home looking like you’ve been drowning all day and smile like it’s fine. Your father thinks you just need time, but I know the look of someone coming undone.”

I swallowed. Hard.

“I didn’t want to disappoint you.”

Her face changed.

Pain. Sharp and fast.

“Disappoint me?” she repeated. “Sweetheart, you could never.” “You wanted a doctor.”

“No,” she said, voice steady. “I wanted you to become what makes you feel alive. That’s all. If it’s medicine, so be it. If it’s something else... then say it. Don’t lose yourself trying to prove something that was never required.”

“I don’t know what makes me feel alive anymore.” She reached across the table and took my hand.

Her hands were always warm. Always soft in ways I never understood, even after years of diapers and dish soap and stress.

“You’re twenty,” she said. “You’re allowed not to know.” I stared down at our hands.

“Myra cried today because she didn’t know how to spell Wednesday,” I whispered. “And Elijah kicked a hole in the closet door because he said I didn’t come to his school recital even though I did. Jonah got into a fight because someone called him slow. And Lani bit a kid. Again.”

“And you still came home. You still took care of them.” “I didn’t sign up to be their mother.”

“I know.”

Her voice cracked.

“I’m sorry for that.” I looked up.

“You’re not supposed to be carrying this much,” she said. “I was supposed to give you a better cushion. More air. More time.”

I shook my head. “You gave us love. That’s more than most people ever get.”

She smiled — watery, tired, but real.

“Sometimes,” she said, “when I look at you, I see the baby I almost lost. The one who came early. The one who screamed like she was too big for this world already. And now here you are — holding everyone else together like that tiny heart never forgot how to fight.”

I couldn’t speak.

She squeezed my hand.

“Promise me something,” she whispered.

“Anything.”

“Promise me if you ever start to lose yourself for real... you’ll stop. You’ll choose yourself.” Tears blurred my vision.

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to,” I said honestly.

She leaned across the table and kissed my forehead.

“You will,” she whispered. “Because you’re stronger than you think. And because I’ll be in every choice you make.”

The kettle screamed on the stove.

She stood and moved toward it, humming as she poured her tea.

And I remember thinking, God, she’s going to live forever.

I don’t even realize I’ve walked past the building until I hear Lani’s voice calling out the window.

“Criselda!”

I look up.

Third floor. Pink pajamas. A flash of her hair. The curtain flutters.

“You missed the turn again,” she yells, giggling.

I backpedal half a block and drag myself up the stairs, every bone aching like I’ve been carrying bricks instead of lattes all day.

By the time I get to the door, Elijah’s already yanking it open.

He doesn’t say hi.

He doesn’t move.

He just stands there with his arms crossed like I’m late to a court hearing. “What?”

“You forgot to sign the field trip form.” “Jesus, Elijah, I just walked in the—”

“Don’t curse in front of them,” he snaps, glancing over his shoulder where Lani and Myra are curled up on the couch watching a badly pixelated cartoon.

I breathe in. Then out.

“Fine. Where is it?”

He hands me a crumpled piece of paper that smells like ketchup and backpack rot. I flatten it against the wall, sign, and hand it back.

“You’re welcome,” I say, brushing past him.

“Thank you,” he mutters like it costs him blood.

The apartment smells like microwaved soup and laundry detergent. The floor is sticky in places I don’t want to step. Myra’s hair is a tangled halo, and Lani has dried chocolate on her cheek. Jonah’s nowhere in sight.

“Where’s your brother?” I ask.

“Shower,” Myra answers.

“He forgot to bring a towel,” Lani adds. “He’s just standing there waiting.”

I sigh and pull a towel from the closet, knocking once before passing it through the bathroom door.

A soaked hand grabs it.

No words.

Just water dripping.

I head for the kitchen. I haven’t even taken off my shoes.

Dinner is canned soup, crackers, and what’s left of the grapes. They eat like they haven’t touched food in three days even though I know Elijah made macaroni earlier.

Afterward, we do homework.

Correction: they pretend to do homework and I sit at the table forcing myself not to fall asleep.

Elijah’s bent over math problems he doesn’t want help with. Myra keeps asking how to spell ‘important’ like she’s never seen the word before in her life. Lani colors on the back of an old bill, humming under her breath. Jonah just stares at his worksheet like it personally insulted him.

It’s chaos.

But it’s our chaos.

And sometimes I don’t know if I love them more for it or resent them for it.

Probably both.

Later, after teeth and stories and lullabies and the nightlight routine and checking the locks twice, I finally collapse into bed.

By bed, I mean mattress on the floor. I check my phone.

One unread message.

Not from a friend.

Not from anyone I expected.

It’s from the front desk at Cappuccio Prime HQ.

Ms. Robin – Mr. Santiago would like to schedule a meeting with you regarding a private matter. Are you available Friday morning?

My heart lurches.

I read it three times. Mr. Santiago? Meeting?

Private matter?

There’s no way he even knows my name. He barely looks at us baristas. What the hell is this?

My fingers hover over the keyboard.

Then I text back:

This is Criselda. Can you clarify what it’s about? Two minutes later:

Mr. Santiago didn’t disclose details. He asked to speak to you directly. Great.

Vague billionaire summons.

Exactly what I need when I’m already juggling unpaid bills, Elijah’s attitude, Myra’s spelling issues, Jonah’s selective mutism, and Lani’s permanent glitter trail.

I stare at the screen until it dims. Then I plug in my phone.

And for a second, just a small, flickering second... I wonder what it would be like if I actually said yes.

If I walked into some glass office and told Felix Santiago exactly what I thought of him. Of his business.

Of his stupid overpriced coffee that fuels my insomnia.

But no.

I need this job.

And I don’t poke bears that can destroy me with one email. I close my eyes.

Sleep doesn’t come easy.

It never does.

The next morning, I’m five minutes late to the register because Lani cried when she couldn’t find her lucky sock and Jonah wouldn’t look me in the eye.

Felix Santiago isn’t in the lobby when I arrive. I breathe easier.

Until 11:03 a.m., when I’m halfway through steaming a cappuccino and someone taps me on the shoulder.

“Ms. Robin?”

I turn.

A woman in a gray suit stands there, impersonal as a clipboard. “Yes?”

“Mr. Santiago is waiting.”