When Kaya Perry graduates college, the last place she wants to go back is Layton, the town that she left behind. She left that place with bad memories and no friends, so there is no way she's looking to go back. So it's really a bummer when the job...
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"How's Santiago taking Ximena leaving?"
"Not well," Kaya replied. "He's been either stuck in his room, clinging to Ximena, or outside with his soccer ball for the last few days. And Ximena's been keeping him just as close. I'm kind of worried for him and I don't know what to do."
"You'll figure it out," Lauren said. "Considering the circumstances, you're handling things pretty well."
"Thanks, but it doesn't feel like it." After Ximena joined Ty on that trip to Boone, Santiago had retreated even deeper into himself. He rarely left his room except for school, not even to practice. Kaya was worried about him and, for once, she didn't know how to help.
"Yeah, it may not, but you're doing the best you can. When you look back at this, it'll seem like nothing in the grand scheme of things. You're giving Santiago a home and a family to talk to, something he's never had before."
"I hope you're right," Kaya said. "But look, I have to go. I have a ton of emails to go through and Julian has a date tonight and I'm not leaving Santiago home alone."
"Yeah, no that's fine," Lauren said. "I was about to say the same thing. Olivia said she had a surprise for me at the apartment and I'm almost there. Talk to you soon?"
"Yeah," Kaya said. "Bye."
They both hung up and Kaya stretched in her chair before standing up. She'd been sitting in that same seat for hours, answering emails and doing post-production work. It was a long process, one that she wished she had help with, but she wouldn't trade it for anything. She enjoyed working behind the scenes and finding out how everything ticked. If she ever gained more employees, or even ran a production company, she wanted to know how her business ran and what made it work.
Thinking back, she wondered how she even came across community development and why she changed her major. Wondered what would happened if she went along with film.
But as the thoughts arose in her mind, Kaya refused to think about what-ifs. They would only make her depressed, and she didn't want to be depressed. She refused to think about what her life would be like if she'd stuck with her major and hadn't come back to Layton.
After stretching, she walked around her office and straightened a few things up before sitting back down and getting to work.
When she got home around four, Julian was shrugging on a jacket and leaving. In the next week, he'd be officially moving out of Kaya's house and into his apartment. The last few days were spent taking his things out of storage and out of Kaya's guest bedroom and setting things up. He informed Kaya that Ximena was doing homework in her and Santiago's shared bedroom before going to work and that Santiago was watching TV in her living room, so once he told her that, he was gone.
First, she checked on Santiago, saying hey and asking him what he wanted for dinner. Then, she went to Ximena's room, seeing how homework and packing was going. Everything was in boxes except for her essentials, and Ximena was sitting in the middle of the bed with papers spread around her and her work clothes thrown haphazardly across her pillows. When she saw Kaya, she waved before focusing back on her work.
After a quick shower, she went to the kitchen and started on dinner. It was something quick—hot dogs and French fries—and ate with the siblings before Ximena left. After, she and Santiago cleaned the kitchen and headed back into the living room.
They sat in silence for a bit; it had been a long time since Kaya and Santiago had sat down together and spent time with each other. Whenever they had down time, Kaya was resting and Santiago was outside, or Santiago was sleeping on the couch and Kaya was helping Ximena with something. It was never just the two of them, and Kaya missed that.
"You don't have anything to do?" Santiago asked after a few minutes.
"Nope," Kaya said, popping her lips. "You?"
Santiago was quiet for a moment. "No, not really."
They were quiet again. Kaya hated the awkwardness that existed between the two of them; when they first met at the community center, Kaya immediately found a younger brother in Santiago—they clicked immediately. And once everything started rolling, they'd lost that.
"You know," Kaya said, "I wanted to hang out with you tonight so we could talk." She felt the couch shift as Santiago turned toward her. The noise of the TV faded into the background. "But we don't need to do that, if you don't want to. I won't force it. Anything you want to do tonight, we can do. And I'll try to be home more so we can do this more often."
Santiago was still quiet when she finished. Kaya almost felt tense, as if Santiago would reject her. She didn't blame him; she started off as his mentor and then became everyone else's once she got fired from the center.
"Can we play a quick scrimmage?" he asked, his voice small, almost childlike. When Kaya looked at him, she didn't see a fifteen year old. She saw a little kid facing rejection. She smiled.
"I can't tell you how good I'd be, but I'm down for that."
The light in his eyes, the way happiness showed in his face, made her feel warm inside.
It was seven in the morning when Kaya heard knocking on her door. Checking her phone, she saw no texts from Julian or Ximena. Ty would've just walked right on in, and Santiago had elected to join Kaya on her bed because he didn't want to be alone. He was like a little kid, a little brother.
The fact almost made her cry, and she almost wished that she had a little brother like Santiago. Sometimes, when she was younger, she wished that she'd had a younger sibling, if only not to be alone. It was something that she'd never told her mother, or anyone around her. Looking at Santiago, he was still just a kid trying to get a handle on his emotions and trying to keep himself from breaking. It broke her heart.
The knocking came again and Kaya rubbed Santiago's head before climbing out of bed and shuffling to her front door. When she opened it she almost fell over.
"Took you long enough," Augusta Perry grumbled. "Come on, so I can get these bags in."
Kaya looked past her mother to see two suitcases and her mother's SUV doors open, grocery bags almost spilling out of the car. Wordlessly, she moved aside while Augusta walked in, whistling at the changes made in the house. Her mother looked back at her.
It'd been so long since Kaya had seen her mother—in fact, last time had been right before her college graduation, when the two women had sat down to talk about Kaya's future and Kaya revealed that she was coming back to Layton.
Augusta Perry was a dark-skinned woman with high cheekbones, waist-length locs, and a poise that intimidated most people. At forty-nine years old, Augusta could easily pass for her mid- to late-thirties, with her smooth brown skin. Kaya, though only slightly lighter than her mother, was her spitting image but shorter.
But her mother looked good. Life in Atlanta had done her mother well, and she truly looked happy. Of course, her husband was part of the reason, but Augusta had truly thrived once she left North Carolina.
After snapping out of her stupor, Kaya grabbed a coat and some shoes from the coat closet by her front door and headed outside to bring in the groceries. By the time Augusta left, Kaya would have enough food to fill her freezer and she was glad for it. There was nothing like her mother's cooking.
Once she hauled everything in, Kaya noticed that her mother was gone, but it didn't last long because soon she arrived back into the living room, with a sleepy Santiago behind her. Both he and Augusta looked confused.
"Who is this?" her mother asked. "And the girl sleeping in the guest room?"
