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Camilo was a master of walking the line. He’d lived entire lifetimes in the millisecond between the curtains rising and facing the crowd. Smile, embrace the spotlight. Be the person they expect to see.
But after the final bow, he had that moment when the spotlight and audience got swallowed by a haze of red velvet. That single breath between dropping his character and fixing on a smile for his friends where he had to remember who he needed to be.
Hanging up the call with Mirabel was like that.
His phone display darkened, and he stared at his reflection as if it might give him a clue. It never did. He didn’t resemble either of his parents enough to adopt their mannerisms. Lola had a degree of blandness that didn’t agree with his personality. No distinct role within his family seemed quite right to inhabit. He slid between them like water conforming to the shape of its container. Now, that liquid appeared black and murky, mirroring his dark thoughts.
Nicolas.
The faceless man he’d once blamed for stealing his prima from them proved to be a different monster entirely. Her face had told him everything the moment he’d dropped that name like a bomb in her lap.
Anger. Horror. Grief. Fear.
Raw, vulnerable fear, the likes of which he’d never seen on her before. He hoped he never had to see it again.
He didn’t tell her the cops had talked to him, too. What good would it do? Every converation with her meant walking the line between complete understanding and total abandonment. She understood him like no one else, always had that uncanny ability to peer behind the curtain and find the mess backstage. Then she’d left, and he’d had to face the music in the gaping pit below.
The last three days had been hell. He didn’t blame her. That didn’t mean it didn’t leave a mark. He’d called a dozen times only to prove to himself that the phone would still ring. That she didn’t send him straight to voicemail.
That she hadn’t left again.
And now?
“Did you ever notice your cousin with an older man? Or did she ever mention a boyfriend?”
How could he have seen when he never looked? He despised his younger self for avoiding the one person he never managed to fool. She held up a mirror he hated looking into, and so he’d pulled away. Buried himself in friends and roles and red carpets.
He’d lost himself long before he lost her.
“You were a kid, Milito. I never blamed you.”
Maybe she should have.
He threw his phone onto the bed and sauntered over to the mirror. After Mirabel, breakfast with the family kind of…fizzled out. Without her to set the table and prep the coffee, the family floundered with their grief and lack of time in the mornings before work. They ate together only on the weekends now. Sometimes not even then. Still, he’d likely have to face someone when he ventured downstairs.
He reached for his makeup. There wasn’t a chance in hell he would go face his family looking like this. If he didn’t want to be alone right now, he had to put his face on. They might realize something was wrong otherwise.
His hand froze on his stage makeup kit.
How was he supposed to face them? He couldn’t tell anyone. It would take every ounce of his acting ability to go downstairs and pretend the rage and grief weren’t slowly eating him away. His primita had been…That word was unthinkable.
Hurt. Someone hurt her right under their noses, and no one noticed. It seemed impossible to miss now. The flinches. That faraway glint in her eye sometimes. He’d written everything off as nervousness. Not knowing where she stood with the family. Meanwhile, it had been something so much worse.
That fucking bastard. She was fourteen.
Fuck everything. He needed to call in sick today. Tía Julieta would deal. He had a date with his pillow and doom-scrolling until his head finished screwing itself back in. Even his acting skills couldn’t handle facing anyone, much less his family, without revealing something. He might call in for two days.
No, that wasn’t an option. That long alone would make him go crazy. Well, crazier.
He had to talk to someone about this.
Bruno.
What? No.
Did he actually go there? Bruno wasn’t the type of guy people ran to for comfort. Well, except Mirabel. And Dolores.
Still, that wasn’t the kind of relationship they had. Things had settled somewhat, but they remained far from amigos. Camilo didn’t like the way he let Mirabel mother-hen him exactly as she had the rest of their family. It was no secret his strange tío didn’t trust him, either. Bruno still watched him like a guard dog when it came to Mira. And yeah, Milo got that now.
The last time he’d seen her, she’d freaked him out a bit. Her smiles and laughs came a second later than everyone else’s. An echo. She’d looked none of them in the eye. Between the superficial banter and the way her gaze seemed to get stuck on the wall sometimes, her attempts at hiding the strain fell short.
Bruno stayed with her the entire night. At her side to nudge her with his elbow when she didn’t catch her name being called. At her back while she washed dishes. Filling her plate when she didn’t reach for the food piled on the serving dish. He had that expression like Tio Agustin got when he helped Luisa massage her leg. Or Abuela when she tucked a strand of Mama’s hair behind her ear. That soul-deep affection that only came from knowing someone from the moment they opened their eyes. Paternal.
The Mirabel he’d grown up with would never have allowed her parents to do that. For as long as he’d known her, she’d sputtered and hissed like a tomcat when affectionate touches turned patronizing. Always pushing the limits of independence when all the family wanted to do was coddle her. Domesticate her.
Milo had always tried to do the opposite. He’d watched her try and fail at a hundred different hobbies, but he never encouraged her or acknowledged her frustration. Instead, he let her seek him out when she needed company. For most of their childhood, that had been enough. Simply being there. A constant, guaranteed source of no-bullshit discussion. Things got a little rocky for a while, but they’d recovered. Just Milo and Mira again without all the walking on eggshells.
And yet, she’d told Bruno first.
He might have connected the dots like Milo did. Or Mirabel’d said fuck it and laid everything all out over their scratched-up old table. He had no clue. It didn’t matter. No point in envying some old hermit for breaking through his prima’s adamantium walls.
Because that meant someone else knew. Someone who might be thinking the same things he was.
He picked up his phone.
Milo: so mira told u?
He tried not to wait for the reply. It would be a while. He’d seen Bruno’s hunt-and-peck method of typing. Instead, he picked up his makeup and started painting a base layer. Warm, sun-kissed brown to bring some life back into his face. He looked significantly less zombie-ish when the notification finally came.
Bruno: I’m not sure exactly what you’re referencing, but the answer is probably yes. What did she tell you?
Goddamn tios with their goddamn cryptic messages.
Milo: bout nicolas
He’d barely dipped his brush in the bronzer when the next reply arrived.
Bruno: What about him?
This answering a question with another question shit was going to get old real fast. Delayed gratification be damned. Milo’d grown used to having his cake and eating it too, and what a stupid phrase cause why would you have cake if you weren’t gonna eat it anyway…
Fuck that.
He called. He’d never called Bruno. Wasn’t actually much of a phone talker outside his family, and he didn’t know if he counted Bruno as a part of that yet. But this wasn’t a conversation for text.
“Hey, Camilo,” Bruno said. Cool as a cucumber.
“Hola, so…about…about that guy.”
Okay, yeah, not a conversation for text, but he hadn’t realized how difficult voicing it would be. Clutching the phone to his ear, he hunted down his AirPod and popped it in. He caught a lot of noise in the background. Fabric shuffling. Something tittering over a metallic surface. And…squeaking?
“Yes, I’m aware of him,” Bruno replied diplomatically. Nothing in his tone revealed the slightest hint of emotion. This guy was one tough nut.
“About…y’know, what he did and shit? To Mira?” He couldn’t say it. Couldn’t put those ugly words on his tongue and not want to rip the thing out.
Bruno gave an agonized exhale.
“Yeah,” he said, low and smooth. “Yeah, Milito. She…she told me.”
Milito? He almost asked if he sounded like a child. They had bigger problems, though. Sure, the familiar nickname might have been comforting, but nowhere near enough. Not from a near stranger.
“Okay…”
He waited, letting the word hang like an empty spotlight. Where most people would have filled the silence, Bruno let it linger until the only noise became Milo’s obnoxious breathing through his open mouth.
And here, ladies and gentlemen, we present Camilo Madrigal playing the role of…a dead fish.
He snapped his jaw shut.
“I take it she told you some things?” Bruno asked finally, voice suddenly a lot softer than it had been. Like the way he talked to Mirabel when her eyes got a bit too glassy and she looked a second away from freaking out. Was he freaking out?
Yes. Fucking right he was.
“Yeah, and I don’t…Fuck, man. How do I simply go about my day after that shit?” His voice wavered, cracking like it did when he got too emotional. He hated how exposed it made him.
Focus on the crowd, Milo. Just focus on the crowd.
Except his crowd was only one weird dude. His mom’s actual twin. Triplet, whatever. And he had only seen him like three times in the last fifteen years.
He settled back into his vanity seat, picked up a brush, and let muscle memory take over. This gave his hands something to do, at least.
“I…” Bruno cleared his throat, breathing going a little hoarse. “I try to remind myself that it’s over now. Mostly. And that her trusting me enough to tell me means there’s another piece of herself she’s taken back from him.”
That didn’t help. How did that fucking help? She should never have lost that piece in the first place. If he’d only opened his fucking eyes….
“How do you deal with the guilt?” Might as well put all of his cards on the table. If he had to make a fool of himself, he intended to fucking commit, thank you very much. Camilo ‘the Chameleon’ Madrigal did not give a half-assed performance in anything.
“What is making you feel guilty?” Bruno asked gently. Fuck him. Fuck all of this, and now he was fucking tearing up and the eyeliner he’d applied would be all messed up and...
“I was right here. Right fucking there. It all happened under my goddamn nose and I didn’t even notice,” Milo snarled under his breath. He couldn’t risk anyone overhearing. His mouth was stuffed full of sharp words for everyone in the family, not just himself. He did not want to deal with that tonight.
Bruno hummed. Camilo pictured him rubbing his chin like a critic looking at some unknown artist’s painting. Seriously, Mirabel found this clown comforting?
“You were a kid, Camilo. It wasn’t your job to notice it,” he said evenly. Oh, Milo sensed worlds of unspoken something in that statement. His hand stilled, poking the brush into his eyelid until he had to set it down.
“Then whose job was it? I was supposed to be her best friend,” he mumbled. He knew how to work a crowd. Offer up some vulnerability, just enough to make the emotion real. He didn't need to pretend for the guilt to sour his words.
“Best friend, not her parent,” Bruno returned.
Oh. Oh.
Yeah, he’d opened up a can of worms without even realizing he’d been hunting for bait. But now that he’d found some…
“So you think her parents are to blame?”
Bruno stayed silent for a while. He caught some knocking in the background, like that night with the oven. It sounded kinda jarring. If he had to deal with that constantly, he’d probably go nuts. Mira had her mother’s patience, for sure, to have put up with that for this long.
“I don’t think anyone is to blame but the person who did it. But…I think some people factored into how it happened,” Bruno murmured. Not the answer he’d been going for.
“And me?" His voice sounded like one of Lola’s squeaks. Bruno only sighed.
Maybe he shouldn’t have asked.
“No sé, Milo,” Bruno said, brutally honest. He had the decency to sound regretful at least. “I wasn’t there. I don’t understand exactly how everything happened, but I do know you were a child too. And it wasn’t your fault.”
More tears dripped down his face. He dabbed them away, picking up his concealer brush to clean up the hopelessly smeared eyeliner. “No? Cause I’m pretty sure I didn’t do anything to help.”
“Did you know it was happening? Or think anything was wrong?”
Camilo laughed, cold and bitter.
“C’mon man, you know Mira. She hasn’t…hasn’t changed all that much. She doesn’t show people that shit if she can help it.”
This silent habit of Bruno’s was getting creepy. They’d definitely be sticking to text for the foreseeable future. It gave Milo a chance to switch to a clean angle brush, though, dipping it in his eyeliner pot.
“Not if she can help it, no,” Bruno said eventually. Soft, like he’d been chewing on the words for a while. “But if you didn’t notice anything, then you couldn’t have known she needed help. You’re right that she’s good at hiding it. I wouldn’t have expected a child to be able to spot it.”
There it was again. That little discordant note. A bad harmony.
“You’re angry,” Milo accused. Not his smoothest delivery, but he was having an off day. Not every line needed to be a show-breaker.
“Not at you.” Bruno spoke it a little too quickly. And while it wasn’t a lie, it was definitely a cover.
“Then who?” His hand dipped, tracing the bristles over the hollow of his cheek. He didn’t have a planned look in mind, but he’d learned by now to roll with it. Creativity grew better without expectations to weigh it down. Between the enticing aroma of Bruno's well-hidden emotions and the pressure of the bristles on his face, the weight pressing down on him felt a little lighter.
“Mijo, this isn’t about me.”
Damn, this guy was good.
“No, I get that…I just…I’m pissed too, you know? And worried. This is gonna break Tia Juli’s heart.” He did kinda worry about Tia Julieta’s reaction, but not really. This was more like testing out a script. To see where the margins where.
“This isn’t about her, either,” Bruno deflected. “It never has been.”
Yeah, he could play the game, alright. Too bad Milo played it better.
“It should have been about Mirabel. But it’s like they didn’t see,” he whispered, streaking more black pigment under his jaw. This wasn't even a script. He just wanted someone to be angry with him. Misery loves company and all.
“No, they didn’t want to see,” Bruno snapped.
Got ‘em.
“See what?”
“All of it,” Bruno huffed. “The loneliness. The hurt. Their complete indifference to her ability to make her own decisions.”
Ouch. He should have thought this through. Secrets were like a pimple. Camilo never could resist popping them. If only he remembered that he’d have to deal with the pus afterwards.
“It was really that bad for her here?” Stupidly, Milo had always hoped that Mirabel had simply been misunderstood. That if she stopped hiding, the family would embrace her the way they’d embraced him after an awkward year or so of adjusting to his eccentric style.
“You tell me,” Bruno countered. “You’re the one who was there.”
“You were always there, Milo.”
It sounded a lot like blame.
“Fuck you, man. What happened to, ‘You were just a kid, Milo’?” He pitched his voice wonky while mimicking him. It was petty. So what? He was justified.
“Exactly. You were a kid,” Bruno said in that same patient tone. “All of you were only kids. And your entire lives were decided for you based on the first thing you really excelled at.”
Okay, that wasn’t blame anymore. It didn’t douse the shame burning red-hot in his chest.
“Okay, and they never did that for Mirabel. You saying that’s my fault somehow?”
“I’m saying there’s a pattern,” Bruno sighed. He sounded so old suddenly. Like Abuela. “Milo, the only difference I see is that the family thought they understood what to expect from you. After that time you improvised a song on the spot for your communion and got the entire audience to cry. You had a role and you played it, right? No matter what.”
He’d heard that story before. Even seen the video. Some stupid little melody of, “It’s communion day and what did Jesus say? That everything’s gonna be okay!” Mami tried playing it at his graduation party. Thank God Lola accidentally tripped over the TV cord after the first few notes.
“This isn’t about me.” He’d made it about him, sure. That hadn’t been his best idea. They should be focusing on Mirabel.
“Mijo, don’t pretend you called simply to chat. You called for a reason. What is it you need to hear?” Bruno’s infuriatingly-calm voice sounded like pandering. What exactly did he want to talk about?
“Dunno. Just needed to talk to someone in the loop.” It was a weak excuse, made even worse by how flat his voice sounded when he pulled his lips taut to outline his cupid’s bow.
“I get it. It’s a lot to come to terms with.” Still calm. That little burst of anger had been the only actual emotion he’d shown at all.
“How the fuck are you so chill about it all?” The pencil dug into Camilo’s bottom lip hard enough to crush the tip. This makeup look was going to be a mess.
“I’m….I’m not,” Bruno stammered, voice rising. Not enough to read his thoughts, but better than that emotionless tone. “I’m about as much a wreck as you, I’d presume. But if she can get up and face it everyday…I guess I owe it to her to do the same.”
He picked a lip color at random, not really looking at the color. His hands were trembling too much to do one solid swipe, anyway. He’d have to do an ombre look to hide the uneven application. “Don’t give me that martyr shit. Tell me how you really deal with it. You’ve…you’ve seen it, haven’t you?”
“Some of it.” Now, Bruno really sounded fucked up. Milo almost asked what he’d seen before deciding he didn’t actually want to know.
“Right. So how do you look at her without wanting to just scream?” Scream. Cry. Break down and beg for forgiveness. Burn down the family home with peals of maniacal laughter because some things couldn’t be fixed no matter how hard they fucking tried…
“Because I refuse to break her down into just a victim. She’s…she’s rebuilt herself from the ground up. And that’s who I see. The person she chose to be.” Bruno paused. His breathing was harsh, smacking into the mic enough to make Camilo turn the call volume down. “Kind of like you.”
Like him? That was rich coming from the man who’d dipped for over a decade. What the fuck did he know about any of their family life?
“Yeah, alright, laying it on a little thick, Tio.”
“I mean it. None of you kids are only a list of accomplishments–or faults. You’re people. A full picture. Our family can forget that sometimes,” Bruno pressed on.
Camilo blended his tears into his makeup with the sponge. Until it felt like he was beating his face hard enough to risk bruises.
“I dunno bout all that, man. This doesn’t need to be some big, ‘Oh, my family wanted me to succeed and I’ll never live up to their expectations’ bullshit. Every parent wants the best for their kid. It’s all good. I’m just one nut in the fruitcake. Just Milo, y’know?”
“And that should have always been enough,” Bruno said.
“What makes you think it wasn’t?” This conversation was hitting all the tender points, and he’d called to feel better, damn it, why–
“Because I was like you.”
That wasn’t what he’d been expecting.
Once, what seemed like a lifetime ago, Camilo hadn’t landed the role he wanted. In his freshman year, the lead went to some dimple-faced 17-year-old who had the voice of an angel. Milo’s cracking voice relegated him to comic relief. Puberty was rough, but he convinced the family he was ‘expanding his horizons’ by taking a support role. Everyone bought it and commended him for his growth.
Everyone except Mirabel.
She’d found him in his room later that night, sitting on the edge of his bed holding the script and counting his lines. Less than a dozen. He’d spend most of his time on stage making faces and handing props to the main characters. He hated silent roles. They left too much time to think. Too much time counting bars backstage until he got his three minutes of time in the spotlight. Completely forgettable.
“I think you’ve gotten too comfortable. This will be a fun challenge. Even the side characters have stories to tell. What’s yours going to be?”
In the end, he’d figured out a backstory that involved a lover slain by his own sword. He played the character not as a man who sucked at fighting, but as one who didn’t want to. He passed weapons to the hero as if they’d scalded him. Stared mournfully at the princess when she kissed her knight goodbye. Reached for an empty scabbard only to fist his belt instead in the moments before his character was stabbed. His final line, one that was supposed to be a last moment of levity, was some stupid quip about hoping heaven had beer.
He’d delivered it like an absolution. A man who’d never broken his vow of nonviolence, even in the last moments. His character died in the hero’s arms, and he heard several choked gasps from the audience. On the front row, Mirabel sat perched at the edge of her seat. When the spotlight pulled back, he caught the tear tracks on her cheeks.
Six months later, she was gone.
“What? Stupid and oblivious?” He blotted a tissue over the blood-red lipstick at the center of his mouth.
“Always worrying. Escaping into my characters. Trying to make life easier by living someone else’s.” Bruno’s laugh was dry. It made Milo’s throat twinge in sympathy. “We all have our stories.”
He sounded so much like Mirabel. “Even the side characters have stories.”
In the years following her disappearance, that memory had haunted him. He’d replayed it over and over, torturing himself with all the signs he’d missed. Mamí told him about the pregnancy after closing night in December. Made him promise not to mention it or talk to Mirabel about it at all. Or anyone. Told him he’d be getting a little brother or sister. Even after that reveal, he’d unconsciously relegated Mira to a side character. A supporting role. Completely ignoring her in favor of his own excitement and anticipation of getting to be someone’s hero. A little version of himself to encourage all the ways he’d wished his family had done for him—in the areas that didn’t involve acting. He’d been so lost in the fantasy that he’d never realized someone already needed him.
“I’m not sure being me is any better. I’m…I don’t think I’m a good person,” Milo whispered. “She was always there and I…I was so stuck in my own head like some self-absorbed asshole.”
“You were fifteen, Milo. At that age, everyone is a self-absorbed asshole developmentally. You grew out of it,” Bruno assured him.
“Not making this any better,” Camilo grumbled. He dipped the brush back into the liner. He kept drawing these fucking wings wrong today.
“Alright, how about this? Some days, your messages are the only thing that makes Mirabel laugh.” Bruno meant it as a compliment. He knew that. It didn’t help.
“So what? I’m just the comedic relief?” The wing was too crooked to save without taking it off and starting over. He grabbed the lash glue, hoping his wispies might save the look.
“No, like she’s not only the ‘victim’.” Somehow, Camilo knew he was doing air quotes without needing to see him. “That’s what I’m trying to say. You’re not characters. You’re people. Multi-faceted. If all she needed was a good joke, she’d be fine with the comedy channel. But I only see her act her age with you. She’s not like that with anyone else.”
It clicked then. Enough to make him completely forget the lash glue that had already dried too much on his eyelid. Mirabel was right. All those years ago, and she’d somehow seen right through him. If he could see a comedic role as a man who’d lost everything and still chose joy, why couldn’t he do the same for a real person? Why not see the sweet, resilient woman Mirabel had become beyond the damaged parts?
He looked in the mirror, half-expecting to find some cracked doll or monster glaring back at him. Instead, he saw his own face. The shadows had been accentuated by muddy-gray contour, his plum and red lips bold against the neutral shade of his own skin. He’d kept his eyebrows and eye shape the same, just elongated by the mismatched liner. The most supernatural thing he’d done was create a branching line from his neck to his forehead. Not cracks. More like a network of veins. Black. As though the darkness was rising to the surface from within him.
“Do you think that’s enough?” He asked his reflection. “She needs so much more than that.”
“She needs what we all do. Someone we can be ourselves with. Without apologizing. That’s…I think you give her that.” Bruno’s voice made him jump. He’d almost forgotten he was on the phone. Probably a good thing Bruno was so used to lingering silences, or else he could have called Camilo out on his just now.
“And the guilt?” His throat was clogged.
“Talk to her about it. When you feel like the time is right. I think it’ll be validating for you both.”
Yeah, right. And telling Abuela that sometimes he did drag wouldn’t make her drag him to church for an exorcism.
“Sure,” he said, shrugging even though Bruno couldn’t see it. The conversation hadn’t played out the way he thought it would, but every script has to have some room for improvisation. He felt better all the same. More grounded. Like himself again. “I’m gonna go grab some breakfast. Tell Mira I said hi, alright?”
“Will do. If you need to talk again, I’m always here.” Bruno sounded so much warmer. Like how he spoke to Mirabel. And yeah, that might be fair after Milo had just cried on his metaphorical shoulder.
“Thanks, Tio.”
“Anytime, Milito.”
The other end went dead, and Camilo tossed the earpiece onto his vanity. He could hear piano music drifting in from downstairs. Tío Agustín. Or maybe Luisa. Some soft, dainty little piece like a butterfly floating on a breeze.
He grabbed a makeup wipe and began removing the layers caked on his face. He rarely walked around the house in his monster form. Those tended to be seen only by his few devoted followers on social media. But when he looked up at his bare face in the mirror, completely clean apart from a few flecks of liner clinging to his waterline, he just stared.
He looked tired. Less haunted, sure, but exhausted. The shadows under his eyes weren’t from his mascara, and his skin was ashy. His reflection wasn’t of some creature. This was him. In all his haunted, haggard glory. A face that exposed exactly how much he was struggling.
He didn’t bother with concealer before leaving his room.
“We all have our stories.”
Maybe it was time he let them see.