My phone pinged in such quick succession that it could only have one origin. Mami.

I was at work, though. That was the legitimate excuse I used to not read the texts right away. Instead I kept my cellphone face down on my desk while searching for drawings for the part number I needed. My supervisor had sent me on a boring, but necessary errand of making sure every drawing was uploaded to the system and if not, to upload them. And if they were unavailable, to find why and make them available. The latter portion had potential for exposure if, upon finding missing documentation, I could march up to the engineering in charge of that part and demand that the drawings be created stat. However, I'd been at it for three hours and hadn't stumbled upon a case like that yet. Which meant this was mostly administrative work.

It was boring and I hated it, but getting it done was my priority for today, and that meant I couldn't let my phone be a distraction. Or so I told myself. Once I made it home tonight and called mami back she would most likely rip me a new one. But I preferred that to having to deal with all the emotions talking with her would bring while I was still on duty.

Chatting with anyone back home was... not exactly pleasant. Most of our conversations were strained under the pressure of keeping them light, when all we wanted to do was complain. About the worsening situation. The fact that a papercut was enough to kill someone, with the way the healthcare system had collapsed. The interminable lines to find basic goods at prices so steep that years ago you could've bought a house with the sacks of bills people had to bring to buy flour for arepas. Or the fact that mami was alone in a household where two out of three residents thought that at least now the country was truly ours, broken down as it was.

I was toeing the fine line between letting her take the brunt of papa's and Cora's beliefs and trying to save myself, versus succumbing to my own need to commiserate with someone about how misguided they were.

Meanwhile, I had barely exchanged a word with papi in the three years since I'd left. He still couldn't forgive me for betraying him.

As for Cora... if she wasn't talking about politics, she prattled on about Rodrigo, her boyfriend since high school, who now was a political activist in a student party affiliated to the government's.

It was a bit too much for me, even considering the fact that none of us wanted to talk about Carlos. Inevitably, every time we mentioned his name we spent days immersed in the same grief as the day we lost him. Without saying the words, we all agreed to keep our thoughts about him to ourselves.

Meanwhile, Gabe had none of those excuses. Or sense of responsibility. His cellphone went off as frequently as mine did, but he did pick it up every other minute or so, his fingers moving across the screen so fast they were a blur. Once I glanced at his face from the corner of my eye and caught a deep frown I'd never seen on him before. Somehow it had never occurred to me that someone whose life was so charmed had any issues, but maybe he was human after all.

Our phones buzzed at the same time and I made the unfortunate mistake of meeting his eyes. He cleared his throat. "What's that? An angry boyfriend?"

"No." I huffed and volleyed back. "What's that, then? An angry girlfriend?"

"Yeah, actually," he replied before going back to what I now imagined to be a heated discussion with Liz. From what little I knew about her she could be, uh, intense.

But I shook my head because I wasn't about to give an ounce of pity to the Campus Babe, as people called him. Problems were exactly what he needed in order to grow up and out of his womanizing ways.

"Hey, you guys," Jeff's head popped in all of a sudden from the hallway. Gabe and I jumped in our skins, as though we'd been caught redhanded doing something—and the glint in Jeff's eyes looked like he suspected as much. "Can you follow me for a quick chat? I have some news I'd rather you hear from me right away."

That didn't sound good.

Gabe and I left our phones behind and followed after our supervisor. A host of theories flashed through my mind, the first one being that Jeff was quitting or being assigned to a different team, and Gabe and I were going to be left in the air and then fired. And if that happened, well, shit. I'd have to start looking for a new place to intern at in the hopes of being kept on full time. But if not, and push came to shove, my OPT visa was still valid for about two months, and after that I could renew it while I looked for another company.

Jeff sat at the head of the table and motioned for both of us to join him at his sides. It didn't go unnoticed by me that he motioned for Gabe to sit at his right, even though I was technically closer to that chair. Whatever.

"Okay, so good news and bad news rolled into one," Jeff said, running his hand over his bare head. "Headcount has been approved in the department for full time."

Gabe and I puffed our chests like peacocks about to fight for a peahen. The peahen being the FTE position.

"Wait," I said, deflating a little. "What's the bad news?"

Jeff cringed. "We only have one full time position approved."

The floor became lava, inflaming me all the way from my feet to my face. I clamped my mouth shut tight so not to scream that the position should be mine. I was more hardworking, focused—desperate. Besides, Gabe was a guy, he would never face discrimination in the workplace because of that fact. Meanwhile I'd already gone through the pains of getting accepted enough to make room for myself in this team. I wasn't about to let all of that effort go to waste and have to start again somewhere else.

"Who's getting it?" I asked at the same time as Gabe asked, "Why only one position?"

I felt him glance at me but I kept my eyes firmly on Jeff.

He sighed. "Well, we're not exactly putting out the best results this year, what with the delay of two projects and all. One head count is all management approved."

This time I sent Gabe a glare as a knee jerk reflex, but I cooled it down because I was trying to keep it professional.

"Then," I continued, modulating my voice so that it didn't sound anywhere near as hysterical as I felt on the inside. "What will be the selection criteria?"

"Performance," was all Jeff said, even after my bitter rival pressed him for further clarification.

All the secrecy would accomplish was make Gabe's head and mine run in circles about the who, what, why and how of coming on top. The way we sized each other up as Jeff left us sitting in the conference room confirmed it. As though by a glance we could catch hints of each other's weaknesses to strike.

I folded my arms and lifted my chin. "This position is mine and you well know it."

Gabe gave me the annoying smirk. "I'll let you think whatever you want but in the end, I'll be the one on top."

I ignored the double entendre and left him to gloat by himself. When all was said and done, I was the one who would earn this. He didn't have the work ethic I did, even if he had twice the brains. Which no one would ever catch me alive saying.

I stayed late, taking advantage of the fire that had been lit within me to get more work done. Too bad Gabe decided to do the same, or perhaps it was a psychological move. My fatal flaw was that I'd never been unable to hide how much he annoyed me, which was why Taylor and Maya kept teasing me about him, but also why he derived joy from being around me. My only consolation was that tonight we didn't have a group meeting about the senior project and I could head straight home to get screamed at by mami.

Since I made it out the door before Gabe did, I made a point of slamming it shut in his face and grinning as he almost smacked into the crystal. It was a refreshing change to be the brunt of his glare, instead of the other way around. I did my gymnast routine to make my way into the driver's seat of my car and breathed out a sigh. Carlos smiled up from a picture I had taped to the dashboard and I asked him to give me some of the fighting spirit he had up until his last day. I would need it if I were to succeed on this quest, now that I didn't have my champion.

I turned the key in the ignition and nothing happened. Sometimes I did it wrong, though, so I tried again.

And one more time for good measure.

My car was dead.

My hopes and dreams could die too if I didn't make myself essential at work. The guy I had to pulverize in order to accomplish that would be a factor in my senior project's grades. And mami was most likely going to make me spend an even worse night than it already was. I let my forehead fall against the steering wheel, right on the verge of an emotional breakdown.

The rapping of knuckles against my window startled me. Great, it was Gabe.

There was nowhere else for me to hide from him so I rolled the window down. He leaned over the opening and said, "So, you're not having boyfriend issues but car issues."

The urge to tell him to fuck off was very strong.

"Go away," was what I said instead. I might be a bitch, but I was a classy bitch.

Gabe rolled his eyes. "Look, I'm just checking in to see if you need help."

My temper flared and I spat out, "I do but definitely not from you."

He recoiled as if he'd been punched and his dumb, pretty face darkened more than the sky behind him. That was the final hint he needed to pick up and leave me alone. He turned around and headed over to his old, but functional red Jeep and I watched him drive away with angry tears in my eyes. I was ashamed of my reaction and even more of the fact that he'd seen me in such a low moment.

Somehow, all through my college career he'd seen them all. Every bad grade, every awkward social exchange. Like he'd paid front-row tickets to watch me fail in my American excursion from the comfort that his American passport gave him.

I sat alone in my car for an hour, looking at mami's text messages and wondering what to do about the fact that I was stranded and with little funds in my account to fix the issue myself. If I texted Taylor she'd pick me up, for sure, but she'd text Maya who in turn would tell Malik. And he was the next to last person I wanted to see me in any sort of trouble. Sadly the last one had already seen me down.

Another rap at my window made me scream. I squinted against the darkness around my car, since my eyes had grown used to the brightness of my phone screen. Two shapes loomed outside of my car and my heart started hammering. I fumbled with my door lock, which was a futile exercise considering no human power could get the door open. But if they broke the window to rob me, or worse, I didn't have much protection aside from my purse and the extra pair of shoes I had under the passenger's seat.

"Get out of the car," a familiar voice said, but I was too petrified by the terrible scenarios running through my head to connect it with the name and face. "I brought my cousin Manny to take a look at your car but he needs to inspect it."

"Gabe," I finally said in a whisper.

Why was he back?

A few minutes later Gabe and Manny convinced me to let the latter fiddle around with the dashboard and pop the hood open. As he dug around the engine, I turned to Gabe.

"Why?" I asked, looking at his profile as he watched his cousin work on my broken down car. "This isn't a ploy to get me to relinquish the full time position, right?"

His eyes flashed as they rolled. "Not everyone is as mean as you are, Kitty Cat."

This time my cheeks heated up in straight up shame. I didn't even feel angry at his stupid nickname when I knew I'd acted like a damn fool. I shuffled my feet and said, "Thanks."

But even so, I swore to myself that it would be the first and only time I was in a position to feel gratitude towards him. After this, Gabriel Cabrera was going down.

I really enjoy watching Cata think she's in control, without knowing life (aka me) have other plans for her.

Meanwhile, are you in love with #campusbabe yet?