A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow

Thing is, when you put something back together it’s never exactly the same as it was before.

I’ve grown to find peace and acceptance in not fighting what I can’t control.

You're painting stars where I colored black holes

You love that boy like you love the kitchen. . .but you add yourself like too much sugar sometimes.

So I wanted you to choose a future that’s first and foremost yours alone. Not to belong to me. I want you to belong with me.

She forgets that what she does in one small moment can affect tomorrow.

I’ve made this deal with the universe. I’ve learned not to ask more of it than what I’m given, both good and bad.

I know I'll keep some of my mates forever." Her blue eyes meet mine- thoughtful the vibrant, just like her music. "But there are others I don't see much anymore, and I've realized that's okay." She smiles pensively. "Sometimes I put them into songs, and that's where I keep them. Plus, there's always room for new friends.

Recipe for Goodbye From the Kitchen of Lila Reyes Ingredients: One Cuban girl. One English boy. One English city. Preparation: Give Polly her kitchen back and share a genuine smile, from one legitimate baker to another. Ride through the countryside on a vintage Triumph Bonneville. Walk through Winchester, all through town and on the paths you ran. Drink vanilla black tea at Maxwell’s. Eat fish and chips and curry sauce at your friend’s pub. Sleep in fits and bits curled up together on St. Giles Hill. *Leave out future talk. Any form of the word tomorrow. Cooking temp: 200 degrees Celsius. You know the conversion by heart.

Mi estrellita, if you shine too bright in his sky, you’re going to burn him out. Burn yourself out, también.

If you find undissolved sugar in the bottom of your teacup, someone has a crush on you. -Superstition

It’s just too bloody hard. For now, let our time here be our moment.” The moment we cheated worlds and lives and universes for.

I know what it feels like to fall in love. But I’m not sure what falling out of love feels like.

Mami never went to college, but she majored in drama, anyway, with a minor in extra. She also majored in doing the opposite of what’s best for me.

A pastry never needs to be overly sweet. It only needs to be memorable.

And a best-friendship doesn't die. Instead, it runs its own way now, miles over bridges and roads and desert sand. Without us.

And I don't know what's worse, not getting to say goodbye, or saying goodbye to a little more every year. The tidal wave or the hourglass.

So much is goodbye and fleeting in my life. I'm losing people and I'm so tired of that feeling.

Another wish I can't even trust the stars with. What language do I use to wish for continents and cultures to bend?

No. It's not bad at all." The words rush out of me, outrunning countless Miami echoes and Cuban roots, and everything I packed in my bag for this cold, foreign place. It's entirely true. I'm wearing his sweater and it's okay and a new kind of good that I'm starting to wear his city, too.

Claro, I’m still the girl carrying a trifecta of loss. I always will be. But as I wander along the pavement, I’m just a seventeen-year-old on her way to buy ingredients for Cuban flan. And that feels like the best part of home.

As a result, toasting somebody with water is considered the same as wishing them and yourself bad luck, or even death.

I get how counseling or therapy can help people. But I will decide whom I talk to, and when. I couldn’t stop Stefanie from boarding a plane to Africa, or rewind Andrés’s goodbye speech or… Abuela. I couldn’t change the hand of God. But I could have control over my words, my heart, my pain.

Recipe for a Funeral From the Kitchen of Lila Reyes Ingredients: One grieving family. One coffin (it must be white like flour and sugar). One cathedral. One white apron. One abuela, gone, dressed in her favorite blue vestido. Preparation: Sit between your boyfriend and best friend as they try to hold you upright in the pew. Clutch a white apron tightly on your lap. Watch your parents weeping one row ahead, and your sister leaning on your mother’s shoulder. Look back once over the massive cathedral, marveling at the crowd that came for her. *Leave out actually seeing your abuela laid out so lovingly in the white coffin. She is not there. Instead, cry, kneeling during the private viewing with your eyes secretly pressed closed. Cooking temp: 100 degrees Fahrenheit. The coldest your oven goes.

Why did I think my half-lying plan would be different just because I was genuinely trying to help someone?

You found me,” I say. I lost you.

yes. I’ve grown to find peace and acceptance in not fighting what I can’t control.

It’s everything new around me and it’s happening more and more. Happening right now—a Miami girl in an English club listening to an English band, sitting on an English boy’s lap, his sweater warm around me. And I can’t help but enjoy it for real.