Prose

Veganuary

Gerardo Lamadrid

On the evening of Veganuary’s eve, a young lover born and raised and still living but not working in Barrio Obrero boarded a train in Cupey carrying a backpack off their left shoulder and a box of Hershey’s truffles from Walgreens’ month-and-a-half-early St. Valentine’s Day sale nestled tightly in their right armpit. They were on sale for buy-oneget-one-half-off. Where was the half-priced box then? He didn’t buy it. He couldn’t. As much as he wanted to, he only had enough cash for the one, plus his train ticket home. The lover grasped a handrail. They couldn’t complain about the missing chocolates. Inflation, man. Year after year; just won’t stop. But whatever—they knew their lover waiting at home for dinner delivery would share her dessert, too.

A much younger girl in the burgundy flannel pinafore of her public school uniform, sitting next to her father, just a few feet from the young lover asked them for a piece of chocolate. Her father said, in English, “Riley, we don’t ask strangers for their candy. You don’t know who it’s meant for.”

The lover replied, “That’s okay. She can have one if that’s alright with you. My partner will understand.”

The stunned father looked down at the grinning girl looking up at him, nodded at the lover and thanked them, telling the girl to thank them as well.

“Gracias,” the girl said, “and happy new year.”

The lover smiled at her when they got off the train at the Sagrado Corazón station—she waved back while her father drafted work emails on his phone, not realizing it was their last stop. The lover took the escalator down, basking in the coolness of the gray train station, then climbed five steep, dark, steamy blocks to their partner’s apartment, to the tune of a single bar’s salsa-heavy jukebox and billiards echoes.

“Toma,” the lover said having just reached the door right when their lover opened it to welcome them. “Lo prometido es deuda,” they added, handing her the box. “Te los tienes que acabar hoy,” they said, knowing she was about to go vegan for a whole month.

“Le falta uno,” she said, and the lover explained how they’d given one to a gringa girl on the Tren Urbano, but she’d never seen them give a stranger anything, and she knew how much they loved cordials, and there was a cordial missing, so she could not believe them, and she told them so. The lover, too tired to argue after working a double-shift at a rundown pizzeria and doing not one but two good deeds for the day said, well, they can’t make you believe them—you believe whatever you wanna believe. There was a girl, and her dad looked like a banker which was weird cuz they were taking a shitty train no one takes, not even the locals, and the little girl even said happy new year, in English, after saying thank you in Spanish, and they got on at Piñero, so they might’ve spent the afternoon at the Parque Luis Muñoz Marín, and they stayed on the train tho everyone else was getting off, and if she still won’t believe them after they provided so much detail and brought her fucking chocolates, then whatever, it doesn’t matter and there’s really nothing they can do about it.

She still didn’t believe them, but she offered them the truffles she didn’t want, and they shared a beer the lover grabbed from her freezer, then they undressed, then they made love with Hershey’s milk chocolate and Heineken on their breaths, then they napped for an hour and a half, woke up and cooked dinner together—lasagna with all the cheese she had left in her fridge—damn near burning it, but they scarfed it down on her bed and complimented themselves but not each other, then they drank Heinekens and Bacardí with tamarind juice till midnight, watched the ball drop in Times Square, went to bed together without cuddling, woke up energized and sweating two hours apart, the lover first, their lover second, but both woke up knowing the same new thing, that a profound divide had sprung up between them overnight, something they’d seen coming, and they shared a wide mug of black coffee, and they each cooked their own breakfasts and spent the rest of the day knowing there was something they needed to talk about but wouldn’t talk about, no, not for another month or two, or till the semester was over and one of them finally decided to leave Puerto Rico over the summer and never call their ex lover ever again. For the first time, they each came up with their own new year’s resolutions instead of a shared one, but neither brought theirs up, either.