1. Amaya

"And does 'happily ever after' really exist?"

Melissa's question didn't surprise me; she was a very aware girl, full of doubts, who had witnessed how her family was torn apart by immigration laws. So, I swallowed hard, and seeing the other children waiting for an answer, I knew I had to be clever in how I approached it.

Their innocence was a delicate point, one I didn't want to touch, so as I was about to say something, one of them stood up and shook his head forcefully.

"I'm sorry, Miss Amaya, but that doesn't exist, it's just a fairy tale and nothing more."

He left the reading room, leaving me with an audience of furrowed brows.

"Life isn't entirely happy or entirely bad," I told them honestly. "Every day we live is a mixture of both, and just as there are completely good days, there are also bad or very sad ones. But that doesn't mean we can't always do our best to create our own happy ending."

Some of them nodded and thanked me, then they got up from the floor to go do the activities in their reading workbooks. The librarian gave me a sympathetic smile, and I had no choice but to shrug in response. It wasn't the first time that kids I read to in the library outside of campus had reactions like this.

Moving to Berkeley was the best decision of my life, after leaving Los Angeles with my mother and ending up hiding in San Francisco, having some freedom was paradise. I was never happier than when I was notified that I could study English at UC Berkeley, that I could have the opportunity to specialize to become a teacher. Since I was a child, understanding my language was a great curiosity, but meeting Luisa, my babysitter, and realizing the power I could have by teaching my language to others, made me realize that teaching was my calling.

Luisa was a Venezuelan woman with learning disabilities, and our interactions, along with my desire to communicate with the woman who had become a second mother to me, led me to seek ways to solve her language problems with a lot of patience, care, and creativity. That laid the foundation for what I wanted to do with my life, the dreams I wanted to achieve.

I held onto that despite all the bad things behind me.

Physically, I didn't inherit my mother's features; I wasn't of average size, blonde, or with a slender body. I was born with all the physical traits and characteristics of my Japanese heritage, one that I didn't know well at all, more than what my mother insisted I should know, as my father rarely revealed anything. However, I didn't want to explore it just because; it gave me a perspective of what could be done for the world.

I was a bastard daughter of the Yakuza, one who wasn't wanted by her father, nor loved by that community. I didn't understand it until I was old enough to discover that my father was a dangerous man in the underworld, involved in illegal activities that were against people's health and well-being. Furthermore, finding out that I was an unrecognized, hidden child born from an affair between an oyabun, a Yakuza boss, and a rising model, was like having the blindfold removed from my eyes.

I smiled sadly as I remembered that my father used to visit us whenever he could, trying to teach me about his customs and holding onto the fact that I should learn Japanese from a young age. I did it as a good daughter, as a child who thought he was her greatest hero, so when reality shook me and raised its ugly head, I didn't want to know anything more about him, about the fact that he was married, about his three older children I didn't know, about his intention to always keep me hidden like a dirty secret.

I think I broke when I found out that he and my mother were still in a romantic relationship despite the years. So, I knew very well that happily ever after didn't exist, that the world was full of good days and bad days.

That's just how life was.

When the children finished their activities, they handed their work to me and said goodbye with smiles. They enjoyed coming to read, to learn, to immerse themselves in the tranquility of the deserted library. I sighed heavily and began putting everything away in the children's section. I had a list of the books we had read, as well as those we had yet to read. I was still modifying it, so I focused on checking the shelves and comparing with the available books.

"Have you read 'The Story of Ferdinand' yet?" a voice asked from the other side of the shelf, and I furrowed my brow because I hadn't seen anyone pass by in the three hours I had been in the library.

"Not yet..." I honestly answered the man hidden among the books; someone I couldn't quite see.

"It's an excellent children's book. My nonna used to read it to me every night, and it helped me improve my pronunciation before I came to live in the United States permanently," the man explained.

His tone of voice... I didn't know why, but it put me on edge.

"Well... It's an excellent book, but it can be a bit challenging in some parts for the kids to pronounce," I explained. "Morphologically speaking, it's around a Level A2 in English."

He chuckled modestly, causing the hairs on my arms to stand on end in response.

I couldn't deny that I quite liked his laugh.

"Give it a try. It's a book for three to four-year-old kids, it'll work. The words that might be difficult for them can be worked on with exercises and activities like the ones you used before the reading... By the way, you're excellent at that," he said warmly.

"Thank you..."

"Do you spend a lot of time reading to children? You're really good at it..."

"I've been doing it for almost four years with different groups," I admitted with a smile. "It's something I enjoy doing."

"It shows. So, I can infer that you're studying to become an English teacher..."

"Yeah, you could say that," I answered truthfully.

"Well, moving away from the teaching topic and talking more about literature, what authors do you recommend?"

I figured that's why he was there in the library; he must have been looking for some books and ended up caught in the children's reading event.

"It depends on their tastes. I don't know what their preferences are, much less what type of prose they prefer—direct, clever, ornate, or very flowery," I argued firmly.

"Well... I like reality, action, impulsiveness, and good scenes," he pointed out, making me smile. People in the library always asked me for help, but they weren't usually this open. "Oh, and I also like sensual scenes."

That caused my eyebrows to raise and my cheeks to blush.

"Well... If you like that mix, maybe 'Story of O' by Pauline Réage, 'The Lover' by Marguerite Duras, 'Tropic of Cancer' by Henry Miller, or 'Delta of Venus' by Anaïs Nin could be recommended," I suggested, my face burning.

These were considered significant works of erotic literature, but at the same time, they were quite scandalous.

"Did you enjoy them?" he asked with a slightly huskier voice. "I like forming my own opinions."

"Yes, even though they are classic works that haven't aged completely well by today's standards," I indicated, and he laughed heartily.

"It's just that nowadays people are held by moralism... Even though society is much more open to all topics, eroticism is still a taboo everywhere, from the most liberal to the most conservative."

He had spoken a very honest truth; one we couldn't deny.

"Well, those structures need to break at some point because, indeed, these themes need to be questioned... But that doesn't take away from the fact that these creations are excellent, well-written, and not only a milestone in terms of prose but also in their dynamics..."

"Well, I can see you're passionate about writing, literature, and language," he said in a tone I couldn't decipher. "So, let's shift away from the teaching subject and talk more about modern literature. It's quite different from the classics, more direct, and sometimes even dirtier."

He had a point, one that made my veins pulse completely.

"Well, I..."

"How do I admit that I read what's labeled as 'mommy porn'?" I thought with embarrassment.