I turn to the window, and my eyes fall on the lime tree that Mami planted years ago, when she and Papi first moved into our house. On sunnier mornings, its leaves look bright green, but the days have been getting shorter lately, and today the sunlight is nothing but a soft gleam far off in the horizon. The tree is just a dark shape silhouetted against the sky, but still, I stare at it, trying to make sense of this loneliness that’s swirling around inside of me—loneliness because I wish more than anything that I could take him up on his offer, loneliness because I’m terrified of leaving home and starting a new life somewhere else, loneliness because even though Papi is sitting right next to me, there is distance between us that I don’t know how to bridge.

“We don’t have to talk about this, Papi,” I say finally. “Not now.”

I swallow hard, and a dull pain hits the back of my throat—the kind of pain that comes with holding back tears, with not being able to say the things that I actually wanted to say. Right when the tears start burning my eyes, I push my plate aside, looking up at the clock on the wall. It’s almost five.

“We should get going.”

The morning air is crisp as we walk out of the house and toward our old Volkswagen. I get in the passenger seat, and Papi hops in a second later, slamming his door shut with a loud bang.

Tijuana looks bleak at this time of day. Even though those of us who cross the border every morning are already awake, the rest of the city doesn’t come to life until much later. It’s when the sun is shining high in the sky that you can see the bright facades of the houses along the street and hear the sounds of the city—the cars beeping, the music blasting from speakers at storefronts, the street vendors yelling to attract customers. Right now, all I can really see are the red lights of cars braking ahead of us.

Papi has always insisted on driving me to the border—ever since I started going to school across the bridge, back in the ninth grade. That’s the reason he wakes up at the crack of dawn and sits beside me at the kitchen table every morning. He says he wants to make sure I get to school on time, but I know he just doesn’t like the idea of leaving me to have breakfast on my own while the rest of the family sleeps in, or of me walking through the city alone while it’s still dark out.