Free To Selena, With Love by Chris Perez Page A

But I didn’t bother. Abraham had good reason to be accusing me. Besides, I was tired of living with the worry that, everyday, Selena and I were doing something wrong by loving each other and hiding it from her father.
    I had known that, sooner or later, Abraham would discover our secret, and this worry had been a constant thorn in my side. Here we were, so happy and so in love, yet there was this one thing that I constantly itched to fix. More than for me, I wanted to fix the situation for Selena’s sake. She worked harder and was more generous than anyone I’d ever met. She deserved to have her father’s blessing and have people be happy for her.
    I didn’t want to lie to Abraham anymore. At the same time, I also didn’t want to defy him or make him any angrier than he already was. If there were any right words or right deeds I could have done to change his mind about Selena and me, I would have done them. I just didn’t know what they were.
    So I just said, “Okay.” What else was there to say? All I wanted at the moment was to defuse the situation. My only other option would have been to tell him, “No, I’m not going to stop seeing Selena.” I had a pretty good idea how that would go over.
    Thankfully, my response seemed to satisfy him. Abraham turned on his heel and stormed off. He must have thought he’d won. He didn’t know how serious my relationship with Selena already was. He certainly didn’t suspect that Selena and I were already lovers, or that we saw each other nearly every day when we weren’t touring. In his view, his daughter and I were just two kids who’d started flirting. In love? Impossible.
    Once Abraham had huffed back into the building with the road crew, I rejoined Selena on the bus. “I think your sister told your father that she came on the bus and saw us holding hands,” I said.
    Selena was furious; she wanted to go after Suzette and have itout with her. I had to calm her down. I didn’t want Selena arguing with Suzette in front of everyone. What good would that do? Everyone we cared about except Abraham had already been told about us, or had seen us express our feelings for each other in some way—my mom, Selena’s mom, my friend Carlos and his mom, our friends, everyone in the band—so fighting out in the open could only make things worse with Abraham.
    Things were incredibly tense on the bus in the days after that. I was trying to walk a fine line between keeping Selena happy and making everyone else happy, too, including her father and the band. I didn’t want to lose my job. And, stupidly, I kept thinking that once Abraham calmed down, we would all be able to talk openly about what was going on and he’d accept the situation.
    That didn’t happen. Instead, Abraham grew increasingly difficult to be around. He was in danger of losing his little girl—and his star—and his guard was up. The band members, including A.B. and Suzette, turned their backs on me, scarcely speaking to me unless it was absolutely essential to the work we were doing.
    Meanwhile, I continued to act like nothing was going on between Selena and me. I didn’t want to act disrespectfully in front of Abraham, nor did I want to jeopardize my position in the band. I loved playing with Los Dinos. I also knew how upset Selena would be if I weren’t able to play with them.
    I was frankly surprised that Abraham let me stay. He must have assumed that I was going to do whatever he said. Everyone else did. Besides, how could I possibly be a threat, or worthy of his daughter’s affection? He was in charge of his family and his band. I was just a lowly guitarist, and musicians were a dime a dozen.
    At the same time, Abraham was now on high alert for anypotential trouble within the ranks. He kept a sharp eye on us and made sure that, ninety-nine percent of the time, he was with Selena everywhere she went. Little did he know that Selena and I were still seeing each other in San Antonio and Corpus whenever the