Nostalgia
Katey wasn't surprised, when the Millers landed, that Cuba hadn't changed at all. Not because of the news or the politics, but because, as much as she had told herself again and again to stop thinking of Cuba completely, her mind had simply refused to follow her orders. And the hundreds of times that she'd thought back to Cuba and what had happened there, she had been transplanted there. She'd remembered exactly what the landscape was like, what the people were like, how the buildings looked, what the air smelled like. Katey realized as her family drove through the streets of Cuba, just as they had three years ago, that everything about Cuba was permanently engrained in her memory-even though she'd tried so hard to forget it. This isn't good, she thought as she took in all this. I really should've hit my head or something, gotten amnesia. She didn't want to get her heart broken all over again. It'd just started to mend. If anything happened this time in Cuba, or if she continued to remember everything so vividly, just like she reminisced now, she was going to be crushed again. And she couldn't let herself be.
But she couldn't stop herself. Driving through the exotic, pulsating streets of Cuba like this, bustling with life, reminded her all too much of...of what had happened. I won't say his name. I won't even think it. As much as she hated always thinking of this place though, she loved the landscape and the culture. Cuba was like an alternate reality, it made everything back home look dreary and bleak. During her stay in the vibrant country she'd fallen in love with it. She'd even learned Spanish and taken Hispanic Lit at college, telling herself it was in no way because of him. That was probably part of the reason she hadn't been able to completely forget everything about Cuba. She sighed. She silently mused over all this, staring absentmindedly out the window, as the rest of the family happily bantered on, unaware of the mental tumult going on next to them.
Soon enough, the car pulled up at the Oceana Hotel. Katey breathed in sharply as she looked up at her former home. Here we go...she thought as she slowly mounted the steps and walked into the luxurious lobby. Just like she had three years ago.
