Brighter Than the Sun


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
 Copyright © 2023 by Daniel Aleman
 Cover art copyright © 2023 by David Curtis. Cover design by Sasha Illingworth and Patrick Hulse. Cover copyright © 2023 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
 Interior design by Carla Weise.
 Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
 The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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 First Edition: March 2023
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 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
 Names: Aleman, Daniel, author.
 Title: Brighter than the sun / Daniel Aleman.
 Description: First edition. | New York : Little, Brown and Company, 2023. | Audience: Ages 14 & up | Summary: “After the loss of her mother, high school junior Soledad finds herself struggling to balance classes and her new job in California to support her family in Tijuana, Mexico, in this thoughtful story about identity, immigration, and family.” —Provided by publisher.
 Identifiers: LCCN 2022011505 | ISBN 9780316704472 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780316704519 (ebook)
 Subjects: CYAC: Family life—Fiction. | Grief—Fiction. | Mexicans—Fiction. | High schools—Fiction. | Schools—Fiction.
 Classification: LCC PZ7.1.A4344 Br 2023 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022011505
 ISBNs: 978-0-316-70447-2 (hardcover), 978-0-316-70451-9 (ebook)
 E3-20230210-JV-NF-ORI
 
 
 
 Contents
 
 Cover
 Title Page
 Copyright
 Dedication
 PART ONE
 
 Chapter One
 Chapter Two
 Chapter Three
 Chapter Four
 Chapter Five
 Chapter Six
 Chapter Seven
 Chapter Eight
 Chapter Nine
 Chapter Ten
 Chapter Eleven
 Chapter Twelve
 Chapter Thirteen
 Chapter Fourteen
 Chapter Fifteen
 Chapter Sixteen
 
 PART TWO
 
 Chapter Seventeen
 Chapter Eighteen
 Chapter Nineteen
 Chapter Twenty
 Chapter Twenty-One
 Chapter Twenty-Two
 Chapter Twenty-Three
 Chapter Twenty-Four
 Chapter Twenty-Five
 Chapter Twenty-Six
 Chapter Twenty-Seven
 Chapter Twenty-Eight
 
 Acknowledgments
 Discover More
 About the Author
 
 
 
 
 Begin Reading
 Table of Contents
 
 
 
 
 
 To Luis Ernesto Guerra, who believed in me before anyone else did
 
 
 
 
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 PART ONE
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 CHAPTER ONE
 WHEN MY PARENTS PICKED OUT MY NAME, I DON’T think it even crossed their minds that they would be cursing me for life. Soledad—solitude. Or, to give them some credit, María de la Soledad, because I was unlucky enough to be born on December 18, the feast of Our Lady of Solitude.
 No matter how hard I’ve tried, I have never been able to let go of the burden that comes with my name. My loneliness has a way of following me everywhere I go. I used to try to run away from it—I even tried to convince people to call me Marisol, but the nickname didn’t stick, so I had to try with Sol instead. It was then, once people stopped calling me solitude and started calling me sun, that I almost fooled myself into believing I would become a different person.
 Now, even though almost everyone calls me Sol, most of the time I feel like a Soledad. That is especially true today, while I sit at the breakfast table next to Papi, breaking off bits from a piece of pan dulce.
 Sitting here in silence has become part of our daily routine, much like getting up at the crack of dawn, or rushing out the door before the clock strikes five thirty. This is one of the few moments of peace I get to have each day, so I usually try to make the most of it. I like to breathe in the stillness of the silence, taste the sweetness of the bread, feel the warmth of my hot chocolate as it makes its way down my throat.
 Today, however, there’s something about the silence that’s making me deeply uneasy. The bread tastes like nothing, and my hot chocolate may as well be cold, for the lack of comfort it’s bringing me. Since I opened my eyes this morning, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about all the ways everything’s about to change. I haven’t been able to shake off the realization that today will be our last day of normality, and come Monday, life will be a lot different.
 From the corner of my eye, I catch Papi staring at me. He does this sometimes. It’s as if he’s trying to read me, as if he’s trying to figure out what’s going through my mind, even though it’s been a long time since either of us has spoken during breakfast.
 “You don’t have to do it,” he says suddenly. His voice is loud, as though it came out stronger than he’d intended it to—as though he had been holding back what he wanted to say for a while, until it finally burst out of him in a near-shout.
 “You could stay,” Papi adds, and this time, his voice comes out weak.