SPOILER ALERT: In chapter 13 Brianna brings up a previous conversation that was never finished in a previous chapter. Ricardo tells the story of the earliest memory he had as a small child.
In the story, he describes remembering sitting on a bench at the plaza eating a paleta (popsicle). He says remembers his parents kissing him and leaving him there. This leads to the adoption of Ricardo by his current parents.
This was a tough scenario to write for two different reasons. For one, of course, it was sad and hard to write. It’s one of the few scenes where I was literally crying as I wrote it. The other reason was that I had to write a backstory that was sad, but that also spoke to Ricardo’s personality and his weaknesses. Ricardo wasn’t just shy, he had abandonment issues. He was afraid to trust anyone in his life. For him to open up and start trusting Brianna was a monumental step for him, but the fact that he had a huge crush on her brought those defenses down quicker than probably with anyone else.