Silent (3 page)

“Nothing.” I tried to shoo her away, but she persisted.

“You got jacked up by your stepdad again?”

Bitch.

“He ain’t married to my mom, and you know that. He ain’t never gonna marry her.”

At least, not if I had anything to say about it.

Blanca stuck out her lower lip, tilting her head in a way she probably thought made her look cute. “Sorry, baby.” Her hands kept rubbing my chest. “But why you let him beat up on you like that?”

“Shit, I didn’t let him do nothing.” I glared at her. “I popped him right in the face. If he didn’t have that damn lighter, I woulda fucking messed him up.”

She wiggled even further into my lap, and suddenly her lips were moving against my ear. “I know it, papi.”

I jerked in my seat to stop her breath from tickling me. “Blanquita, you making my leg fall asleep. Can you move?”

Her nose curled up. “But Alex—”

Careful to keep my injured arm away from her, I stood, and she slid right to the floor. “You heavy, and I gotta take a leak.”

“I am not heavy,
pendejo
!” she called after me as I stumbled down the hallway. “You’d best come back and let me sit on you to prove it!”

She probably weighed eighty pounds when wet, but I had no intention of letting her lay her grabby hands on me all night. José was right when he’d said she was a total slut-in-training—anyone could see it.

I found a ragged patch of grass and weeds in the corner of the backyard to finish off the blunt, away from all the cramped bodies. I needed the time alone to process the mess of feelings—the general happiness that so far, my life was still normal…and the growing fear that it was getting just a little bit harder to maintain every day.

Diego strode over to invade my solitude, and again, my emotions were split. I minded…but I didn’t, really.

“Yo.” His long, thin fingers tapped his cigarette. Ash fell to the ground, almost touching my bare toes. “What up, Alex?”

I instantly zoned in on his hands, unable to tear my eyes away. Weed did that to me, sometimes…made tiny things seem like they were the most interesting objects in all the world.

And Diego just happened to have really nice fingers.

I passed him the blunt—I’d obviously had enough—and our hands touched for just a moment.

ABCDEFG, HIJKLMN…

I screamed the alphabet in my head to keep my thoughts in check. It was an old trick, and not my best, but I wasn’t at my smartest when high.

“You know, I saw Franky today. He wanted to talk to you,” Diego said.

I stopped the alphabet. “Franky? Why?”

“Why do you think,
cabrón
? He knows you deal…you lucky he hasn’t told nobody else yet. You lucky
I
haven’t told nobody else yet. What the hell you fucking around for? Why the hell don’t you want to get jumped in?”

Again with the fucking gang. My thoughts on Diego’s fingers quickly faded into the background, and even high I knew this problem was only going to grow.

“Listen,” Diego continued. “I might be able to talk to someone about getting you in. Not José, though. Don’t tell that little fool.”

I shrugged awkwardly—first one shoulder, then the other. Hopefully Diego would blame that on me being drunk and not me being so nervous I could feel my heartbeat in my throat. “I’m fine with what I got goin’ on right now.”

Diego rolled his eyes. “What you so scared of, man? They ain’t gonna break your bones or nothing. You just cover your face, it’s over in a few minutes, and you can be the fucking boss of this shit place.”

He fake-jabbed at me, and I ducked. “Yeah…’cause I always wanted to be the boss of a shit place.”

“Man, it’s gotta be better than that dime shit you doin’ by yourself.”

I shook my head. “Nah, I’m not doing that no more.”

“Why not?

“Uh, I…”

Fuck, he had me against a wall. I couldn’t tell him it was because of lack of supply—he’d have an obvious solution to that problem.

Diego inhaled from his cigarette, his long fingers twitching. “You either a fucking coward, or you think you better than us…which would be pretty fucking stupid, considering you a bastard kid living off your mama’s deadbeat boyfriend.”

My stomach twisted, dark thoughts flooding my head. And not the kind of thoughts I could keep back by screaming the alphabet. How long could I put it off? How long could I hold on to this life before I became the outcast, or the enemy?

Andre was right. I wasn’t a kid anymore. I’d have to make a decision soon, but either way I had the sinking feeling I was damned.

“I gotta go back in. Blanca’s waiting for me, man. I think I’m gonna get some tonight.”

Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

~*~

Blanca rolled over, her skinny arm slapping my wrist and making me cringe. I needed to blink several times to get the room into focus, but once I had, I immediately wanted to shut my eyes again.

Beer cans lined the floor of my bedroom, along with cigarette butts and general filth. And, of course, there was a naked girl in my bed, which really just completed the whole fucked-up picture.

“Blanca.” I nudged her. “Wake up.”

The early-morning light streamed through my window, lighting up the dust and dirt particles in the air.

“Blanca, wake up. We gotta go to school.”

She yawned delicately. “Mmm, why don’t we just stay here? I hate school.”

I made a frantic scan of the room and sighed in relief when I found the tied-off condom on the floor.

Blanca caught it and giggled. “You didn’t think I was that drunk, did you? No way I’m letting you ruin this body.”

She kicked off the covers and stood, flouncing her hair and thrusting out her tiny hip.

If she’d had a bit less breast, she almost could’ve passed for a boy. A little boy.

But I wasn’t no pedophile.

“Get dressed and get moving.”

~*~

Diego wasn’t the only one with his head down on the desk in homeroom that morning. There were a few other people with bleary red eyes and greasy hair, as well as two empty seats. I’d downed a couple of aspirin before coming and replaced my makeshift toilet paper bandage with a paper towel one, figuring that would hold up a bit better to the daily wear and tear.

And it was Friday, after all. I only had one day left to survive until I could lock myself away for the weekend. With any luck, I’d be alone, too. I didn’t need my mom or Hector around to screw up my privacy…and the time I needed to do some serious, not-high thinking.

“Psst.” Diego waved a hand at me. “Did you fuck Blanca?”

I grinned. At least there was a bright side to that—bragging rights, and a little taste of normalcy. Maybe continuing to sleep with girls would be the answer to all my problems. “Yeah, man. She’s a good lay.”

Not that I remembered much of it.

“I bet. Jeremy…he a junior…he said she a tight little thing.”

“Jeremy?” I frowned. “I thought Blanca was a virgin.”

Diego burst out laughing. “Blanca a virgin? Yeah right,
idiota
!”

“Diego and Alejandro!” Ms. Elridge snapped. “Come to the front right now!”

Aw, fuck.

I slid up toward her desk, trying to keep the
thwack-thwack
of my flip-flops as quiet as possible. Diego walked over with his hands in his pockets, never dropping his cool-persona for a moment. I couldn’t help but find his defiance impressive. And maybe a little attractive.

“A young lady’s virginity is not open for discussion in this school at any time, silent reading or otherwise.”

Her face was all pinched, making little lines appear on her lips.

“If I hear you discussing it again, you can go to the office and discuss it with the principal.”

“Yes, Ms. Elridge,” we said in near-unison, then shuffled back to our seats. Diego didn’t look my way for the rest of the period.

Not really a good start to the morning…I should have known things would only go from bad to worse.

I tried to move a little faster to get out of the room when the bell sounded, since Ms. Elridge was already pissed at me. But one of my flip-flops ended up flopping right off my foot, and I stumbled like a fool, getting a laugh from more than a few classmates. They sobered quickly, though, when Ms. Elridge zeroed in on me.

“Alejandro, I need to speak with you.”

Everyone else dashed out of the room, before she could find some offense they’d committed as well.

“Yes, teacher?”

“Flip-flops in class?” She raised her eyebrows menacingly. “You know that’s not appropriate foot wear for school. If there were an emergency—an earthquake or something—you would not be able to move quickly and safely.”

We’d had to rush for gun lockdowns much more than for earthquakes, but she’d never bring that up.

“Sorry, teacher. I know I need new shoes, but I haven’t gotten them yet.”

“And just what is that you’ve been wearing on your arm? Some kind of gang fashion statement?”

I glanced over at my paper-towel bandage and held back a snort of laughter. What kind of gang would be that stupid?

“No, ma’am. I just got a little…cut…and we ran out of Band-Aids.”

Her eyes narrowed, like a predator picking up some kind of scent.

“Let me see. You might need to go to the nurse to get it cleaned up.”

Fuck!

“No, teacher, it’s okay. I promise.”

“Alejandro.” She tsked, opening her desk drawer to get out an office referral slip. “Take it off right now, and I’m writing you a pass to the nurse for a proper bandage.”

Heaving a sigh, I carefully put my finger under the tape and ripped the paper away.

I heard her sharp intake of breath, and immediately knew I was in for trouble.

“That’s a burn, Alejandro!”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Well, how did you get it?”

Damn. Story time.

An image of Juanita Romero flashed into my mind. Everyone in second grade had called her
la monstrua
because of the strange, thickly puckered scars on her body. Turned out they were caused by burns, from when her
abuela
had spilled some boiling soup on her. I’d teased her that year, like all the rest, but at the moment, I might’ve called her
mi salvador
.

“Soup,” I said with complete confidence. “I spilled some soup on myself.”

But predator-Ms. Elridge one-upped me on that one right away. “What kind of soup?”

What kind of soup? Jesus, I didn’t know. My mom didn’t make soup. I didn’t like to eat soup. What kind of soup would a normal family be making? Did different soups make different kinds of burns?

And why was I taking so damn long to answer?

“Um…ch-chicken soup.”

Ms. Elridge’s eyes were narrowing into slits, and her brows were so furrowed they were going to meet in the middle. “Alejandro…did someone in your family do this to you?”

And that was when I made my biggest mistake.

Both palms instinctively made fists, and the tension in my injured arm aggravated the wound once again, sending sparks of pain to cloud my thoughts. “Just because that fuck-up lives with my mom don’t make him family!”

I did not get reprimanded for my outburst. Instead, Ms. Elridge’s pen started scribbling furiously on her referral slip, and she stood seconds later.

“Go to the nurse,” she ordered, and I didn’t stick around to ask questions. I left immediately, crumpling up the referral and heading off to class instead.

But Ms. Elridge left the room right after me, her heels clip-clopping straight for the office…and I just knew the bitch was up to no good.

Chapter 3: Keep Your Mouth Shut

“Man!” José greeted me outside our last period. He had less gel in his hair than normal, and it made him look softer…more like the kid I’d known when we were younger and less like a wannabe
cholo
. “Ey, you fucking scored last night!”

Suddenly longing for simpler times, I barely gave him a nod. “Mhm.”

“You gotta give me some pointers or something. The girls are fuckin’ all
over
you.”

If I could have, I’d have happily turned over all the attention I received, but sadly the only real advice I could give him would be to grow a few inches taller.

“Yeah, man. You just gotta act cool about it…like you don’t want ’em.” At least that wasn’t too far off base, in my experience.

We strutted in, and the moment I took my seat, Blanca whirled around to bat her dark lashes at me. I wondered when she’d had the chance to put on so much makeup—she must’ve had it in her backpack or something. I rarely saw her without the perfectly drawn eyebrows and glossy lips.

While Mr. Ricks droned on about x and its values, I offered Blanca a cocky half-smile, dredging up brief glimpses of the night before.

I remembered her pushing me down on the mattress, and then forcefully undressing me. I might’ve tried to do the same to her, but I’m pretty sure I needed some help. Beyond that, I recalled her inviting smile, and the way she’d rubbed my bare chest with those tiny but surprisingly strong hands—hard enough that it was almost painful.

She’d definitely been in control. Of course she wasn’t a virgin.

Rosa—the girl who sat one row up and over—passed me a folded piece of paper. I didn’t have to look at Blanca’s wink to know it was from her.

Let’s have fun this weekend.

I closed my eyes, slouching in my chair so Mr. Ricks wouldn’t yell at me for sleeping in class.

What would it be like, if I really could have fun with her? Maybe I could learn to like her a little more…and maybe being sober would help. Of course, my first awkward attempts at sex had been sober ones, but maybe now that I had a clue about how things worked I wouldn’t be such a fucking wreck.

I tried to imagine myself smiling up at her as she mounted me, and actually meaning it. Imagine her fingers sliding over my chest in slow,
gentle
circles…then gradually traveling downwards…