Silent (8 page)

With a swift jerk, I yanked at my top dresser drawer. It caught on the left edge, as usual, so I had to jiggle it to get at the t-shirts stored inside, folded neatly the way Mimi had taught me.

I pushed them out of the way and dug down until my hands closed around the carton of cigarettes and the lighter I’d stashed there. The box was half empty—I wasn’t really a heavy smoker, but I’d let Diego bum quite a few off me at the party.

Diego. What would cool, confident Diego do in a situation like this? Take orders from some
gringa
and two old black ladies? Probably not. He’d go to his other family, and they’d take care of him.

But me…even if I gave them my loyalty…they wouldn’t take care of me, if they knew.

Suzie had her back to me. She was scanning the hallway, most likely taking note of the grimy walls and warped flooring. Judging me and mine for what our home was like, looking down on us with her superior white-lady attitude. And actually, the place would have been even more of a wreck if Blanca and me hadn’t straightened up the morning after the party. Only a few bottle caps and a little bit of ash remained.

She pulled out a notebook to scribble something down, and I took the opportunity to tuck the lighter into the cigarette carton and then stuff the whole thing into the waistband of my boxers.

A small act of rebellion, but anything I could do to maintain my sanity seemed worth it.

Suzie walked in just as I’d added my final pair of shorts to the duffel bag. “We will keep trying to find them. You know I’d like nothing better than to see your family put back together.”

I didn’t even look at her as I slung the bag over my shoulder and left, slamming the door behind me.

~*~

The bare, sterile look of the room at Ms. Loretta’s suddenly made me furious when I returned. I took my bag and dumped all my belongings on the floor, then kicked them about, deliberately upsetting the tidiness.

I thought of throwing more of a fit as I crashed face-first into the bed, but that wasn’t really my style. It would’ve been a relief, though—to tear things apart, or pick up a chair and smash it to pieces. To scream at the top of my lungs, maybe throw a few punches—not that I’d ever hit a woman.

Brandon and Dwayne, on the other hand…if they came in right now and so much as
looked
at me the wrong way…

But it was Ms. Loretta who barged in first, her wide shadow looming over my head. “Sit up, Alex.”

I resisted until I swore I could feel her gaze burning a hole through my head.

“This is a list of responsibilities.” She handed me a piece of paper. “I expect our rules to be followed, and I expect general politeness. You’ll help out with the chores, you’ll do your homework, and you’ll go to school. Break the rules, and you’re out. I have young boys here and they can’t be having no bad influences.”

I drew my brows together and stared at her. Was she serious with this bullshit?

“You’ll set the table for dinner on Friday, and you’ll take a turn on dusting, sweeping, mopping and cutting the grass. You can figure out when with Brandon and Dwayne. Laundry days are Tuesday and Saturday. We use the laundromat down the street, and we all wash and fold or we don’t get no clean clothes.”

Air brushed against my tongue, and I realized my mouth had fallen open as she continued to bombard me.

“Twice a week you’ll help Andrew and Ryan with their homework. Ms. Cecily and me check it before it goes to school, so you’d best be doing a good job.”

The paper in my hand slipped from my fingers, and I watched it fall in gentle arcs to the floor. “Are you fucking kidding me? I could’ve just lost my mom, my home, my whole life…and you’re giving me a list of fucking
chores
? Don’t you even care?”

Ms. Loretta headed for the door. “Don’t I?” She glanced over her shoulder at the threshold to pin me with another ruthless stare. “Clean up this mess…and that best be the very last time I hear foul language coming out of your mouth.”

I geared up for an angry retort, but she whirled around one last time and leveled me with a look. I blinked twice, somehow strangled into silence. She nodded, then left.

I swore that woman was a fucking witch.

Brandon replaced her a little while later, strolling into the room with arms folded in smug victory. “Told you.”

His dimples were starting to get on my nerves, since they seemed to go hand in hand with that high-and-mighty smirk.

“Fuck off.”

“Hey, at least you get a few days off before you have to go to school. Fucking lucky.”

Lucky again. Did these people even know the meaning of the word?

“Can you please just fuck off? I don’t feel like talking right now.”

Jesus. Now I was resorting to asking
please
.

“Can’t.” He leaned against the plain wooden dresser, one hip jutting out, allowing his t-shirt to pull a little tighter against his abs. And damn it, I wasn’t thinking about his body again when my life had taken a turn for complete shit. “This is my room. Dwayne’s coming up in a sec anyways. He never finished that paper.”

Fuck.

I got up from the bed to grab my jacket—at least it was good to have some of my own things around again—and left the room without another word.

And definitely without another glance at Brandon’s abs.

“Just where do you think you’re going, young man?” Ms. Cecily caught me at the foot of the stairs.

“I need some air.” I kept on my path for the back door. Ms. Cecily didn’t freak me out the way her sister did. She was softer, somehow—and not just because she was quite a few pounds heavier.

“You can go out to the backyard.” She followed after me. “But only until lights out. And you should know, child—you only get one shot at this.”

I stopped, but didn’t turn around. “One shot at what?”

“At staying here, with us. If you plannin’ to run away…well, we not gonna have a place for you here anymore if you do.”

What had Brandon said to me when we’d first met? That there were worse places than this? I hadn’t given his words any thought at the time, and not just because I was distracted by the rise and fall of his chest against my back. But now I did pause to wonder…if I ran away and got caught, would I end up in some sort of foster care jail?

“I’m not running away. I just really…I need to be by myself, okay?”

Her heavy footsteps stopped echoing mine after that.

Out in the backyard, I took a long, deep breath and attempted to calm myself enough to think. The night sky above me was the same hazy purple it was at home—nice to see that hadn’t changed—but somehow the air smelled different. I ducked behind a metal shed for some form of privacy and sank to the dirt and grass below.

Now I was trapped.
Really
trapped. And I just kept getting caught up on the fact that the tiniest little thing…a measly
shoe
…had set this all in motion.

Not that rehashing my screw-ups over said shoe was going to help any. I needed to focus…come up with some sort of plan.

Maybe a cigarette would help.

I drew out the carton and lit one up, trying to ignore how badly my fingers were trembling. The first deep inhale and the familiar scent actually did help keep me from spiraling into a pool of self-pity.

Now then…what next? Try to find my mom? Get hold of a phone and see if José had any idea where she was? Though if what Suzie said was true, she
knew
I was out here…which meant she’d…

No, Hector was controlling her, the way he always did. My mom knew I could take care of myself, and she had to have a reason for what she was doing.

I could’ve tried looking for Mimi. She’d turned twenty-one back in August—not that they’d ever release me into her custody. Not without a pretty big miracle, anyway.

One tiny crunch of a twig was the only warning I got that someone was near me, and by then it was too late. I jumped backwards and smashed the cigarette into the ground, my heart hammering in my chest.

Seb stared at me, his head tilted slightly to the side.

“Are you gonna fucking tell on me?” I shouted the moment I’d regained my wits. “That why you followed me back here, retard?”

He continued staring.

“Well? What, you never seen no one smoke before?”

I knew he’d already caught me, so I picked up the cigarette and waved it in front of me. “Get a good look, retard, then go run and tell your two mommies.”

Shit, maybe my next decision had just been made for me. They didn’t seem like the types who would tolerate sneaking around with cigarettes.

I waited, glaring fiercely, until my brain finally caught up with my mouth. “Fuck…you’re not gonna tell, are you. You can’t even talk.”

He blinked.

“Well…sorry I yelled.” Heat crept up my skin, more out of shame than anything else. I’d just screamed my head off at a poor handicapped kid who hadn’t done a damn thing to me…and that certainly wasn’t the best way to make sure I stayed out of immediate trouble. “You just startled me.”

No response. Well, of course there was no response.

“Um, are you gonna go back in? Or…you wanna…?” I patted the ground by my side. I wasn’t ready to head back into the lion’s den—I needed some time to let the air carry away the smell of smoke.

He hesitated a moment longer before joining me behind the shed. In a smooth, graceful movement, he folded his body so he was sitting cross-legged beside me.

I waved my hand around, hoping to encourage a breeze to help remove the scent. “So…Seb…what’s your deal? Why you here?”

He glanced at me, and an eyebrow twitched. I giggled. Shit, that wasn’t very masculine, but I suddenly felt like I was in this unstable place between complete misery and hysterical laughing…and asking a retarded mute to tell me his story deserved at least a giggle.

Besides, it wasn’t like he could go and spill to anyone about my girlish laughter.

“Sorry. Guess you can’t answer that one.”

He dug his long, pale fingers into the dirt and drew up some soil, then let it drift back to the ground.

“You really retarded?”

I didn’t get a response to that question, either—not even a nod. I supposed I should take that as a yes.

I leaned my head back on the shed. “Shit. I really don’t want to be here…no offense or nothing. I just…have my own life, you know?”

He sifted through some more dirt. It left his pale skin coated with a dusky brown layer—a much more familiar color in my eyes.

“I mean, this is fine for those little kids, and for people like you…but I don’t need no one to take care of me. Just because I’m not eighteen some damn law says I can’t be on my own? Those people who wrote that law don’t know nothing ’bout my life. I been taking care of myself for years now.”

Seb folded his hands in his lap and turned toward me. His huge black eyes stared directly into mine…and it was fucking unnerving. I couldn’t say why, but for just a second I felt like he was trying to call me out—like he didn’t buy what I was saying.

But that was a stupid thought. He probably didn’t understand a word that came out of my mouth. Including the curse words, which meant I could cuss to my heart’s content around him and not be afraid of Ms. Loretta’s wrath.

“Hey, you want a cigarette?” I held the carton out to him, and it finally drew his gaze away from my face.

He didn’t make a move, though, so I pulled one out and gently placed it in his dirty fingers. They curled around the cigarette carefully, like they were holding a foreign object for the first time.

“All right, now I just gotta light it up…”

I flicked the lighter on near his hand, and he jerked back, dropping the cigarette on the ground.

Shit, not only was I trying to corrupt the kid with cigarettes, but I was scaring him with fire.

“Sorry. Here, let me light it up.” I picked it back up and lit it myself, then grabbed his hand again and arranged his fingers in the right holding pattern.

His skin was oddly smooth…or maybe that was from the thin coating of dirt still on it.

He lifted the cigarette to his face, sniffed once, then deposited it cherry-first into the ground, smashing out the embers.

“What the hell? Why the fuck did you do that? If you didn’t want it I woulda smoked it. This one box is all I got!”

Interestingly, Seb didn’t flinch at my outburst. So fire freaked him out, but not yelling.

“Hey, kid…you deaf?”

He stood and offered me his hand.

I glanced up, confused, until the back door squeaked open, followed by Ms. Loretta’s holler. “Lights out!”

Shit. I quickly buried both cigarettes in the ground, then let Seb pull me up.

He was a lot stronger than he looked. Our chests almost collided, and standing close like that I could see he was actually an inch or so taller than me. Maybe I shouldn’t have been calling him ‘kid’.

“Fine. I’ll go in tonight…but if this shit gets any worse…I’m outta here.”

Almond eyes narrowed on me before we turned toward the house and headed inside.

Chapter 7: Not Me

“Move it.”

Dwayne rushed past me in the hallway, shoving me against the wall. Why the hell was he in such a hurry?

If I went any slower, I’d be going backwards.

The younger boys were gone already—Ms. Cecily drove them to school before heading off to work—but Ms. Loretta was still there to watch my every move. She’d forced me up with everyone else to water some fucking plants and eat a bowl of cereal, and now we had to leave early so Seb could catch the short bus to his special school.

I dawdled for a few more minutes, holding on to the impossible hope that Suzie would show up and fix this mess for me. Or my mother, maybe. Where the hell was she?

“You best pick up your pace, Alex.” Ms. Loretta crossed her arms, standing a few feet in front of me.

I choked back my immediate desire to counter with,
or what?

She’d have an answer to that, and it’d probably involve scrubbing, sweeping, dusting or mopping. That was all I seemed to have done in the past couple of days while Suzie worked on enrolling me at the new school. I had a sneaking suspicion Ms. Loretta had become a foster mother for the free labor.