After Us

by Amber Hart

You are ruining me.

  Please don’t stop.

  “You didn’t talk to me much after the water,” I say. “A few times at school, and at the concert. But nothing like that day.”

  His eyes narrow. “Back at ’cha.”

  True.

  I could have gone to him. It’s not like I’ve never hit on a guy before. It’s not like I’ve always waited for a guy to make the first move. That’s how Javier and I ended up in the water, kissing. Because I went to him first.

  “I wanted to,” Javier says. “I wanted to talk to you a thousand times. When I’d see you at school flirting with other guys, it’d drive me loco, mami. But you weren’t mine.”

  His.

  And then the next thought. “You watched me at school?”

  “Yes.” He holds my stare. “I watched when you flirted with other guys. I kept my mouth shut and wished it was me. You watched me, too.”

  So he knew. He knew that my eyes often slid his way. I look away and chew my lip.

  “Don’t be embarrassed.” He grins. “I liked it. I just don’t share. So, you know, I figured it wouldn’t happen for me.”

  Because I flirt? It’s just my personality. Open. And I remember from sitting with Javier and his friends at school that he’s the opposite of open. Only lets a few people get close. I think his past has something to do with that.

  Will I be one of the people you let in?

  “Doesn’t mean I wanted them, those other guys,” I say, speaking my thoughts aloud.

  But I realize he had no way of knowing that.

  “That’s how I am,” I explain. “That’s why this job comes easily. I don’t know how to be different. It’s all for fun. Nothing serious.”

  He nods like he gets it. “Good to know.”

  Javier doesn’t say much. Clipped sentences and hacked-off words. I want to know more.

  “What happened in Cuba?”

  I must have said something wrong because Javier leans away from me. Diverts his eyes.

  “Why?”

  Because if I knew that, I’d know you better.

  “Faith said you and Diego had it rough. I don’t know much more.”

  Which is the truth.

  “Cuba,” he says, like the word tastes bitter in his mouth, “is the place that gave me life, where it all began.”

  Pause.

  “And nearly ended.”

  6

  javier

  Melissa wants to know about my life in Cuba. I can think of many words to answer her.

  Home.

  Hell.

  Love.

  Fear.

  I can’t find it in me to hate the country of my birth. But, damn, it’s a rough place to survive. I can’t call it living. Not in the streets I came from. Those alleys are places that steal lives and spin dreams into nightmares. It’s a place of monsters made real and fear around every corner. It’s a place where living isn’t an option. In Cuba, you survive. Make it through one day at a time. Hoping to eat, to scrounge food. Hoping to not get jumped or shot or hooked on drugs. That’s the Cuba I know.

  “If I tell you ’bout Cuba,” I say to Melissa, “will you tell me the truth ’bout Faith?”

  There. I called her out on it. The lie she tried to pass off as truth a moment ago, telling me that Faith is “okay.” Not looking me in the eye. Not sounding convincing at all.

  Melissa doesn’t seem surprised.

  “I can’t,” she says. “Faith is my best friend. It’s her story, you know?”

  Fair enough.

  “Then I wanna know ’bout your past.”

  Where do you come from, mami?

  Everyone has something to hide. And this has to be an even trade. She needs to know that whatever I tell her cannot be repeated. So I’ll need something of hers to hold for assurance. This is the way my thoughts work. One secret for another.

  My demons for yours.

  And if I’m being truthful, I know that I’m nervous, because some people are too far gone. I wonder, after I tell her, will she think I’m one of them? Has she lived a life anywhere near as twisted as mine? Only those with the deepest scars know how to navigate the scars of others. Because they’ve had to learn how to walk on their own.

  When she doesn’t say anything, I let the truth come out.

  “Please, Melissa. I have to know ’bout you. I have to know how close you are with Faith. I need this. I need your help.”

  I need to make sure that she’s still in contact with Faith. I need to know everything Faith knows about the night in La Plazita.

  “I have three sisters and a mom,” Melissa says. “Sisters are off at college, except for summer when they come home to visit. One just graduated, actually. We’re close. I miss them. Mom works a lot. My dad left us for another woman. He’s never come back. I’ve never spoken to him since.”

  She pauses, looking uncomfortable.

  “I let Faith get hooked on drugs a while back because I wasn’t paying close enough attention. It’s not my fault, no, but I should have understood that I wasn’t the only one drowning in pain. It changed my life. Made me realize that there’s a world of people out there dealing with different issues, and all of them are equally horrific. I learned how to be there for someone in need. For once, someone needed me.” She blinks. Watches my face. “You are the second person to ever say that they need me.”

  I’m not expecting something so raw, so blunt. Straight to the point. And I want to laugh because she’s incredible.

  “Cuba is a wasteland of violence,” I say. “At least, the part I came from. You had two choices. Stay there or flee. Stayin’ meant a life of cartels, drugs, and very little chance of survival. So we left five years ago. Diego was in a cartel.” Melissa sucks in a breath. “It was the only way for him to live. He always followed orders. Until one night. He didn’t do a job they wanted him to. Within hours his mamá, mi tía, was murdered.”

  I realize in that moment that I can’t say more. I didn’t want to say that much, but Melissa needs to understand the importance of me talking to Faith, of me understanding what happened the night Diego died.

  I’m choking back emotion. All that time, I was so focused on helping Diego accept that his mamá was gone and that it wasn’t his fault.

  But now Diego’s gone, too, and I feel his pain.

  Six thousand fingers ripping my heart to bits.

  I feel the tendrils of revenge calling to me. I know what it’s like to be an insect wrapped in a spider’s web because revenge has cocooned me. There’s only one way to break free.

  Free, free. What is that, really?

  “Melissa, I need to know about the men who killed Diego.” I grind my teeth. Hold back my anger. “I think they’re the same ones who murdered mi tía.”

  That’s all I’m willing to say. I don’t know how to be anything other than guarded. I have a million more demons. But I won’t tell Melissa that. I’m not sure she’ll understand.

  Her home isn’t as brutal as mine.

  I see it in the way her eyes trust easier, in the way she can sometimes seem so free. I don’t know how to completely let go like her. My home never allowed such things.

  Melissa’s blue eyes are a pinwheel of emotions. Spinning me around, though I’m locked securely in place. I fight the desire to run. Her stare is uncomfortable because it’s too intimate. Like she sees me. And the feeling is foreign. My body automatically wants to reject it.

  But I control myself. This isn’t Cuba. And Melissa’s not the enemy.

  “I don’t know anything about that night,” Melissa says.

  Faith it is, then.

  “I need to find a way to talk to Faith,” I say.

  She sips her tea. “That’s why I’m here?”

  She doesn’t sound hurt. More like resigned. Like this is an accepted fact. Like it all makes sense now.

  My opinion has always been that my kind, Latinos, don’t mix well with her kind, gringas. It’s how I’ve been taught. Maybe that’s part o
f what held me back, after that day in the ocean. Maybe the other part is because mi mamá would kill me if I dated a gringa. And as much as I love mi mamá, I’m thinking now, here, sitting beside Melissa, that she couldn’t be more wrong. I’ve just never had a reason to argue her point.

  So I let Melissa in on one more secret.

  “That’s why, yes.” Truth. “But also, you’re here because I don’t wanna stay away from you this time.”

  7

  melissa

  Music blares inside my car at an obscene level as I drive home from the beach. I’m hoping that if I crank it loud enough, it’ll drown out thoughts of Javier. Of his rounded lips. Of the way his eyes tear me up inside.

  I can’t understand the way he looked at me with such intensity. I was almost willing to tell him anything. I don’t talk about my dad. Faith knows because she was there when he left. Her mom left her at the same time. We held each other up. Stood together. Fell together. But no one has convinced me to speak of him since then.

  Except for Javier.

  I’m trying to forget Javier’s touch, the gentle brush that ignited my nerves in the best way.

  Does he understand the power in his hands?

  And I’m thinking, he doesn’t see the potential he has to ruin me.

  And I’m whispering, how did he get to me?

  And I’m wondering, what, exactly, happened to Javier to make him so rough.

  Because I’m thinking it didn’t start with Diego’s death. But maybe Diego’s murder was the final catalyst for Javier’s change. Faith once told me that Diego’s family has a darkness about them. I didn’t understand then. I’m starting to now.

  Javier—with his sharp eyes, with his hands so right, touching me but not directly, twisting a need in me, but not knowing it—has me hooked.

  I force myself to think of something else. The warm night’s breeze. The smell of sulfur water and Florida air. The humidity that causes beads of sweat to bloom across my skin. I’m telling myself that Javier didn’t mean anything rude by asking me there, though he admitted to needing information from me.

  At least he didn’t lie.

  I thought Javier wanted to see me. Maybe get to know me better. Since he remembered the water, I assumed that his invitation was about us. Maybe we’d lounge in chairs on the balcony under the moon. Maybe watch the water. I imagine what it’d be like to taste his lips again.

  I didn’t think I’d be there to talk about Faith.

  With the gear in park, sitting in my driveway, I command myself to think of anything other than him.

  No such luck. The front door cracks open. May’s head pops out like a Jack-in-the-box. She gives me a strange look, and I remember that my music is still blaring. I turn it off. Walk to her side.

  “Wanna talk about it?” she asks.

  I give. “Okay.”

  This is what we do, my sisters and I. Share everything. No secrets. No limits—with the glaring exception of my surgeries. It’s how our family is. I’m maybe the closest to May, but everything eventually gets distributed. I don’t mind. I like the openness. There’s a freedom to letting your secrets go, allowing your lips to speak them. When you watch the letters form words that burst out of your mind and float into the air, it’s not as stifling. This way, none of us bears the burden alone.

  We walk to our bedroom, the room May and I have shared all our life. It’s directly across the hall from the room Megan and Monica shared.

  X marks the spots where memories were made. The chair in the corner, a checkered sailor print in blue and red, was where May cried for hours after a boy broke her heart. The writing desk that got us both through endless nights of homework. The trundle bed, now tucked under the full bed, is where I used to dream of Dad coming back. There’s the closet where May loved to hide, jumping out at me when I came in, winning a terrified scream from my lungs. She’d laugh hysterically because no matter how many times she did it, it always worked.

  My eyes sweep to the bookcase, where I shelved my journal, stuffed it between tales of adventure. Think about the fact that May knew where it was but never read the lines without my permission. I take in the television that May left on every night. The low volume helped her fall asleep. Think about the fact that I sleep with it on to this day because it helps drown out the noise of my thoughts long enough for me to drift into dreams.

  May looks around like she remembers, too. Offers me a smile.

  “Good times, right?” She laughs.

  “Mostly, yeah,” I reply.

  My eyes travel to the skylight. Since we’re the younger ones, Monica and Megan automatically got the bigger room. But we never minded, May and me, because it meant that we got the sky view.

  May follows my stare.

  “Totally worth it,” she says, like she knows my thoughts.

  And it was. To be cramped together all those years. To not have the distance that too often separates families. To know that the vastness of the sky was only a peek away.

  May’s staying in the room with me until she returns to college in three weeks. Her bags crowd the corner by our closet.

  “Come,” she says, patting a spot on the striped comforter. I lie next to her on my back, watching the stars twinkle through the skylight. Mesmerized by how they shine so brightly despite the darkness around them.

  I want to know your secret. I want to store that much light.

  “Is it the cancer that’s bothering you?” May comes right out and asks.

  It’s always bothering me, every day. Not in a painful way; that passed a couple weeks after my surgery. Symptoms are gone, too. The only thing left is hormone pills. Headaches that sometimes accompany them. What worries me is the scare that it could come back. My greatest fear. But that’s not what’s upsetting me tonight.

  “You can talk to me about it,” May offers.

  The door to my heart slams shut. “I can’t talk about the cancer, May.”

  Disappointment in her eyes.

  “Not yet,” I say.

  May, like the rest of my family, only wants to help.

  “It’s not about cancer this time,” I say.

  And as long as it’s not about my diagnosis, May knows I’ll talk.

  “Spill,” May says.

  So I do.

  “There’s this guy,” I begin. May smiles. “I met him a while ago.”

  I pause. Try to figure out how to describe Javier to my sister.

  “Boyfriend?” she asks.

  I jolt at the thought. “No.”

  “Does this guy happen to be hot?”

  I smile. My sister doesn’t beat around the bush. She kills it. No reason to waste time.

  “He might be.”

  I can’t stop grinning, though I’m trying. My lips are a pair of traitors. Following each other’s lead.

  “Hmm, so this maybe-hot boy, what’s his name?’

  “Javier.” His name is delicious in my mouth.

  “Javier? Is he Latino?” she asks.

  “Yes.”

  Spanish and English all in one. Me and him, an interesting match.

  “But you’re mad at him,” she says.

  Yes. “I never said that.”

  She laughs. “You didn’t have to. Your music was enough. You always play it super loud when you’re angry.”

  The advantages of having a sister who knows everything.

  “Okay, yes. I’m frustrated,” I admit.

  “What does Javier look like?”

  I turn to my sister. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “I want to picture him in my head while you’re talking about him.”

  I sigh. “You’re so weird, May.”

  “You love my weird.”

  Images of Javier slam against one another in my mind.

  “Tall. Dark hair and eyes. Tattoos, but he only got those recently. And his lips,” I waver at the thought of his lips, “are perfect.”

  May arches a brow.

  “I don’t kn
ow, May. There’s something in his eyes. There’s something about his way. It’s so,” I search for the right word. “Sad.”

  Taking a deep breath, I tell May everything. I explain Javier’s relation to Diego—she knows all about Diego and Faith.

  I think about how hard it must be for Javier to know that more of his family is gone. Murdered, like his aunt.

  Lives taken before their time.

  I wonder how this world can be so careless and greedy, taking, taking, taking by whatever means necessary. I think about how evil has so many faces and goes by so many aliases. Drugs. Cartels. Murder. Hopelessness. Violence.

  I hate that Javier has no choice but to accept that life hasn’t been good to him. That this is the way things are. Like the sky is blue and the sun is yellow and your family will die too young. No big deal. Move along. Accept your fate.

  May looks conflicted. Like it pains her to hear it, too. She goes with something positive. Lightens the mood.

  “So you met him a while ago, but all you ever did was kiss?”

  “Yes.”

  “And now he’s back?”

  “It seems.”

  May smiles. “Go for it.”

  The fact that he wants to know about Faith bothers me, though. I say it out loud, listening to the words experimentally.

  “What do you think of him asking about Faith?”

  I feel her shrug. “Can you blame him? I mean, if it were you, wouldn’t you at least ask? Wouldn’t you feel the need to try?”

  And I realize that, yes, I would want to gather as much info as possible. And no, I can’t deny Javier that truth.

  I need to lead him to Faith. Because she’s the only one who can answer Javier’s questions. But, I wonder, what will happen to Javier once he knows?

  “You think I should give him Faith’s number?”

  “I think he has a right to know about his cousin’s death, yes.”

  Closure, I think.

  “What then?” I ask.

  “Then,” May says, a glint in her eye, “you make that boy remember what your lips feel like.”

  8

  javier

  I can’t stop thinking about Melissa.

  When she heard me confirm last night that I’d asked her up to my room to get information, she took off. Not that I’m surprised. I can only hope that she’ll see the importance of what I’m asking and come back.