Malentendido (Misunderstood)

by Mara White

  Things are fucking bleak. I’m angry. I’m resentful. I don’t have the same control I had over most of my body. But it’s an image of her, so steadfast and unwavering, that keeps me fighting. If Belén loved me at my worst, then I can keep trying. I wonder if she thinks of me. I wonder and daydream all the fucking time.

  I still want her to care as much as before. And it’s a fucked-up thing to say because the choices I made were meant to help her move on—so she could get away from this. Because she’s better than me. Belén is a dove and I’m nothing but a pigeon, a dirty street rat. A reformed bad guy, a loser from the block. I’ll probably never go to college now, or ever get a real job.

  My ma tells me she’s married now and has a kid. When she told me that news I felt fucked up enough to kill someone—that, or put a bullet in my own head. I punched the mirror in the bathroom until blood from my fists was running down the walls.

  How could she move on?

  How could she not? She thinks I’m dead.

  I shaved my head with barely any coordination. I lost my mind, scratched at my skin until it bled. I tore jagged tracks down my face with my own busted fingernails. Nothing hurts more than knowing exactly what you gave up.

  This is what you wanted, I tell myself. Repeat it endlessly, like some mantra that will help me make sense of my life.

  That same night, I ended up in a four-point restraint. I woke up in a cold sweat. I cursed the heavens. I changed my fucking mind! I take it all back. I want her. I need her. I screamed bloody murder until a giant syringe appeared out of nowhere and they sedated me.

  My ma says Belén still lives in the neighborhood and works some science job up at the hospital. She stayed close to home, after all the struggle to escape where we come from. Belén walks those same streets we ruled in our youth. I think back on those days fondly even though we were all walking in circles, wearing a groove into the pavement with our lack of ambition and our territorial nature.

  I’ll leave Jordan soon but I won’t go to the Heights. My ma said to come to Santo Domingo, where we can start a new life. Some days I don’t want to. There are days I’d rather take a bullet than try. There are times I want Belén more than anything else in the world—or where I don’t want a world without me and Bey in it. Together. Fighting for what we feel and throwing a fuck-you to whoever thinks we’re wrong. When you want something so bad you can taste it, there comes a fear with that, a big, black, consuming terror that you won’t get it. And if that happens, what’s left? A burned out hole where your heart used to be and the shell of a broken man. Nothing. Empty. Meaningless.

  Most of the time, that’s me. Turns out, I was my own worst enemy.

  Every day in rehab that I fight to get better, I do it for Bey. Every breath, every push, every grueling muscle burn, I fight for the girl. Memories of her save me, motivate me to get stronger. But not because we’ll be together, but because Bey always tried her best to make a better man out of me. When all I did was ruin her, take her down to my level. A life without me around is the best thing that could of ever happened to her.

  Antes

  She’s coming down the stairs right when I slam the door behind me. Bey’s uniform is straight and her hair is gelled back into a perfect, tight ponytail. White knee socks pulled up and notebooks clutched to her chest. A backpack full of books and a pink headband on her head.

  Me, I got my shirt still unbuttoned, back of my neck is dripping from the shower and I got zero books or even a jacket. Ain’t got a pencil, I usually talk one off of Yari or my boys.

  “Hey,” I say nodding in her direction and zipping past her as fast as I can.

  “Morning,” she says, trying not to yawn. Her school sweater is draped over her shoulders.

  “Luciano Cabrera! Baboso! You left the burner on the pan!”

  “Morning, Tía,” Belén says, not taking much notice of my ma in her bathrobe, hair pinned back in un tubi.

  “Shit, sorry, I’m late,” I yell, already a staircase ahead of her.

  “Luciano, desgraciado! Walk your baby cousin to school.”

  I stop my feet from running and wait for Bey to catch up.

  “It’s okay, Lucky. You can go on without me, I’ll be fine.”

  But she sounds sad when she says it, like she really wants me to walk her. I yank her notebooks out of her arm and tug her bookbag from her shoulders.

  “Shut up, Len. We both going to the same place, and you know it.”

  I grab her hand as we make our way around the corner. We haven’t held hands in a minute but it feels right and old habits die hard. Meaning it’s fucking hard to kill ’em.

  She blushes and looks up at me through flirty black lashes. I yank her close, we bump shoulders and Belén starts to giggle.

  “How you gonna keep up with me in those old lady shoes?”

  “My Mary Janes? I can walk fast. They’re the only ones that go with my uniform.”

  “They look busted.”

  Her face falls.

  “Just fucking with you, Len. You always look good.”

  We get two blocks before we see some of my friends. I drop her hand like it’s hot and feel guilty as sin.

  “Qué lo qué?” I shout to my boys across the street. I add in some crude shit so they’ll all take me seriously. Bey peeks up at my face with curiosity, like she’s wondering what I’ll do next. Like Clark Kent, I change up how I act depending on who I gotta deal with.

  “I need some coffee, Bey. Mind if we stop at the deli?” I scratch my head and rub my eyes. It’s hard to see straight when you got no sleep and are running on mostly adrenaline.

  I take a long-ass time stirring in the cream and sugar. Wait for my boys to pass so then I can grab her hand again. I buy a premade bagel in Saran wrap spread thick with cream cheese and an oatmeal pie with marshmallow cream in the middle. While I’m digging in my pockets for cash, rain decides to sweep in and make a dramatic appearance. I spent everything last night and I’m hoping Abdul will cut his losses and give me a break like he does all the time with loosies and the occasional can of soda. Bey hands me a crinkled five-dollar bill, still looking amused at my antics.

  “Thanks, Lenny,” I whisper and throw the five and some change onto the counter of the Yemeni-owned corner deli that caters to Mexicans. Some school girls squeal and scream as they make a run for it with their jackets over their heads.

  “Got an umbrella in your bag?” I ask her and we’re both trying to reel in our smiles.

  “I don’t mind waiting it out. First period I’ve got gym.”

  I throw my arm around her shoulder and pull her in close when a huge group of teenagers push in through the door, sopping wet.

  “You saying you gonna cut?” I ask Bey. Can’t help the giant smile that creeps across my face at her rebellious mueca, thinking she’s all hard for skipping out on gym. She crosses her arms and looks defiant.

  “Come on then,” I signal to my cousin. Grabbing her hand, I yank her along the narrow aisle crowded with everything you can imagine. They got toilet paper, cans of sardines, bags of beans and candles with the virgin all vying for shelf space. The place smells like coffee and cat litter, somebody’s moldy basement covered up with cheap air freshener. We shove through the door in the back that’s covered with stickers and sun-bleached advertisements of energy drinks that went out of business a while back. The scrawny, black and white deli cat leaps out of our way ducking under the ice cream cooler. There’s an awning off the back entrance and I’ve stood under it before. The downpour drums loudly on the corrugated plastic and drips to the ground in buckets, rushing away to join in the exodus to the gutter.

  “It’s like the perfect spot to watch the rain,” I say, tearing off a huge bite of the bagel. “There’s guys who play domino back here when the weather gets warmer.”

  Belén nods and leans her body weight into me. I pull her in front of me and drape my arm across her collarbone. Five bites later and the bagel is toast. The oatmeal pie gets torn open wit
h my teeth. I hold it in front of her mouth and she takes a little bite of it.

  “I never pegged you as a rain watcher, Luciano,” she says wistfully. She tilts her head back and looks up at me through wet-lashes, her face upside down.

  “Oh, Belén, you’d be surprised at all of the shit I can do.”

  I feed her more and she presses her head back into my chest.

  “Surprise me, Lucky,” she says after she swallows.

  We’re flirting and it feels so good. My smile is wide. It’s one of the rare times that my face is speaking the truth. It’s not about drugs or money or throwing shade with my boys. It’s not the fake one I show to adults who measure me with disapproval in their eyes.

  But I stand here in the humidity and watch Bey’s hair curl along her hairline; my mind is blown with the spell this girl has over me. The scenery is shitty. Wet garbage blown all over the streets from the rain, rundown brick apartment buildings with rusted fire escapes. Projects and section eight buildings in need of repair. This place is a shithole, and yet Bey makes me feel like I’m walking on air.

  There’s a viejito standing under the awning of the bodega across the street. The old-school kind that still has wooden bins of yaútia and plátano instead of after-school chips and candy for kids. He scrapes on his metal güira and sings Diente de Oro to the rain. I’m more content like this, with Bey in my arms, than in any other place in the world. Shitty, inner-city slum or not, I’m a rich man holding onto what’s precious. I got true love right here in my own arms.

  Bey turns under my arms and suddenly we’re chest to chest. She stares up into my face and reaches her finger toward my lips. She swipes once and brings it back with a speck of marshmallow filling. The finger then finds its way to her mouth. She casually sticks it between her lips, sucking on the remains of my breakfast. It’s so sexy—almost feels like a kiss. But somehow even better, more subtle, more innocent—Len in a nutshell.

  My pupils dilate and my heart pounds in my chest. My dick jumps to attention and Belén only licks her lips. She searches my eyes for a second and I’m at a loss. Then she turns around again and pulls my arms across her chest in a tight hug.

  I couldn’t even tell you why my heart charges like a cheetah, making it difficult to breathe evenly, to keep my face looking calm. I’m scared of how she makes me feel. Terrified, even. What do you do with shit like this? Feels like I should bottle it up and take it to fucking church. Not to marry Bey, but to give it back to God.

  “Hey, yo, you! Yeah you. Here you go, I don’t deserve this!” I’ll holler up at the altar. My feelings are out of control and I don’t know how to deal with it.

  “It’s so perfect,” she whispers.

  I’ve fucked more chicks than I can count. Older ones, younger ones, fat and skinny, easy and not. I’ve popped plenty of cherries, been with some of the girls who earned their reputation in high school. I’m the kind of guy who likes to get his dick sucked in an empty classroom, closets, stairwells, you name it. I got game and getting it has never been much of a problem. I ain’t afraid to say it.

  Seen a lot of crazy shit in my day, done a lot, had a lot. Don’t ask me why, but none of that compares to Bey swiping frosting off of my lips and then innocently sucking her finger.

  I hold her close while the rain slows and my body starts to tremble. I can’t think of anything else but having sex with her and Bey’s just being polite pretending not to notice my hard cock. She’s trying not to acknowledge just how much her simple gesture rocked my world. I pull her in so that her ass rests against the curve of my pelvis. My nose finds her neck and her hair, gets me love-drunk off of her scent. I could give a fuck who sees us or who thinks that we’re sick. If this is what wrong feels like, then I don’t need right. If this is sinning, then send me to hell. I’ll go there. Gladly. ’Cause without her I’m in it.

  Belén, go ahead. I dare you. Make a fucking sinner out of me.

  “Should we make a run for it?” she asks.

  “Naw, we can wait it out. Can’t rain all day.” I don’t want to let go of her.

  “Yes, it can.”

  “Five more minutes,” I say.

  I want those minutes because the only time I really feel like myself is when I’m close to her and I don’t have to pretend to be something I’m not. For everyone else I’m pulling out cards. The hard and tough guy, the responsible one, the party-ready asshole who likes to get messed up and fuck around with girls when I’m drunk. But when it comes down to it, I’m none of those things. I’m just like everybody else, trying to figure out where I fit in. And the only time I ever feel like I’m coming close is with this girl in my arms, her eyes on me and my mouth hovering at her throat.

  She looks at me with love.

  I want to bite her. Drink up her bad blood and consume her. Take her in. I want to pull Bey apart piece by piece and examine her. Then have her beg me, and only me, to put her back together.

  “We should get to school,” I say. I don’t mean it at all. I would stand here until we both freeze, until we die from exposure. “I don’t want to get you in trouble.” I do.

  “I like your kind of trouble, Luciano,” Bey says. She lays her mouth on my forearm in the ghost of a kiss. Arrows with poison flaming tips shoot down my limbs.

  “Don’t say things like that, Len. You have no idea what you’re getting into.”

  “I’m not afraid,” she says and it’s barely a whisper.

  “You should be,” I say. I am.

  She surprises me. Belén darts out into the rain and screeches at the chill from the onslaught of raindrops. I follow behind her and unzip my windbreaker to give her some shelter. We run the few remaining blocks to school. My sneakers are soaked and rainwater squishes out of them with each of our thundering steps. I yank open the double doors and step back so she can go in first. She shivers and her teeth chatter as two rivulets darkened with mascara run down her cheeks. She pushes wet hair back from her face.

  I pull her into another hug and run my arms up and down her rain-soaked back. We’re both out of breath, our chests heaving from the run.

  “Do me a favor, Len, don’t ever do that again.”

  She chatters more and nuzzles into the crook of my arm. The school heaters hiss and spin; warmed, cherry-scented industrial cleaner clouds surround us.

  “Do what?” she asks and I can feel her accelerated heartbeat against my chest.

  “Run away from me,” I say, cause I gotta say something.

  Don’t give me these memories that I’ll compare every other girl to. Don’t be so fucking tempting that I lose my shit and move one step closer to doing exactly what I’m not supposed to.

  Don’t show me what perfect feels like, in the rain, running late to school. Don’t give me these moments that feel bigger than the whole rest of the world.

  Don’t let me love you, Bey.

  Después

  “Can you watch Luke tonight after work?”

  “Yeah, sure. Your mom isn’t around?”

  “No, she is,” I say, trying to sound casual. “She’s taking me for a limpieza after what happened last week.”

  “In the storage closet?”

  I nod.

  Adam rolls his eyes and looks annoyed, as I predicted he would. He’s not so enamored of my family’s religious practices or beliefs. I, however, am on the fence. I don’t necessarily believe that these practices will actually help me, but I’m afraid not to do them and suffer the consequences. The fear is sufficient evidence to compel me to tag along with my mother on her trips to the botánica or late mass on Sundays. Adam grumbles or barks that we’re biologists and know better than to entertain blind faith. He barely agreed to go through with Luke’s baptism, which my mother and aunt insisted on. It caused a rift between Titi and Adam because according to her, baby Luke is her sunshine and Adam is just some gringo who walked in and took Lucky’s place.

  Adam was raised Lutheran and he did attend church, so I often get the feeling that what makes
him more uncomfortable with my family’s beliefs is that they are hybrid, less common, and therefore totally unfamiliar to him. He doesn’t know what to make of Santería and dismisses it as witchcraft. My mother would never in her life use the word Santería for her trips to the local clairvoyant or medium. Going to see her priestess at the botánica is part of her physical, spiritual and mental well-being. For Mami, it’s more like a trip to see her life coach than a religious endeavor.

  Espiritismo, she says. To her it’s just the truth that her parents and grandparents followed. To me it’s the same, but I know my history thanks to the education I’ve been fortunate to receive. These are African spells mixed with Roman Catholic aestheticism and a peppering of Taíno. My family’s religion is as colorful as their varied skin tones. But try to tell Mami she’s performing African rites—she’d knock me upside the head and call me babosa. I go because I don’t want to find out the hard way that Mami’s way doesn’t work.

  “Maybe you should embrace it. Maybe you should come and get some help too, some closure, I don’t know,” I say to Adam. My English muffin is overflowing with melted butter and strawberry jelly. It drips onto my scrubs and I pull the material up to my mouth to lick it off.

  Adam sips his coffee and tosses one of Luke’s old baby bibs at me. “See, I told you we should hang on to the baby stuff.”

  He’s moving toward dangerous territory, because having more children is a sensitive subject between us. Adam wants to and I’d rather not. Most of the time I feel like half of a person. I don’t want to bring another child into this world as a means to alleviate or distract me from my personal issues; that wouldn’t be fair to the child or to Adam. During my entire pregnancy, down to the moment I gave birth, Lucky was missing from my life and I felt it most profoundly during that time. I don’t want to feel empty again; I don’t want to relive his absence.