Never Look Back

by Lilliam Rivera

  Ato sits beside me underneath a grand flamboyán. Red petals sprinkle the ground before us. A couple of the petals even grace our bare toes. We are protected from the light shower drizzling down from above. Although it is raining, the sun still shines brightly. We sit in anticipation of a rainbow.

  “There might be a treasure at the end,” I say. “We should find out.”

  “You are the treasure.” Ato taps his feet against mine. I stick my tongue out at him. He is so serious when he talks like that. It’s a little silly.

  There is a clanging of pots coming from inside the house as Mami prepares dinner. A few weeks ago, Mami told me to stop talking about my imaginary friend. At eleven years old I’m too old for such foolishness, she said. I’m learning to keep Ato to myself.

  A neighborhood boy runs up to us. His name is Mateo. I like him. Sometimes at school Mateo will let me play with his Nintendo DS. He is always very sweet to me.

  “What are you doing?” Mateo asks. His round face is flushed from running.

  “Nothing, just waiting for a rainbow to appear,” I say.

  “Oh.” He sits down beside me. Ato glares at Mateo. He doesn’t like people interrupting our time together. Ato thinks everyone is out to get me, but Mateo is not like that. I ignore Ato’s reaction and talk to Mateo.

  “Did you finish your homework?” I ask.

  “It was easy,” Mateo says. I nod in agreement. Ato bristles and suddenly stands.

  “Tell him to go away. Tell him you are busy.”

  I don’t listen to Ato. Mateo is a friend. I don’t have many. The kids in school think I’m too quiet and a little weird.

  A fruit from the tree across the way drops to the ground.

  “I’m hungry,” Mateo says. “We should eat some. Don’t worry, I’ll get it.”

  Mateo gets up, heads to the tree, and starts to climb.

  “Leave him alone. He’s not doing anything,” I tell Ato, who continues to stare at him.

  Mateo straddles the tree like a monkey. He reaches a branch and slowly crawls over it, managing to stand. He stretches toward a dangling guanábana and says, “This one looks ready.”

  I smile at Mateo, but when I turn to Ato, his whole face changes. His eyes are completely black. And his face … His face appears to erase itself, like someone used a pencil to blur his features.

  I shake my head. I must be seeing things.

  Suddenly, a gust of wind picks up. Mateo, unable to keep his balance, falls from the tree. He cries out, and I run to him. Tears roll down Mateo’s cheeks as he clutches his ankle.

  “It hurts so much,” Mateo cries. I don’t know what to say.

  “I told you to send him away.” Ato’s face is normal again, but he has a scary smile. Mateo continues to moan while a knot forms in the pit of my stomach.

  Pheus stands before me, offering me his hand, and I’m not sure if this offering comes with a price. I’m in fear of what tomorrow will bring. Another storm to destroy everything I love. A wind to carry me away from this place.

  What will Ato do to Pheus or to Penelope? I can’t involve them in this. I can’t.

  “You guys think you’re slick, but you’re not fooling me. Hiding out over here,” Penelope says. “What should we do now?”

  “I want to go home,” I say. Penelope’s face drops.

  If I stay indoors, I might have a chance of protecting myself. I don’t know how this works. There is no book to detail what Ato is or why he is coming after me. There is only me pretending to know what I’m doing.

  “Okay,” Penelope says. “Let’s go.”

  We head toward the nearest train station. Pheus walks alongside me.

  CHAPTER 7

  Pheus

  “What’s up, ’mano?” Jaysen asks.

  The train is crowded, but Eury and Penelope snagged two seats at the far end. I can still see Eury from where we’re standing. My sweaty hands clasp the metal pole tight. My whole body is tense.

  “Nothing, bro,” I say. “Everything’s good.”

  Jaysen makes a smacking noise. “You lying. Did she turn you down?”

  Penelope gave me the stink eye when I tried to explain to her how Eury and I ended up alone. She knows something went down. When Penelope asked again why we were in front of the church, I told her a story about there being historical significance to the building. Blah blah bullshit.

  Eury keeps looking my way. Or maybe it’s me who can’t stop checking to see if she’s okay. She said it was thunder that freaked her out. The storm triggered something in her. There was real fear there.

  When shit goes down like that, I know to jet. Don’t ask questions. Just break the hell out of the spot and get to running. When I saw Eury’s face transformed in terror, I knew we had to book. It’s what my Pops taught me to do. When someone yells 5-0, you do a quick search for the strobing police lights and take off to the opposite direction.

  There was an electric charge when I took Eury’s hand. I’ve never felt anything like it before. My hands began to shake too, and it wasn’t from the rain or the sudden chill. Whatever or whoever spooked her had an effect on me too. Damn. I’m not buying the story about the rain, tho. Something else is scaring Eury, and I don’t know how to convince her she can tell me.

  “Penelope’s pissed off, yo,” Jaysen says. “She doesn’t want you playing games with Eury.”

  “I’m not playing games.” Jaysen is more afraid of getting on Penelope’s bad side than I am. They’ve known each other way longer, ever since kindergarten when Penelope snatched the ball from Jaysen and made him cry, a story she loves to bring up as a reminder of her superiority.

  “Tell me something, though. I heard you broke up with Melaina,” he says.

  Now I’m pissed. There was never a relationship to break. Melaina and I were hooking up. Why can’t everyone see that? The way we ended last night was how we always ended it—as friends who sometimes do more. I was clear about the arrangement, and Melaina was clear about it too.

  “We didn’t break up because we were never together,” I say. “Also, why are you talking to me about rumors when I’m right in front of you? What I do or don’t do isn’t up for a committee. Do you think I care what other people are saying?”

  “I don’t like when the crew disintegrates into separate splinter groups,” he says. “We are powerful united.”

  This speech, tho. Jaysen has serious abandonment issues, which doesn’t make sense since he comes from a huge Puerto Rican family. Then again, maybe that’s why. He never likes to be alone, ever, and feels every slight. But there are no “splinter groups.” I’m just not into being Melaina’s prize puppy that barks whenever she drops a command.

  “I’m not going anywhere and neither are you,” I say. “Besides, some people don’t like being in big groups and are better off one-on-one.”

  “You mean Eury. You talking about Eury, right?”

  “Yeah, fool. Damn.”

  The train finally empties out a few stops shy of where we need to get off. Jaysen and I walk over to the girls.

  “Let’s get some slices,” I say. “I’m hungry.”

  It’s after 2 p.m. Other than the orange, we haven’t eaten lunch. Eury must be hungry too. She seems way calmer than before. I hope whatever jostled her has moved on.

  “You treating?” Penelope asks.

  “No, Jaysen is.”

  Jaysen acts as if he’s mad. He’s not. He owes us money from us treating him all the time.

  “Do you mind if I head home?” Eury asks. “I’m not up for it.”

  I was really hoping we could talk. I want to try to smooth things over with jokes. Penelope disguises her disappointment with a laugh.

  “Yeah, let’s go home. I’m sure Mami’s cooking,” she says. “Who wants to eat greasy-ass pizza anyway?”

  Jaysen raises his hand.

  Eury doesn’t speak to me as we exit the station. At the crosswalk, we separate: Penelope and Eury head home; Jaysen and I to the pizzeria. Is Eur
y embarrassed by what happened? I hope not. Pops’s mantra spins in my head. “Be safe. Don’t be stupid.” I did those two things. Mom also taught me to be there for a friend, even when the person is unable to formulate their thoughts. Patience is a skill I will need to practice.

  Pops stares at the television screen. He spent the past two days helping his friend deliver furniture. His hand is in a bowl of ice. I’m sprawled out on the sofa with my laptop. The opened computer tabs are out of control: Washington Post, New York Daily News, New York Times. So many articles detailing how kids stopped talking after the storm. Seventy-two hours of having no control, of not knowing when the storm would relent. Three full days of enduring it. I keep reading.

  Those on the island went months without electricity and water. President Trump made an appearance like a demented circus clown. I followed it all, getting pissed off like so many. Santo Domingo got hit too, but not as intensely as Puerto Rico, so we helped the best we could. Mom donated money. Pops mailed solar-powered lights and generators. Jaysen’s family even traveled to collect his grandfather and bring him to New York to live with them until things settled down.

  After a few months, I guess we started to focus on other things. So many messed up tragedies happening here that eventually Puerto Rico got swept under the rug. Even I thought for a moment that hey, at least a lot of them are living in Florida now. Florida is probably a lot like Puerto Rico. My thoughts never came to how losing a home can strip a person of their identity. I take so much for granted. There are two apartments I can crash in, and I’m never without food. I’m only starting to grasp what Eury must have gone through.

  “Pops, what’s going on with Puerto Rico?”

  Since yesterday’s incident in Central Park, I’ve kept close to home, hoping to run into Eury. She hasn’t been outside. Penelope texted me to let me know that everything was fine.

  “You read How to Kill a City? The book I got for you from the Lit. Bar,” Pops says. “Same thing. Capitalists are buying up properties and privatizing them. Making sure what was once for everyone is only for a select few.”

  “What about the people?” I ask.

  He lifts his hand from the bowl of water. His fingers still look swollen. I go to the kitchen and get him another bottle of beer. He clutches the brew with his good hand.

  “Like Dominicans, our hermanos on the island are resilient. They won’t go down without a fight,” he says. “You have to fight for what you love.”

  I knew he would say something like that.

  “I guess I’m thinking more about a person’s well-being,” I say. “What if memories of your home, what was your home, cause you pain? How do you combat that?”

  He places the beer on the foldable table he set up with his dinner of potato chips and a ham and cheese sandwich.

  “Hmmm. Remember your Tío Luis? The one in the army?” he says. “He was deployed so many times. When he came back, he wasn’t quite himself. Every sudden noise, a car honking, sent him flying to the ground for cover. The family said it was the drugs that made him suicidal. Drugs were his way of coping.”

  Tío Luis wasn’t technically my uncle. He was Pops’s cousin. Because they were about the same age, I always called him uncle out of respect. At family gatherings, Tío Luis always kept to himself. Rarely talked to me or anyone for that matter. He always seemed angry. Pops tried to reach out to him. Get him help. Cleaned up. It didn’t work. Then one day Pops called and told me he was gone. Tío Luis was buried in his military uniform and family members kept saying, “Well, at least he’s not suffering anymore,” while I kept thinking, What the hell? He should have been alive.

  “Witnessing unrelenting violence can take a toll on a person with devastating results,” Pops says. “To be exposed to a disaster like Hurricane María can do the same.”

  Seventy-two hours. That’s how long the people in Puerto Rico had to deal with the hurricane. I picture Eury and her mother finding shelter in the bathroom. How would I be after watching the roof of my house fly away?

  “Son. Have you gotten to the application?”

  “Not yet,” I say, annoyed at how he’s changed the subject. The application isn’t due until the end of the summer. I’ve got plenty of time. Besides, when I mentioned it to Moms, she thought it wasn’t going to work. She has other plans. Tutors I have to see. Maybe Pops pushing me to apply is his way of avoiding paying for the tutors. I’m once again placed in an awkward position of having to appease him and my mom at the same time.

  “Go get the application and do it,” he says. He means business. I don’t curse under my breath although I want to. Instead, I pull up the online application and start filling it. Besides an essay on how music has changed my life, I have to also upload a video of me performing for five minutes. This is going to take a bit of organizing and thought. I’ll apply, and if on the off chance I get in, I’ll deal with the blow of letting Pops know I can’t go. I work on the application, avoiding the hard questions, until I feel enough time has passed for Pops to be satisfied with my progress.

  “I’m almost done. I have to write an essay. Let me go to the store and pick up some snacks,” I say.

  “Go to the supermarket. Get fruit, a gallon of milk, and some aspirin. This hand is killing me.” He gives me money and goes back to rewatching The Wire on the DVD collection I got him a while back.

  When I walk past Penelope’s apartment, I go down the stairs slowly. What is Eury up to? I should have at least asked for her number. All I can hear is the sound of Penelope’s loud laugh. One of my neighbors says hello. She eyes me suspiciously because I’m basically loitering in front of Penelope’s apartment. Feeling like a fool, I keep it moving.

  The humidity hits me as soon as I walk out. Not even the storm from the other day gave us much of a respite.

  “Pheus!”

  I’m about to cross the street toward the supermarket when I hear Penelope yell out from her window.

  “Are you going to the store? Pick me up a couple bags of plantain chips. I’ll pay you when you get back.”

  There’s definitely a bounce in my step knowing I might see Eury. Maybe Penelope will invite me in, although her parents are pretty strict. They don’t let just anyone show up in their living room, especially not some random from the building. Still, things could change.

  After taking way too long trying to figure out what brand to buy, I rock back to the crib. Here I am lingering by Penelope’s door again like a Jehovah’s Witness about to proclaim the end of the world. What is wrong with me? Even when Melaina was stepping to me, I didn’t once blink about it. Swagger upon swagger. I had it for miles with my guitar ready to drop the suave lyrics. And now? I’m nervous, but I still knock.

  Penelope answers the door. She grabs the bag and hands me cash. When I don’t leave, Penelope glares at me.

  “Thank you,” she says. “You can go now.”

  Penelope has absolutely no chill.

  “Where’s your cousin?”

  She steps out into the hallway and closes the door behind her.

  “My cousin is still dealing with stuff,” she says. “I swear to god. I will freaking kill you if you do anything to upset her. You hear me?”

  How can I convince Penelope that I’m true? I’m not trying to play her cousin or even her. We’re friends.

  “You know I love my guitar. I swear on my guitar that I’m not trying to roll up on your cousin. I’m just wondering if she’s okay. Te lo juro.”

  She stares at me some more. Then she goes back inside the apartment. I don’t know if I’m meant to bounce, but I wait. It’s not like I can wait for long out here. Pops is upstairs.

  Eury appears a few seconds later. Her hair is wet. She smells fresh, straight from a shower, which no doubt is a hard image to keep innocent.

  “Hi,” she says.

  “Penelope wanted me to get her plantain chips, which I did, but I thought maybe you would like this too.”

  I pull out a grapefruit. I don’t know if s
he likes grapefruit. I’m just guessing here. I didn’t do a mango because I know for a fact mangoes are aphrodisiacs. I’m not trying to be a sucio. A grapefruit with some sugar for her breakfast tomorrow. Tranquilo.

  She holds the grapefruit and thanks me. Maybe the fruit was a dumb idea.

  “How are you feeling?” I ask.

  “I’m okay. We haven’t been doing much. Watching a lot of TV.” She pulls her wet hair to the side of her face. She has bags under her eyes. Sleep must be evading her.

  “Want to listen to something? I promise it’s not Romeo.”

  I take out my earbuds and hand one to Eury.

  CHAPTER 8

  Eury

  I slip the earbud into my ear and wait for Pheus to press Play. The first thing I hear is the sound of the guitar. Strings being plucked harmoniously. I can almost see the fingers creating the music, setting the tone, inviting me to let go. Soon, a man’s voice reaches me with this beautiful declaration of love. The singer, José Manuel Calderón, repeats the word “amorcito,” and I am filled with sentimientos.

  Of all the instruments in the world, the guitar is the one that connects me most to the island. The tactual feel of the fingers against the string. The changing of the chords. It’s hard to explain why I’m drawn to the guitar, to put to words the emotions the strings elicit. This is why I love Prince so much, and it’s why I sit here next to Pheus.

  I close my eyes to envision the sweeping sound of this song and how it’s meant only for me. I let the music envelop me, feeling such yearning.

  Can we stay here on these dirty steps together, listening to this song? I want that more than anything. I can feel Pheus’s breath brush against my hand. Beside him, at this very moment, there’s no fear. No evil waiting. For now, there’s only Pheus.

  I haven’t been sleeping. My mind is overwhelmed with dark thoughts of Ato. The only time I felt a bit of peace was when I remembered how Pheus held my hand as we raced across the speeding traffic.

  I’m falling quickly, and this, too, scares me. For so long, I have believed I am meant to suffer. After all, why did Ato chose me to torment? Clearly, I had an evil within that attracted such a spirit.