CHAPTER 25

Lucy

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I AVOID DANI FOR a few days, ditching sixth period and climbing the fence behind the building before she gets there. I’m not ready to face my embarrassment. I wait at the park for a while, then take the long way home, lingering at the place where Gabe’s street crosses my path.

I don’t remember what I said to him. All I know is that I was mean. I want to say sorry, but I’m reluctant to see him for the same reason I’m not talking to Dani. I don’t know what I said about Angel.

I don’t have a clue which apartment is his. I can’t imagine I’d find it, even if I tried, so when I see him coming toward me, I’m shaken. I immediately turn around and start speed walking the other direction, hoping he didn’t see my face.

“Lucy!” As soon as he calls my name, I know I have to stop and say hi, but it takes me a while to muster the confidence.

“Hey.” My throat catches a little as I try to act surprised.

He slows as he gets closer, keeping a generous distance, and winces. “That’s a fucking gnarly bruise, Luz.”

The low hum of his voice distracts me, but my hand flies up to my forehead on impulse. “Oh. Yeah. Looks worse than it feels.” I tried covering it with my hair, but apparently not well enough.

“I’m glad you’re okay. We haven’t heard from you or seen you. I got worried.”

“I’m fine. I—”

“Gabewiel,” a little boy, who looks just over two years old, runs our way. “Look. Look. A pollie wollie.”

He holds it up for us to see, but his eyes stay on the bug.

Gabe kneels down to the boy’s height, and I notice their resemblance immediately. Golden curly hair, deep walnut eyes, and perfect caramel skin.

“Oh my God. Is this your son?” I ask, kneeling with him to get a better look.

Gabe laughs. “No. He’s my brother. He does look like me, though. I raise him. Mom’s got five of us. I have three brothers and a sister.”

“One sister? That’s one against four.” I widen my eyes playfully at the little boy and he smiles, shying his face away from me.

“Eh, it toughens her up.” He looks over his shoulder toward his apartment and nods in the general direction. I catch sight of a little girl with long brown pigtails. She’s probably five. “She’s spying on us,” he says, standing to look for her.

“Come on, Gordo.” He tugs at his brother’s shirt, and the boy takes a few stumbley steps as he obsesses over his pill bug.

I follow Gabe and Gordo to the open door of his family’s ground-level apartment. A Christmas tree with too much tinsel is pressed into the corner, and empty stockings hung with push pins line the windowsill. His sister is hiding in the doorway. She beckons for Gabe to come closer and whispers something in Spanish.

He laughs and looks at me. “She says you’re very very pretty, and she wants to play with you.”

Kids have a way of making me smile. “Aaaaw,” I say to her. “What do you want to play?”

“Barbies, please,” she answers, her fat cheeks dimpling as she flashes two rows of spaced baby teeth in a wide grin.

Gordo reaches his hands up and stands on his tip-toes in front of Gabe until he picks him up. I follow them into their apartment and the little girl takes my hand, pulling me to the floor of the living room. The white carpet is stained with a multitude of colors, from faded grape juice purple to cheeto orange. Barbies are everywhere, their hair tangled into tiny blonde nests.

“You can be her,” she says, thrusting a naked classic into my lap.

Gabe sits on the couch next to us with Gordo on his lap, and switches on the TV. I watch him when his eyes are averted, wondering why he never asked me what I was doing here, on his street.

“What happened to your head?” his sister asks.

“Celia!” Gabe scolds her. “Don’t be rude.”

She stares at the floor, clutching her Barbie as her lower lip folds out in a pout.

“It’s okay,” I tell her. “I fell.” My eyes drift to Gabe. “I was being stupid.”

He gives me a sideways sympathetic smile and goes back to watching TV.

“So what did you ask Santa to get you for Christmas?” I ask Celia.

She starts listing things in very specific detail, and we play Barbies long enough that Gordo falls asleep on Gabe’s chest. I watch him comb his little brother’s hair and play with his ears in a rhythmic trailing motion like petting a cat. It’s sweet and makes me realize just how gentle-natured he is. Nothing like Angel.

My head lifts as someone comes through the front door.

“Gabriel! Ayudame con las bolsas.”

A woman I assume is his mother, lugs fistfuls of white plastic grocery bags through the front door. We both get up to help. I try introducing myself, but I can tell by the lost look in her eyes that she has no idea what I’m saying. But she smiles, and the smile never lets up. Gabe translates a short conversation between us, but it gets tedious, and eventually I just listen to their Spanish.

After we’re done unloading he grabs his backpack and shrugs it onto his shoulders.

“Come on,” he says. “She wants us to take the grocery cart back to the store.”

I follow and so does Gordo. “You have to stay here, hermanito,” Gabe tells him.

Gordo cries until his face is red, and Gabe pulls him from his legs. “Celia, find him that green car,” he says as he shuts the door.

“Will he be okay?” I ask.

Gabe pushes the cart and I keep up.

“Yeah. He’ll be fine. He freaks out every time I leave.”

“That’s cute,” I say as we walk.

His face turns serious. “Not to me.”

“I guess it’s probably annoying—”

“No. No. He doesn’t annoy me. It just makes me mad at life. The poor kid’s afraid I’m not going to come back. My Dad left after my older brother died. I think it fucked Gordo up. He’s obsessed with me.”

“What happened to your older brother?”

“He went to get milk at the liquor store and the cops thought he was robbing the place. They shot him.”

Maybe he was robbing the place. I keep the rogue thought to myself, but I can’t help but wonder.

“I’m sorry,” I say instead, realizing all of this must have happened recently if Gordo can remember. He’s still just a baby.

“Yeah. Fuck the cops. They acted like it was my brother’s fault, and they’re always all over me. So I say, fuck ‘em. If they’re going to make my life hell, I’m glad to return the favor.”

“What happened to the cop?” I ask.

“Nothing. You know, you see these riots and shit over cops killing black kids. It’s bullshit. Nothing happened to Mendoza. I don’t have the money to get a lawyer or whatever, but I have my ways of paying that mother-fucker back.”

My heart seizes with a spasm of fear. “Like how?”

He shakes his head, as if embarrassed to tell me. “Just stupid shit, but I’m going to haunt that guy. He’ll never forget my face. Just like I’ll never forget he killed my brother.”

Chills snake along the surface of my arms, and I don’t know if it’s the mid-December breeze that gives me goose bumps or the way Gabe’s purring voice curls around the words never forget.

I wait for him to tell me more, because I feel like there’s something else to what he’s saying, but he gets quiet.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to freak you out. It’s just still hard for me. I’m still mad, you know?”

I nod, actually glad he opened up.

“Well, I’m sorry, too. I was really mean the other night,” I say, breaking the silence. “I just got way too drunk. Crazy drunk.”

He shrugs and stops pushing the cart. “It happens.”

We stare at each other for one of those frozen moments, and for a second I think he’s going to kiss me. I might even want him to, but he doesn’t. He pulls off his backpack and opens it up. Inside there are two cans of spray paint.

“Wanna help me give Mendoza some shit?” he asks.