I guess my secret is out. If it wasn’t for that damn snake, I wouldn’t have fallen off the rock and mi'amá wouldn’t be sitting in the hospital room continuously shooting me threatening stares that translate into You are in so much trouble.
Ends up I didn’t have venom running through my body. One of the snake’s fangs punctured a nerve in my hand, which is why it felt numb. After I fell, Brooke called her father in a panic. He picked us up and drove me to the hospital. Surviving the snake bite was the easy part. Getting continuously lectured by mi'amá has been torture.
During the fall down the face of the rock, I scratched up my legs pretty bad. I should be grateful for finally being able to grab part of the rock that jutted out with my good hand, even though in the process I ripped my skin open from palm to wrist and almost needed stitches. In the end, the doc decided the cuts weren’t deep enough to require stitches and decided to have a nurse bandage me up instead.
Mi'amá crosses her arms on her chest as she watches me adjust the hospital bed so I’m not lying down flat. “You scared me half to death, Luis. Who told you to climb up a mountain without a safety harness?”
“Nobody.”
“It was stupid,” she tells me, stating the obvious as she watches the nurse bandage my hand.
“I know.”
I look over at my brother Alex, leaning against the window watching me. He’s shaking his head, probably wondering how he got stuck with two younger brothers who were destined to do reckless, stupid things. Papá died before I was born, so Alex has been the oldest male in our immediate family since he was six. Now he’s twenty-two.
I’ve got to give Alex credit. He’s always tried to keep us out of trouble. Carlos was a lost cause from the start. Mi'amá said our other brother was born kicking and screaming, and never stopped until he was a teenager. Then all that pent-up energy was used to start fights with anyone who was stupid enough to piss him off.
Alex was twenty when mi'amá sent Carlos to live with him so Alex could straighten Carlos out.
Now Carlos is in the military and Alex is about to get married to Brittany Ellis, the girl he’s been dating since high school.
A nurse peeks her head into the room. “Mrs. Fuentes, we need you to sign a few papers.”
The second mi'amá leaves the room, Alex steps toward me. “You are one lucky motherfucker,” he says. “If I ever find out you free solo again, I’ll personally kick your ass. Got it?”
“Alex, it wasn’t my fault.”
“Oh, hell,” he says, covering his eyes with his hand as if he has a big headache. “You sound just like Carlos.”
“I’m not Carlos,” I say.
“So don’t act like him. I’m gettin’ married in two weeks. Two weeks, Luis. The last thing I need is one of my brothers fallin’ off a fuckin’ cliff and killin’ himself.”
“Technically it wasn’t a cliff,” I tell him. “And the odds of gettin’ a snake bite on an ascent is like—”
“Give me a break,” he says, cutting me off. “I don’t need statistics, Luis. I need my brother at my weddin’.”
Five girls, including Brooke, Jamie, and three of their friends, appear in the doorway. They’re all carrying balloons that say Get well soon! on them. I give a short laugh as my brother glances at the parade of girls with shock as they tie their balloons to the side rail of my bed.
“How are you feeling?” Brooke asks.
“Like crap,” I tell them, lifting up both of my bandaged hands—one with the snake bite and the other from being ripped open by the rocks.
“We came here to make you feel better,” Jamie says.
I smile wide and immediately feel better. Now that I know I’m not about to die, it’s all good. “What do you girls have in mind?”
I think I hear my brother snort as he steps back and the girls surround my bed.
“Want a back massage?” Angelica Muñoz asks with a flirty lilt to her voice.
“I brought some cookies from the Pearl Street Mall bakery,” Brooke says. “I can feed you since you can’t use your hands.”
“You’ve got to be kiddin’,” Alex mumbles from behind her.
Angelica settles behind me and starts massaging my back while Brooke takes one of the chocolate chip cookies she brought and lifts it to my mouth.
My future sister-in-law walks into the room, her high-heeled boots clicking on the hospital floor and her hair secured in a long blond ponytail running down her back. She takes one look at my entourage and shakes her head in confusion.
“What’s going on here?” she says to Alex.
“Don’t ask,” Alex says, coming up to her.
“Alex called me in a panic and said you’d had an accident,” she tells me.
I hold up both of my bandaged hands again. “I did. Hurts like a bitch, but the doc says I’ll survive.”
“Obviously,” she says. “But I don’t think you’ll be happy when your mother walks in the room and catches her fifteen-year-old son surrounded by his own harem. You know how protective she gets, Luis.”
“If she’s like my mom, she’ll freak,” Angelica says, then says to the other girls, “Maybe we should leave.”
Angelica is a girl I’ve casually fooled around with a few times at parties. She’s got Mexican parents, too, so she gets it. The other girls don’t have a clue how protective Mexican mothers can be.
I tell the girls that I’ll text them when I can use my hands, and they leave right before mi'amá walks back in the room.
“Who brought the balloons?” she asks. “Was it those girls I saw in the hallway?”
“Yeah,” I tell her. “They’re just friends from school.” No use getting into detail about how I’ve made out with three out of the five of them at one point or another. That will bring on another lecture I definitely want to avoid.
The doc releases me a half hour later, after giving mi'amá instructions on how to rewrap my wounds at home.
“You’re not invincible,” Alex tells me after Brittany and mi'amá walk out of the room. “None of us are. Remember that.”
“I know.”
He pokes a finger into my chest and blocks my path. “You listen to me, Luis, because I know all too well what was goin’ through that head of yours when you decided to climb that rock without safety gear. You liked the rush of knowin’ you were sayin’ fuck you to danger. I’ve got one brother in the military, a best friend who’s been six feet under for more than four years, and I’m not about to sit back while my baby brother gets la tengo dura by flirtin’ with danger.”
“You take life too seriously,” I say, moving past him. “I’m not your baby brother anymore, Alex, and I’m not as innocent as you think. I’m almost sixteen. You know that girl Brooke who brought me cookies? She’s not innocent, either. You want to know how I know that?”
I can’t help but crack a grin as Alex puts his hands over his ears like earmuffs.
“Don’t tell me,” he says. “You’re too fuckin’ young, bro. I swear, if you get a girl pregnant you’ll have more than just two bandaged hands to deal with.”