"So what are you girls doing at this slumber party?" Dom asked as we walk home from school the day before my party.

"None of your business." I joked.

"Probably sit and play with their dolls?" Vince laughed.

"I wish!" Mia joked, but I knew that she was being serious.

"Come on Mia, you don't really want to play with dolls all night, do you?"

"I don't know don't you think it will be fun?"

"No" I answered boldly.

I could hear the boy laughing at us and it just made me angry, they thought that it was funny that didn't play with dolls. They said that it was what little girls do and if I don't play with dolls then I wasn't considered a girl. I knew they were just joking but it still annoyed me.

"Well it's your sleepover at your house so I guess we can do what you want." Mia said not wanting to get off the subject.

"Mia have you ever been over to Letty's before?" Dom questioned.

"No, but daddy and her mom said that I could and I want to."

We smiled at each other and then when we got to our street we race all the way to my house. It was basically between Dom and I the whole time, Vince was a little slow and Mia was wearing a dress and flip flops so there wasn't much hope for her. Dom and I were pretty much tied up all the way, until the last few feet and I pulled ahead and ended up winning.

"Ha! I beat you!" I bragged and we waited for Vince and Mia to catch up.

"You got beat by a girl, dude." Vince laughed and slapped Dom on the back as he tried to catch his breath.

"Yeah, so did you!" Dom snapped, hitting Vince's hand off him.

"You're such a sore loser." I laughed.

"Whatever have fun at your dumb sleepover." Dom spat and started to walk to home.

Vince, Mia and I looked at each other and started to laugh, Dom was the biggest sore loser and that's why I always try so hard to beat him.

Vince left shortly after and went over to Dom's house. I grabbed Mia's arm and lead her up my porch and into my house. I opened the door and saw Elías sitting on the couch with a beer in his hand.

"Where's mom?"

"She went to the store to pick some things up for the party tomorrow."

"Well this is my friend Mia."

"Hi" Mia smiled and waved to him.

"Hey" He said and raised his beer at her.

I rolled my eyes and looked over at Mia who was staring at me.

"Don't worry about him Mi, come on I'll show you around."

"Okay" She smiled at me.

"Well this is the living room-" I said taking a few steps forward. "and in through here is the kitchen, then you take a right and you have the laundry room. " I walked over to the door and opened it slightly and Mia peeked in. "Then if you go back to the kitchen and go to the left you have the dining room, and that's basically it for downstairs besides a closet or two. Follow me upstairs and I'll show you my room."

I walked back through the kitchen and went to the stairs Mia followed close behind me. I think Elías scares her a little bit but I know he won't do anything to her.

"Well I'll show you my room last, okay. So first we have the bathroom which is basically mine because we hardly have any guess and my mom and Elías have their own."

"Lucky! I have to share a bathroom with my stupid brother."

"Yeah that must suck sharing with him. Anyways the room across the hall is the guestroom and the other room, well I don't know that room is my mom keeps the door locked. Then the room at the end of the Hall is my moms and Elías's bedroom and there's another bathroom that connects to their room." I showed Mia each room quickly and then we went to my room.

I opened the door and I walked in my room I dropped my school bag on the floor and went over and plopped down on my bed.

"What?" I asked Mia, who was still standing in my door way looking around at my room.

"Nothing I just wasn't.."

"You weren't what?"

"I just wasn't expecting your room to be so girly."

"Girly? It's not girly."

"No, I guess not. The car posters and the toy models kind of take the girlyness out of it. It's just I wasn't expecting you to have purple walls and blankets." She said walking over to my bed, putting her bag next to mine."

"I like the color purple, and it's a dark shade so it's not that girly." I laughed.

Mia started to walk around my room as she eyed all my posters and car models. When she got to my desk she started to look through the picture that I had been drawing, that I left there.

"These are good." Mia said as she looked carefully at each photo.

"Thanks" I smiled at her, still sitting on my bed.

"Did you draw all these cars?"

"Yup" I said taking pride in my work.

"They're really cool, my dad would love to see them."

"Yeah and then Dom would get even more jealous of me." I joked

Mia looked over at me and I laughed then she started laughing. She put the drawings down and started to go through the draws. I didn't care that she was going through my stuff because I had nothing of any importance in them.

When she was down going through my draws she came over and sat next to me on my bed. I looked at her and she seemed to be a little upset.

"What' wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Mia, come on, tell me."

"Fine, it's just I was hoping to find something a little personal."

"What? Why?" I laughed.

"Because Letty, I feel like we've been friends for a really long time and I barley know anything about you."

"Come on Mia you know tones of stuff about me."

"Yeah but nothing really personal and friend are supposed to share secrets and know everything about each other."

"Fine." I said hopping off my bed.

I pulled the rug in my room over to one side being sure to keep the blood stain covered by it and then I called Mia over to me.

"I'm going to show you something that I've never showed anyone before."

"Really" Mia asked excitedly

"Yup!" I smiled at her.

I slowly pulled up one of my floor board that I kept a bunch of important things in. I found that one of my floor boards came up when I was putting my new rug down a few months ago and since then I've been keeping everything important to me in it.

Mia smiled at me and reached into the hole in the floor, she pulled out a few scrap books and we started to look threw them together.

There were old pictures mostly from when I lived in Detroit and from when we first moved out here. I had pictures from my summer in Puerto Rico with my family and when I went to visit my dad in Detroit. Mia kept asking who everyone was and I told her most of them including my brother, the one I didn't tell her about was Tali and she didn't push for me to tell her.

When we were done looking through the scrapbooks Mia reached her hand in the hole and pulled out a wade of cash that I had been keeping in there, since Elías found my old hiding spot and took a huge chunk of cash from me to buy beer.

"Wow!" Mia said looking at the amount of cash.

"Yeah my dad sends me an allowance once a month and I've been saving for a while."

"How much is here?" She questioned flipping through the cash.

"I don't know around two thousand."

"That's a lot of money"

"Yeah"

She put the cash down and pulled an old stuff animal out of the hole.

"Cute." She laughed.

"It's special." I said taking it away from her.

"Why, did your parent get it for you when you were a baby, or something?"

"Or something" I said looking down at the stuff bunny in my hands.

Flashback

"Please Quincy, can we play that game!"

We were on the board walk having a day at the beach, just me, Quincy, and Tali. I had just turned six, Tali was three, and Quincy was sixteen, we were having the best day and we had walked past the same game at least three times and I really wanted to play it.

"Please Quincy, Please!"

"Okay, Okay we can play."

I gave him a huge hug and I grabbed Tali's hand and ran over to the game.

The objective of the game was to aim a water gun at a target and whoever blows up the balloon by hitting the target the longest wins. My balloon popped first and I picked the bunny as my prize. I think Quincy let me win but Tali had no chance.

"I won! I won!" I bragged

"Let don't be a sore winner!"

"I'm not, I just wanted to let both of you know that I won!"

"Well, we already knew that."

"Okay well I wanted to rub it in your face." I joked

"Alright what do you two want to do next?"

"I don't know what do you want to do Tali?"

"Tali what wrong?" Quincy asked looking at her tear stained face.

"I wanted to win."

"Sorry Tali, but I won." I said looking at her.

"But I want the stuff animal!" She cried.

I looked at my little sister's face and I gave in.

"Here Tali you can have the bunny."

She stopped crying and gave a huge hug.

I smiled at Quincy and he looked proud.

End of flash back

Tali loved that stuffed animal, she slept with it every night and after she died I went in her room and took it. It's the only thing that I have left of hers. I had more of Quincy's thing, nothing important, just a couple of his car posters and some old sweatshirts.

I must have gotten lost in my thoughts because Mia was going through the last thing that I kept in that hole. It was a small box that I had letters from my dad in along with some other little things.

"Can I read them?" Mia asked.

"I'd rather you not." I said not in a mean way but my voice was low because of the sad mood the bunny put me in.

"That's okay... What's this?"

"It's a Necklaces."

"Obviously." She laughed. "It's pretty, who gave it to you?"

"Thanks, and my brother gave it to me."

"Does it mean anything?"

"Well his dad gave it to him when he was like nine or ten, I don't really remember, but he gave it to me a few months before we moved away."

"Why did he not like it?"

"No he loved it, and he loved me, that' why he gave it to me. He said it was a symbol of love and he I was the person he loved the most to have it so he gave it to me." I smiled at the memory of when he told me that.

"Did you and your brother get along?" She asked putting down the necklaces.

"Yeah, he was my best friend."

"Then why did you guys move away from him?"

"I don't want to talk about it Mia!"

"You never do!"

"That's because it's hard for me and I just want to forget about it, so can you leave it alone, Please!"

"Okay fine."

"Alright then."

We sat in an awkward silence for a moment before Mia started to talk.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to push you."

"It's fine, and I'm sorry too. I didn't mean to snap at you it's just hard for me to talk about it."

"So when is your family going to get here?"

"Umm. My mom said that their plane gets in tomorrow at eleven in the morning so around noon probably."

"Is there a lot of people coming?"

"Yeah my dad's coming with Alaina, and David with Adriana, plus my mom's friend Teresa is coming with her daughter and then the rest of my family is coming out so aunts, uncles, cousins, and my grandparents."

"So a lot of people?"

"Yeah a lot of people." I laughed.

We hung out the rest of the day just talking and playing a few games outside like tag and basketball. Mia got along with my mom but she didn't say much to Elías. I think if my mom was a better influence I would have Mia over more because they're a lot alike, both like to dress up and do their hair and makeup. Maybe if Mia did stuff like that with my mom, I could get her off my back and Mia could fill that void of not having a mom. But I knew it wasn't a smart idea because I couldn't trust my mom with Mia, I don't think she'd hurt her but I didn't want to take that chance.