When I try to leave the house in the morning, go back to my long-neglected job, Ma's awake, which already stuns me. She's also sober, clutching her coffee cup like it's hair of the dog easing her out of a hangover, which is even more alarming. Her glowering at me, as she holds up her near-empty bottle of Shepard, Mary Valium, at least explains all of this. "Why did I find my pills under the bathroom sink?" she demands, her raggedy pink bathrobe doing nothing to take away from the quiet menace in her voice. "And why are there practically none of them left?"

"I have no idea," I say in a way I'm sure is real smooth and convincing, and try to slink closer to the back door at the same time, as her eyes follow every step of my path. "Are you sure you remember where you been puttin' them, how many you took?"

"Tim, just how stupid do you think I am, exactly?"

I don't think she wants me to answer that question honestly. "How d'you even know it was me?"

"I'm your mother," she snaps, like that explains everything, and should've gone without saying in the first place. "You can't just be takin' these," she adds before I can get another word in edgewise, shaking the bottle like it's the rattle on a snake, "do you understand me? You pop too many and then withdraw off them too fast, you'll die." She makes a bug-eyed face to emphasize her point, as though she's about to fall off her chair and have a seizure right on the kitchen floor. "I am not fuckin' around with you, Timothy Luis. Did you stop takin' them all at once? You need to taper the dosage."

Am I in the Twilight Zone right now? Is Rod Serling going to step into the frame to start lecturing me next? "I didn't know that," I say lamely, which is the truth. Been selling drugs one way or another since I was about twelve years old, and I never figured out that was a possibility.

"I guess you don't know everything after all, huh?" She takes an angry sip from her WORLD'S GREATEST MOM coffee mug (a gift that was, needless to say, from Curly); Lord, does she make me mad, so that makes two of us. Is she concerned about me, somewhere in that shriveled-up, sun-dried tomato heart of hers? Is she just pissed I was dipping into her supply, and wants to scare me out of doing it again? Some weird combination of both? "What were you even diggin' into them for?"

"Mind your business," I say— which I'm not entirely justified in, seeing as I've been taking the easy route stealing her pills rather than finding my own hook-up for them. I still don't need no lectures from a woman I remarked on being sober at eight in the morning, who's only getting out of losing her favorite child because he offered to leave on his own and spare her the embarrassment. I'm not so used to justifying myself to her, either, haven't had to since I left middle school and could just shove her, and any prying questions, aside.

"You was the worst baby imaginable," she says, her tone more bitter than anything she's drinking. "Thirty hour labor when I was seventeen, you ripped me clean in half on your way out. Then you had a case of colic whiskey couldn't cure. Chafed my nipples raw tryna nurse. Now you won't even answer the simplest question for me, when I catch you stealin' pills."

I don't even have close to the amount of self-control necessary to not shudder. "What are you tryna do, exactly, pretend you care about me as some kind of Hail Mary effort? I wanted to, is all there is to it." Wild horses couldn't drag the real story out of me, for her waiting ears. I'm not sure if she'd pass out or demand to know why I couldn't finish the job.

"Of course I care about you," she scoffs. "I care about all you kids, more's the pity for me."

The worst part of what she's saying is that she's telling the truth. Maybe that's why I decide to humor her, for once, let her in on the tiniest sliver of my life. "I didn't want to feel anything." I grip the edge of the table, a splinter starting to sink its way into my palm. "I needed to not feel anything."

Ma sticks her finger in her mouth and pops it like a cork; she rests the last pill left on her tongue, swallows it dry. Her eyes are a black hole. "Well, would you look at that, Tim. Guess we have somethin' in common after all."

When I was a sophomore, right before I dropped out, Will Rogers put on a production of Romeo and Juliet Bonnie dragged me to because her friend Regina was an understudy. I wish I could say that my own attempt at recreating the balcony scene went off as well as the one in that lousy play, except when I climb the trellis on the side of Gabi's house, covered in dead rose vines, all I've gotten so far for my efforts is a pair of torn-up hands from the thorns, and the belated knowledge that the roof sure looked a lot closer to the ground from there.

"Are you insane?" she hisses as I cling to the short stretch of roof beneath her window, rapping hard enough on the glass to wake her up. "Do you really enjoy situations where you could get yourself shot? This is Oklahoma, for Pete's sake, it ain't the best place to look like you're stagin' a burglary."

"You gonna make me jump back down, or what?"

She pulls me inside, though not very gently, as I try not to crash to the floor and get a face full of her daddy's rifle in the bargain. "Where's Ximena?" I ask, realizing that out of all the poor planning that went into this grand romantic gesture, forgetting Gabi shares a room with her kid sister is pretty close to the top of the list of fuck-ups.

"If only I knew," she says, jabbing her thumb at the bed across the room, which is stuffed full of pillows that don't look a thing like a sleeping person. Then she wraps her arms around herself. "Tim, what are you doing here?"

"I wanted to see you." She looks more vulnerable than usual, dressed in pajama shorts and a lace-trimmed camisole— I can't take my eyes off the wet curl of her hair around her ears and the nape of her neck, or the freckle peeking out on the inside of her thigh, right next to where the puckered bullet wound is. I want to go in for a kiss, almost move to cup the side of her face and breathe all of her back in, before I remember that we're supposed to be broken up and it probably won't go over so hot.

Christ, I'm more addicted to her than I ever got to the pills. And like any addict, I've lost more dignity than I ever thought I'd be willing to give up.

"That's nice and all, but I don't remember givin' you permission to break into my house," she says with a hard, indignant sniff as she sits back down on her bed. "And you're gettin' blood on my sheets."

She doesn't plan on making this easy on me, but it's not like I can say I'd deserve that— and if she really didn't want me here, she'd put up a hell of a lot more of a fuss about it than this. Her mouth says one thing, the way her knee instinctively turns towards mine, comes so close I can feel the heat radiating off her skin, says another thing altogether. "I'm serious, if Papi catches you in here, you're gonna have to make a running leap back out the window," she adds, like I haven't had her on that twin-sized mattress while her daddy was out. "I'm not supposed to have boys in my room with the door closed."

"Think that horse has long since fled the stable, between you and me—"

She shoves a pillow over her face, for a second, seems disappointed when I'm still there as she peels it away. "I'm still mad at you," she says, her voice flat, like she hasn't made that abundantly clear. "You really played me for a fool, and maybe some of that's my fault, but you don't get to just sneak into my room in the middle of the night after everything you've pulled, lookin' to score. I told you— I'm not that easy."

"That's not why— Gabi, I love you," I say, and the words come out in a confused sort of jumble, trying to prove I'm not just lookin' to score, but I mean them. "I can't stop thinkin' about you—"

"Do you now?" She sniffs again, sounds like she's getting over a bad head cold, though she might just be on the verge of tears. "No te creo," she adds with a cut-off laugh, "this is one hell of a time to suddenly come to that realization, all right. Are you sure it ain't oxytocin floodin' your brain? Some other delayed-onset sex hormone?"

"I ain't just tryna jerk you around!" Dally's line, that you're supposed to say it before you get a chick in the sack, springs to mind at the least opportune time. "I mean it, I'm fuckin' miserable without you, you can ask Curly if you want proof. I was smokin' grass in my room for a week and listening to godawful music, around the clock. Only Love Can Break a Heart, You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin', all sorts of shit like that."

She looks a little satisfied to hear that, but still not enough to soften towards me. "I'm not so desperate for a man, that I'm willin' to be treated any way you like," and she stares right at me as she says it. "I don't know what you thought you had all figured out about me after meeting Tenoch, but I left him, and you don't get to talk to me like that neither. You can go find another girl. God knows you're good at that."

Her words hit me like a sucker punch, both the implication that I might've sought her out because I thought she was an easy target, and the rising memory of what I did with Leigh-Ann. Almost did, anyway, didn't so much as progress to a damn fingerbang, and we were broken up… but still. "I'm sorry," I say, which is what I should've led with coming in here. "For everything… lyin' to you, keepin' secrets, bein' an asshole in general. I don't deserve you," I knew as much before her brother showed up to tell me, "but I still want you back."

She sighs, traces a figure-eight on her bedspread with her finger, around one of the drops of blood I got onto it. "How am I supposed to believe you, exactly, after everything that's happened between us?"

"Do you want me to get down on my knees? Will that prove I mean it?"

I actually do it, take 'not too proud to beg' to a whole different level. Her dark eyes glint like sun off the edge of a switchblade, as she looks at me again, and I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from grinning. Yeah, she might not mind. "This is a serious situation, Tim," she says, chewing on her bottom lip as it threatens to twitch free. "Dammit, no, I don't. Get up." She pats the spot next to her, firmly. "I love you, too, but it's not all about love, bein' with somebody. I can't trust you."

My heart's like a bird trapped inside my ribcage, beating its wings furiously against my sternum as it struggles to break free. Do or die, I say it now or I never will. "You want to know what happened to my cousin?"

"No," she says immediately, "no, Tim, you were right." I'm not as happy to hear that as I usually am. "I can't just go pryin' into every detail of your life story like I'm entitled to it. You don't have to tell me… it wasn't my business in the first place."

A healthy relationship is all about honesty pops into my mind, a headline from a Cosmo issue Bonnie shook in front of my face once during an argument— I almost laugh. What the hell. What have I really got to lose, at this point, except her. "It's not, but I'll tell you anyway."

She's crying, once I'm done, but trying not to, which somehow makes it even worse. "How old were you?"

"Thirteen." I rub the back of my neck, the short, prickly hairs there. I don't feel like crying too, more a lingering sense of awkwardness and shame, like I'm in one of those nightmares about showing up to school without your clothes on. Like I'm an insect with its carapace peeled off. "It's not as bad as I'm makin' it sound," I say, wanting to comfort her, a lie when I'm supposed to be telling the truth. It was a lot worse. "It happened a long time ago… I'm over it now." I'm not.

"Oh, God," and she doesn't even try to chastise herself for taking the Lord's name in vain. Her hand's pressed over her mouth like she'll spew vomit if she moves it aside. "Y'all were so young. Babies, practically."

"So that's why I can't kill people… I don't even like goin' on hunting trips or shootin' cans off the porch," I confess, dropping the nonchalant façade altogether. "One Fourth of July, some fireworks went off when I wasn't expecting them and I hid under the kitchen table like it was a bomb drill." At least now, the Sword of Damocles has already started its downward swing. I don't have to wait for it to happen any longer. "I get it, if it's all too much for you."

She worries her bottom lip between her teeth. "What do you mean?"

"All of… this." I wave my hand around, like the gesture can somehow encompass all of my fuckedupness in one fell swoop. "I'm kind of a loose cannon, in case you ain't figured it out yet. Damaged goods. You can find a lot of guys out there whose cousin's brains weren't blown out on them, y'know, doesn't take a whole lot of searching either."

"It wasn't your fault!"

"I know it wasn't," I say, though while I can make the words leave my mouth, I'm not so convinced of them myself. "Still my burden to carry around, though, and probably not one you want to be dealin' with." I can't help the next thing I say, hooked on the thrill of dusting off the— literal— skeletons in my closet. I'm starting to understand the appeal of going to Confession, of making someone else have to shoulder part of that burden. "My whole family's real screwed up— it's bad blood, all the way down. I mean, you met most of them, you can confirm as much. When my mama said I was fixin' to end up in an early grave like my daddy, she wasn't kidding. We've got a lot of early graves in the cemetery."

"I swear, the way you talk about how she says that, it's like you hope it'll come true."

I stiffen like I've been electrocuted enough to kill, eleven thousand volts pulsing through me, can't move or speak or think. She lays her hand on mine, runs her thumb over my scarred knuckles. "Weren't you supposed to be convincing me that we belong together? You're just sabotaging yourself at this point."

"What, hearin' the whole tragic story wasn't enough to guilt you into it?"

She laughs, before snapping herself back into seriousness like an elastic band snapping back into place. "I'm so sorry." Then she dips her head sharply to the side. "That sounds so shallow, I just don't know what else there is to say. After my mama died, I heard it all, she's in a better place now, Jesus called her home for a reason, you need to trust in God's plan, and I hated it. But there wasn't anything anyone could do to make it better— I wouldn't have wanted to hear it no matter what."

"No, no, it's fine." She's right: nothing is ever going to make it better. "I didn't… I don't expect anything, from you. Makes people real uncomfortable to hear about it— or liable to throw up— I try to keep it to myself, for the most part." I can't help the bleak sort of smile that splits my face. "You can hurt me now, see? Hell, I've given you a whole machine gun to do it with."

She's in my lap, after I say that, kisses my browbone and the bump on my septum. It's a little too much for me, the close contact making my skin tingle like it's being rubbed raw with sandpaper, but I breathe my way through it. "I didn't mean it that way," she hurries to say, and I know she didn't. "I'm glad you told me… that must've been so hard for you." She presses my hand up to her heart. "Your secret's safe with me," she says, with a Girl Scout's earnestness, and I love her. I really do.

"So can we give it another shot, do you think?" I try not to hold my breath, waiting for her answer.

Her resolve to give me a hard time's crumbled like a kicked sandcastle, I can tell by the way she's trying to build it back up, right before my eyes. "Okay," she finally says, and relief crests through me like a wave, "yeah, I've made you grovel enough. But—" she pokes a finger into my chest, affects a stern expression— "you need to trust me from now on, really let me in. I'm not that fragile. I think I can handle you."

"Yes, ma'am," I joke, and pull her into my arms, where she belongs. Distress, pain, fear, embarrassment— I braved all that just to open up to another human being. And I guess it was worth it.

I come back home to Curly packing his suitcase. Scratch that— unpacking his suitcase, by throwing wadded-up balls of flannels and underwear into his dresser drawers and then slamming them shut. He's knocked one of his posters off the wall. "Ain't you supposed to be at your daddy's place?" I ask, a little slow to get with the program; I simultaneously try to smooth down my messy hair and pull the collar of my shirt up over the hickey on my neck, avoid any awkward questions. "What are you doin' back here so soon?"

"Just leave me alone, okay?" He barely turns his head over his shoulder to look at me, which is when I realize that Hector probably wasn't so keen on the concrete realities of Curly dragging his cardboard suitcase up the steps of his house, putting his feet up on his kitchen table. He's trembling with angry energy, like a piece of machinery about to fly apart into individual cogs. "I ain't lookin' for an 'I told you so'."

I feel a little sick, that he figures I'd be quick to throw one in his face— but what have I ever done to prove otherwise? "What happened?"

"You was right." He shoots me a wavering mockery of a smile. "He just doesn't think this whole thing is workin' out for him anymore. He's got another baby on the way in July, this ain't such a great time to spring his secret bastard child on his wife. He doesn't want some mini-gangbanger teachin' his real kids how to hotwire cars and steal wine coolers from the liquor store. You need me to go on? Looks like I'm not even gonna be on his Christmas card list next holiday season."

"Curly—"

"Fuck off already!" He shoves me as I come closer to him, but doesn't even use enough force to make me stumble back more than a few steps. Then his whole face screws up, melts like candle wax under a flame, and he's dissolved into furious tears before I can blink twice.

I freeze for a moment, faced with his tempest; wonder if I should just listen to him, walk out of the room, and pretend I never heard or saw shit. Then I realize I'm acting more emotionally constipated than Luis, and that's all the motivation I need to pull him close; he sags into my arms and sobs into the front of my shirt, his body wracked with the force of it. I just let him cry. "It ain't so bad as that, baby," I say gently; it's proof of how far gone he is that he doesn't protest, when even 'hermanito' makes him twitch these days. "He's the one who had everythin' to lose."

"I'm sorry," he snuffles, all his defiance evaporated, "I should've just listened to you, I was so stupid this whole time—"

"Hey," I say, my voice firm now, "only I get to call you that— and you ain't stupid for expectin' your own daddy to give two shits about you, Cacho. What a goddamned fuckin' prick." I'm tempted to add 'arson' to my list of crimes, hearing all this. Maybe just his car.

I guess the bond between father and son's been irrevocably broken here, because he doesn't even try to spring to his defense, only burrows closer to me. "Yeah, I was, and I've been awful too," he insists unwisely between hiccups. "I said you were just my half-brother, and stole your dough to pay him off, kind of, and you didn't like him from the start and you was right, and I ain't even got nothin' to show for it now—"

"Lord, kid, you gonna give me the whole fucking rundown like I'm a priest in a confession booth? I was there, thanks." I soften the words by carding my hand through his hair; he's still trembling like a leaf about to fall off the branch. "I still love you, I reckon, though you can sure be a little shit when you wanna be." I make sure to add that last bit, to keep all this from getting too mushy. Don't want Curly to think I'm going as soft as week-old fruit on him.

He blows his nose on my shirt, and I try not to cringe. "Yeah?"

I roll my eyes over the top of his head. "I ever say somethin' I don't mean?"

"When I said you was like your old man… I didn't really mean that. You ain't so much like him at all."

It's the first time I've ever taken comfort in hearing that said out loud.

One chapter left after this :)