PART 1: (Dante)
"You hid under the table," she said each word like a lesson to be learned, arms crossed, foot tapping on the floor. I slid down on the couch, feeling smaller by the second. "This is insanity."
"We need to tell his parents," Dad said. "Did you see how drunk he was?"
"Just let it go, both of you please."
"How can we let it go? What if you see him somewhere else and we're not there to stop him? What's going to happen then, Dante?"
I thought about it. Would Ari come at me like he did at his house? I wasn't scared. My brain must be malfunctioning, I must really have some issues because the thought actually made me feel good instead of bad. It meant he cared, right? In a crazy way, but still. "Nothing is going to happen, he has a girlfriend-"
"Well his little girlfriend did nothing to stop him from coming last night," Mom interrupted. "I'm going to go talk to his parents. I'm sorry, but I don't want him anywhere near this house."
She picked her purse up from the table, she was already late for work, "Mom!" I didn't look her way when I told her, didn't try to convince her with sympathy, I wanted her to understand with facts. Who cared if I had hidden like a child, I wanted her to hear me out like an almost-adult, "I love him. So please..."
She swallowed hard, took a deep breath shaking her head like someone completely defeated, and then with all the grace in the world swang her purse over her shoulder, "I'll let it go just this once, Dante, just this once. I know you don't want him to get in any more trouble, but this is it. No more, do you understand?"
"Yes, mom."
"Ok then," she leaned over to kiss my forehead, "I'm leaving. See you after work, I love you."
"I love you too."
Dad just looked at me, I tired to ignore him. "So," he said. "Going to school?"
"No, Dad. I am going to skip and walk around with all my friends, and do drugs."
He chuckled, but the smile quickly went away. He looked tired, I don't think he got many hours of sleep. Worrying about me of course he couldn't rest well, "Maybe you should talk to him. He looked miserable last night, and so do you."
I knew I did, but it was harsh hearing it anyways. "I'm with Daniel, and he's with her."
"Yet you both are still in love with each other... teenagers are strange."
PART 2: (Ari)
"I have nothing to wear! What am I going to do?" Tere threw the two dresses she had in her hands to the ground, adding more to the mess of clothes that were already all over her closet, bed, and floor. I sat in the middle of it all, confused more than anything. I had never seen a girl in her natural habitat until I dated her, and there were just too many questions. Why couldn't she just put on something clean and presentable? Something that matched, she had lots of those. Something simple. A sweater, it was super cold anyways. Yet she had attack half her closet, picked up and thrown and picked up again, missed and matched, and still she claimed she had nothing. I had never seen anything like it. She had been going at it for at least an hour.
"You have lots of pretty clothes," I told her, sipping on my second beer. I was on school break, and didn't have work until the afternoon, so I was having a few early. They relaxed me like nothing else.
She sighed loudly, "Ok," she said. "What do you want to see me wearing?"
I smiled handing her her beer, "A bathing suit?"
She giggled sipping from it, "I'm being serious!"
"So am I."
"Ari," she walked over and kissed me, then she set her beer down, turned around, and went back to her closet. After another long while she was finally down to two items, then she tossed one aside. "I'll wear this and my leggings. What do you think?"
It was a small black dress with a few rhinestones at the shoulders and neck, it was pretty. I imagined her wearing it and she looked nice. "You're gonna look even more beautiful, if that is even possible."
She laughed, took the beer from my hand and placed it on the floor, then threw herself on me. I let myself fall back on the bed as she straddled me. "Guess what?" She asked.
"What?"
"I have a surprise. I wasn't going to tell you until I was completely sure but I talked to The Principle yesterday and..."
"And?" I asked, tickling her sides until she spit it out.
"And I got accepted into the GED program! I start my classes January fifth!"
I sat up on the bed, "That is great, Tere!"
She jumped up and down a little, and I hugged her tight. She had dropped out of school when she was sixteen, and three years later had finally decided to go back. I had talked to her about it, but she hadn't really mentioned much. Her father was a no show, her mother was happy to just have her at home instead of in the streets, so she never pushed her much to do anything. It's not like she was a bum, she worked full time at a clothing store, but I wanted her to do better. I knew she could, and when she talked about why she had dropped out, I'd noticed her saddened, so when I had the opportunity I would encourage her to go back. And who would have thought that it actually worked. Maybe the only thing some people need is a little push.
"I'm going to get my GED, and then apply at the community college. I've made a lot of mistakes, but I'm only nineteen, and I have minor things, but not a felony, so I can still turn my life around." She caressed my face with her hands, "It's all because of you, you're changing my life for the better. I'd never meet anyone that actually cared about my future. I love you so much Ari. You've shown me that life can be different."
Her eyes watered, "No, no, no. Don't cry-"
I held her close. I didn't love her, I knew that, but I cared for her. I wanted to protect her and see her happy. She was like a really close friend, and as such, I had to take care of her. She kissed me the way she always did, mouth completely open, tongue meeting mine by our lips. I liked kissing her, and driven by the moment we had just shared, that one particular kiss felt so real, so powerful, but still it was not him. Nothing like it felt with him.
He was a whole different story from the moment I met him. He was different. The effect he had on me was different. I mean, he made me like a guy, that was a big thing. When I kissed him, the world turned off, there was nothing else that existed, if someone were to ask my name I wouldn't have known it. And I wanted to always keep kissing him, I didn't want it to stop. I wanted more. I had no control, none at all, he always had all the power, that's why I hated him... I hated him and I still loved him with all my heart.
It had been three weeks since I went to his house. Three weeks I had tried my best to not think of him, to take care of Tere and try to make things work with her, he was with Daniel after all. He wasn't waiting around, so I could at least try something with someone, and who was better than Tere? No one. She was pretty, sweet, she made me feel special, wanted. She was everything I could ever ask for, everything could be perfect. My mind was set in falling in love with her, in forgetting him. I just had to get him out of my system so everything could be ok. I had to forget him.
She kissed me deeper, rubbing herself on me the way I liked, and we rolled around her bed drinking beer and making out until I had to go to work.
PART 3: (Ari)
We're Mexican, so we celebrate the 24th, on Christmas Eve. Tere and her mom came over to my house. They had no relatives in town, so my family was glad to have them over. My sisters showed up in the afternoon: them, their husbands, and all the kids. We ate tamales, listened to music, they danced a little. Tere really liked dancing. She wore the dress she had picked the day before and looked amazing. Everything was perfect, at least for someone from the outside looking it. We were a family with a mother and father, daughters and inlaws, a son and his hot girlfriend. No one would suspect my older brother was in prison, or that I was really in love with a guy.
My sisters where enchanted by Tere, which wasn't all that surprising, Tere was a people's person. They wanted to do everything with her. They invited her to barbecues and dinners, to watch movies, it was weird. I guess they were just exited that I actually had someone. I had never had a girl over before. Mom and Dad talked to her mom, they seemed to get along well, they weren't planning on bowling or hanging out like with his parents, but it would get there, maybe. It really didn't matter.
Tere put on a tape by Selena. She was a Mexican-America singer that was getting popular real quick, she was all the hype in fastivales.
"Vamos a bailar," she told me.
"No way!" I said.
"Ay, c'mon!" My sister said, "no seas amargado!"
I kind of did know how to dance cumbia, not the twisting and turning and all that extra bullshit, but I could keep up with the basic right-right, left-left. Mom had taught me when I was little and still to naive to refuse her dance invitations, and for once I was glad about it.
"C'mon," Tere pulled me by the arm. I got up from the couch without wanting to, but the fourth beer was already kicking in, and I was a little loose. We danced a few songs, she knew them all by memory and was singing along the whole time. I would ask for breaks to take a chug out of my beer, the courage was needed with my sisters, and my mom and dad looking at us, clapping and encouraging us to keep dancing. And just when everything was going fine, there was a knock on the door.
I got this nasty feeling in my stomach, and I knew it wasn't the beer because I was barely on my sixth one.
Mom answered the door. All around me everything remained the same, Tere hugged me, my sisters where talking among themselves, but I could hear the voice that would change my night completely. I couldn't lie to myself, I was hoping they would show up.
"Merry Christmas, Lilly."
"Merry Christmas, Soledad"
Dad rushed to the door, that's when the room actually noticed there was someone there.
"Hey!" I heard Mr. Quintana cheer loudly, then I heard the sound of two people hugging, it must have been him and my Dad. From where I was standing I couldn't see them, they were still outside the house. A big part of me wanted to take a look, but I held my ground. Was Dante here?
"We came to bring you this, and this." Said Mrs. Quintana.
"Oh, thank you. But we haven't wrapped yours yet. Let me go do that right now."
"No! No! It's fine, don't worry about it. We're just passing by."
"Ok then, I'll take them over tomorrow, and I'll put these under the tree. And what is this?"
"Cochinita pibil."
"We haven't had this in a long time."
"Hope you like it."
"Thank you, Chole." Mom went to the kitchen and put a plate of food down, then passed by me and placed three perfectly wrapped gifts under our Christmas tree. One of them was for me. I remembered him, the person I had tried so hard no to think about, and my chest boiled. Mom looked at me, she must have noticed my feelings, she always did.
I followed her back to the door, heart ponding against my chest but he wasn't there, only his mother and father.
"Merry Christmas, Ari," Mrs. Quintana said. Her belly was showing and her face was glowing with the radiancy of pregnancy. I didn't remember her looking that big three weeks before, but then again I was so drunk I didn't remember much about that night.
"Merry Christmas," I replied.
"You have a full house," Mr. Quintana spoke.
"Yes," Mom replied, and I internally begged for her not to name everyone, but she did. "My daughters, their families, and Tere and her mom."
"Oh," was all Mr. Quintana said, then there was an awkward silence. "Well, we better get going. I don't like leaving Dante alone in the house."
"He's alone?" I asked, without thinking.
"He's with Daniel, so we better hurry back."
"Wait," Mom said. "Let me bring you some tamales." She hurried to the kitchen, while we waited by the door.
"How is he?" I asked.
"How do you think?" Mrs. Quintana replied, not with anger, but not happy either.
I took a few steps outside, away from the music and other ears, "I guess he's fine sense he's with Daniel."
"Just how you're perfectly fine?"
That was like a slap to my useless pride, I felt so stupid, "I want to see him, get Daniel out of the house-"
"What's bothering you, Ari?" Mr. Quintana interrupted. "Is it that you miss Dante, or is it that he's seeing Daniel? You always lose control at the minor mention of him that sometimes I think it's not that you miss Dante, but that you hate him."
"I do hate him! And I don't understand why you don't!"
"I have many reasons to not like that boy, but right now he is helping Dante. So he can be at the house all he wants."
"Helping him how?"
"To forget about you."
My body froze, just like I'd been trying to forget him, he'd been trying to forget about me. What if he succeeded? What if he fell in love with him, what was I going to do?
"No," I said.
"No?" Mrs. Quintana questioned. "No, what?"
I stormed away and was about to go back inside the house when Mrs. Quintana called me back, so I returned. "What game are you both playing, Ari? I see my son, at seventeen years of age, whithering away for a boy who said he loved him. Who almost died for him at one point and now is in a relationship with someone else. What are you thinking?"
"He's with someone else too!"
"Don't you see? He's trying to forget you, meaning he hasn't yet. Have you?"
It was cold outside, and the freezing air of December hit my face like a good slap from the earth. Like the world itself was tired of our bullshit and had had enough.
I shook my head.
"Then stop playing "who hits the hardest." One of you has to give and end this already before it's to late."
"Do you think he could fall in love with him?"
"The question is, could you stand it if he did?"
"I love him, Mrs. Quintana. I don't know what is going on, but I love him." Mom and Dad where outside with us and I hadn't even noticed. The door to the house was closed. Mom handed Mrs. Quintana tamales wrapped in aluminum foil.
"Maybe tomorrow," Mrs. Quintana said, "You could drop off the gifts around, let's say, ten-thirty? Maybe, we'll have to be somewhere else, and maybe Dante will be alone in the house, for maybe a few minutes." I looked up at her, all the stars seemed to lighten up in me. "But," she continued. "We won't be that far away. So no fighting, Ari."
"Of course not."
"I am trusting you though everything that's happened tells me not to."
"I understand. Thank you so much."
"Don't thank me," she said very serious. "I'll make sure Daniel isn't there either. I can't stand that boy being in my house anyway, so it won't be a big deal if I kick him out for a bit." She tugged her hair behind her ear and tinny little diamonds shined against her earlobe. "Well then," she told her husband. "Oh, and Ari. Don't you dare show up drunk."
"Of course not ma'am." Yes, I called her ma'am, she was intimidating.
"Not even the way you are right now is acceptable. Nothing at all, do you understand?"
"Understood."
She nodded her head, I think convincing herself more than anyone else, "Alright then."
PART 4: (Ari)
We all went back inside. Back to the food, and the music, and the smiles. One of my sisters was playing with Tere's hair, in the way best friends do. I sat across from them.
"Who was it?" Asked my sister.
"Friends," I said.
"I know that, but what friends?"
"The Quintanas," yelled my mom from across the living room.
"Oh," my sister said. "They boy you saved his life?"
"What?" Asked Tere.
"Yes, he threw himself in front of a car to push Dante out of the way-"
"Shut up already! Don't talk about it!" I yelled so loud getting up from the couch that everyone turned to me.
"Alright, calm down. I didn't mean anything bad by it," my sister said.
"Ari, could you come for a bit," Father called, and I walked across to the kitchen. I don't know what would have happened if I would have stayed there.
"Don't," Dad said. "That is the exact reason why things are going bad for you."
"I know dad, I just..." I took several deep breathes, opened and closed my fists against the kitchen table. "I can't control it. It get's me angry."
"It gets you angry that you saved his life?"
"No. I know it's stupid, but it gets me angry when other people talk about him like they know him."
Dad looked worried, I was at a level of jealousy over one billion. "Maybe some counseling-"
"Dad, not right now, please."
"I'm just saying, you haven't even given it a try and you're already saying it doesn't work."
"Why don't you go to counseling then, if it works so much?"
"If you want me to, I'll go with you. It could be like a family thing. I know I have many monsters to deal with too." I was shocked, not only that he said that, but that he said that to me. "How is that letter coming along, the one you were writing to your brother?"
"I sent it off three days ago. I wanted him to get it by tomorrow, but who knows if he will. There's no mail."
My dad patted my back, and then hugged me. "You're a good kid, son."
I patted his back too, but said nothing back.
TBC...