But I hold out my hand, stopping him.
I stare at the bag on the floor. Here comes another fight. I knew she was going to be a waste of time.
“Look at me,” she says.
And I hate wasting time.
“I said, look at me, hijo de tu puta madre.”
My heart skips a beat, but I do it.
Raising my eyes, I look at her. Her hood is off, her dark brown hair hanging down her back and over her chest where it spills out of the cap, and I see a trail of blood running down her neck. I falter. I didn’t notice that before.
There was blood on the mirror, though. It must be on her clothes.
She moves toward me slowly. “You need me, I don’t need you,” she states. “You have everything to lose, I have nothing. I’ll be in prison in two years anyway, right?” She cocks her head at me. “Or dead?”
“Or pregnant,” I add.
But I want the words back as soon as they’re out. I…
I close my mouth as Dylan shifts off to my left, the room so quiet I can hear the town clock chime through the cement walls, one level up, and two blocks south.
She doesn’t say anything, only tips her chin higher as she holds my eyes, but I want to look anywhere but at her. “I didn’t mean that,” I murmur.
“No, no…” She stops me. “Stick to the narrative. It makes all of this so much easier.”
I narrow my eyes, tearing them away. I’m not letting her turn this around on me. Poverty is no excuse to do the things she or any of her pals do. She can make her own opportunity. My dad did.
“Open the door,” she says again.
I hold still.
Now she shouts. “Open the door!”
And I do it. Fuck it. I pick out my phone, tap in the code, and I hear the locks release.
Pivoting on her heel, she makes her way toward the door, but I hear her boots halt. She turns her head to look at me. “My name is Aro Marquez,” she says.
I meet her eyes.
“Aro Teresa Marquez,” she tells me. “And you may not remember me years from now, and maybe no one will think of me and no one will want to, but I was fucking here.”
I freeze.
She holds my eyes for a moment, and then…she leaves, disappearing through the door.
The others turn their eyes on me, and a few moments later, I hear a ceiling door slam shut.
“Hawke…” Dylan whispers. “What the hell?”
I don’t look at her, the scold in my cousin’s voice shaming me enough.
Aro
The excess water hangs at the corner of my eye—I feel it wet my skin—but I blink two more times, slow and calm, and it’s gone. Staring up, through the steel of the fire escape over my head, I find Vega. From it, I trace a straight line and locate Arcturus. The two brightest stars tonight.
I expand my gaze, taking in both, as well as the other glowing point in the sky, Mars. We can see it every night until next Monday when its orbit takes it out of view again.
I picture the dunes and the rocks I’ve seen in pictures, the vastness and silence, and even though I’ll never view the planet any closer than this, it’s the most beautiful thing I’ll ever see. It reminds me that I don’t matter. Not really. It’s been spinning for billions of years, and we’ve been spinning for billions of years—millions of me’s have come and gone. Nothing I do makes any difference.
Seems depressing, but it’s really not. It lightens the load to know all I have to worry about is what I’m eating next and where today takes me.
I blink again, making sure the tears are gone, and push off the wall of the alleyway outside Frosted. I can’t remember the last time I dropped a tear, but I just came closer than I have in a long time.
His haircut, the smell of his clothes, how they were cut just a little bit better than other guys’ to fit him in a way that you could tell why designers get away with charging sixty dollars for a fucking T-shirt…
I barely know what any of that stuff in the surveillance room is or how to work it. He’s smart. And he speaks like he’s never not been the center of attention.
He has people and college and cash in his wallet. He knows he’s important. Why does it bug me so much? I know what they’re like. They can’t hurt me. Why did I feel so small in there?
I had to get out.
I pull up my hood and stick my hands in my pockets, rounding the corner and jogging down the alleyway between Rivertown and a hardware store. I swing over to the dumpster, kicking away some boxes and crates to make sure Tommy isn’t still hiding there.