by JB Salsbury
I ticked off the things I know about her: her obsession with religious symbols like angels and the Virgin Mary, also her unease in large crowds. She doesn’t seem freaked out by men or by being touched. After all, she’s the one who moved on me first, so what was it? Maybe she was part of some religious cult raised on the Kool-Aid of some sick bastard claiming to be God.
I planned on asking her about it this morning on our ride to school, because her time stuck in my car seems the best opportunity I have to get her to talk, but Laura and she were gone early for some kind of psychiatric appointment.
“Hey, Milo,” Carrie purrs before sliding her arm around my waist from behind.
I try not to roll my eyes—ugh, my head—and turn to face her. “Hey.”
Amber is standing right beside her, so I give her a quick nod.
“I hope you’re ready for our math test.” She winks at me, and Amber giggles. “You know, after all the studying we did last night.”
What the hell is that supposed to mean? We actually did study—I mean, for the hour or so she was there.
I step out of her hold to slide on my backpack and close my locker. “I think I’ll do all right.”
Something familiar catches my eye just over Carrie’s head.
“I had the best idea for . . .”
Carrie goes on and on, but I hear nothing as I focus on a flash of white hair moving through the crowd of high school kids.
It’s Mercy.
She’s not wearing her sweatshirt today, and she seems almost a foot taller as she moves through groups of people with her head held high.
“Chale . . .” She’s doing it. Mercy took my advice and is walking the halls of Washington High as though she owns the place.
People still stare, but she acts as though she doesn’t notice.
“Hellooo . . . Milo?” Carrie waves a hand in front of my face. “Earth to Milo.”
I look at her for a second. “Yeah, sounds good.” Then I go back to watching Mercy.
Carrie stops talking, thank God, and—“Mercy!” She flaps her arms. “Hey, Mercy! Over here!”
I bite back the growl that rips up my throat.
Mercy squints, and I wonder if Laura ever considered getting the girl some glasses. Another thing to ask about. She seems genuinely shocked as she moves closer. Mercy blinks and looks around to make sure she’s the object of Carrie’s obnoxious attention, then she closes in the rest of the way.
“Mercy, come here. I want you to meet Amber.”
Carrie does the introductions, but I notice Amber doesn’t lift her hands from the death grip she has on her books, and her eyes are so big they look like they might fall out of her face.
“Hi, Amber,” Mercy says.
When the girl doesn’t respond, Mercy’s pale, ghostly eyes dart up to me, and I can’t help but smile. I’m so damn proud of her I can’t stand it. Our gazes tangle, and her lips tilt up in the tiniest grin. I don’t know why, but it almost feels apologetic, not that she has anything to be sorry for. In those few seconds of our shared glance, the entire imbalance I felt after our moment last night dissolves.
“You know what, Mercy?” Carrie says, getting my attention as I hope what she’s about to say doesn’t piss me off. “You should come with us tomorrow. I think your wardrobe is in dire need of an upgrade.”
Yep, she’s pissing me off. “Carrie—”
“Come on, it’ll be fun. Come with us to the mall tomorrow.” Carrie hooks her arm in mine, but she’s looking at Mercy.
So I’m the us?
“I’m not going to the mall,” I growl, hating that she clearly didn’t hear me the first time we had this conversation.
“But . . .” Carrie sticks out that lower lip, the same one I used to want to taste and now know better. “You just said you’d go.”
“No, I didn’t.”
She rolls her eyes. “Yes, you did. I said we were going to the mall tomorrow, do you want to come? And you said, ‘Yeah, sounds good.’”
This is what I get for not paying attention.
“I can’t. I . . .” have to work, need to study for a test, would rather get anal-beaded by Edward Scissorhands.
“Oh, well if you can’t go, we’ll make it a girls’ thing.” She slides to Mercy’s side and hooks her tanned arm with Ghostgirl’s pale one. “Right, Mercy?”
She glares at where Carrie’s touching her and leans away slightly, but Carrie doesn’t notice. Or she doesn’t care.
“It’ll be so much fun. Say yes. You’re coming.”
Mercy continues to study the hold on her arm, and even though she’s in a long-sleeved shirt, their closeness makes their color difference glaringly obvious. Mercy seems to notice it too as she stares between Carrie and herself. “Yes, I’m coming.”
Carrie squeals and claps her hands. “Makeover!”
I shake my head and imagine them dressing Mercy up like a teenage hooker. I don’t know Carrie well enough to trust her alone with someone as fragile as Mercy. I wouldn’t think she’d do anything purposefully hurtful, but I’m picking up on some not-so-friendly vibes when it comes to Carrie’s feelings about Güera.
“I think it’s best you won’t be there, Milo.” Carrie shrugs, but something about it feels off—like when she swore she needed help studying for our math test. She’s playing me. “We don’t want a guy there to ruin our girls’—”
“I’ll go.” Well played. Something tells me daddy’s little rich girl mastered the art of manipulation when she was still in diapers.
She perks up immediately. “Awesome! I’ll pick you up—”
“Mercy and I will meet you there.” See? I can play games too.
“Okay, then you can pick us up then too.” Carrie props one hand on her hip, challenging me to turn her down.
“It’s out of the way.”
She recoils a bit from my rejection, but she’ll get over it. I let her play me once. It won’t happen again. I don’t care how hot she is.
“Come on, Mercy.” I want to reach out and grab her hand to lead her away, but after last night, I shove my hands in my pockets instead. “I’ll walk you to class.”
Carrie’s eyes narrow to slits.
I attempt a smile. “I’ll see you in class.”
We walk away, and I can feel Carrie glaring at my back, but that’s quickly forgotten when I notice Mercy walking tall beside me.
“You’re working it, Güera.” I try to smother my grin, but when she looks up at me and grins back, it’s impossible to hide. “Good for you.”
“Thank you.” She looks around then back to me. “I think they’re getting used to me.”
“Yeah, I think they are.” Ms. Murphy’s classroom is just ahead. I scratch my jaw. “Listen, about last night.”
She stops and turns toward me with wide, expectant eyes.
“I’m sorry I scared you.”
“You didn’t scare me.”
“Oh, I . . . Are you sure? Because . . .” I chuckle, feeling dumb that I might have misread her reaction. “You seemed pretty freaked out.”
“What you said . . .”
“I want you.”
Right after I said it, she looked as though I’d just kicked a puppy. The words tumble through my head, and my face gets hot, but she doesn’t call me out on my embarrassment.
“It reminded me of something.” With a furrowed brow, she bites her lips together. “Of a time when I was very scared.” She shifts her weight. “You don’t scare me, Milo. So it is I who owe you an apology.”
She could’ve kept talking, the earth could’ve ended, and unicorns could’ve danced across the halls of Washington High, but I wouldn’t have noticed any of it, because all I can think about is someone scaring her by telling her, “I want you.”
I can gather a few translations, and not a single one of them is good. My hands shake, and—
“I’ve upset you,” she says.
Those three words cut through the haze of rage brewing in my head. She loo
ks up at me, her eyes glossy, and dammit, I do not want to make her cry.
“No, no . . .” I shake my head. “Not at all. I was just . . .” I clear my throat, hoping to dissolve some of the psychotic intent to kill from my voice. “Grateful I didn’t scare you.” I smile, and she must buy it because she smiles back. “This is the most I’ve ever heard you talk.”
“It’s getting easier to talk around you.”
I hike my backpack higher on my shoulder, suddenly feeling half my age. “Hey, do you need a ride home after school?”
“No, Ms. Murphy—”
“Right.” I run a hand through my hair. “But I don’t have to work, and me and the boys were gonna grab something to eat. Would you want to come with? I can call Laura, and she’ll let Ms. Murphy know.”
“Okay, but . . .” Her expression sobers. “Don’t we eat dinner at home?”
“We can, ya know, if you’re not interested in eating the best tamales north of the border.”
Those snowy eyebrows pinch together in the cutest way. “What is tamales?”
I laugh and hook her around the shoulder to guide her the last few feet to her classroom. “You have much to learn, Güera. Stick with me, and I’ll teach you everything you need to know.” Dammit, that felt a lot like flirting.
However, Mercy just grins and looks up at me with the most trusting eyes. “Okay, Milo. I’ll stick with you.”
Why do I feel that in my chest?
“DID YOU GET me barbacoa?” Julian reaches for the tray of food before I’m even able to set it down on the table.
“Easy, ʼmanito.” I hand him his plate as his brown eyes get even bigger. “It’s been a while since we’ve been here.” I explain Julian’s impatience to Mercy, who is sitting at the seat across from me, looking mildly curious about the food from the safety of her hooded sweatshirt. I frown when I remember how quickly she scrambled to put it on the minute we pulled into the taco shop’s parking lot.
“Miguel.” I put his cheese-enchilada combo in front of him and motion for him to take off his headphones. “Not while we eat.”
He rolls his eyes and slides them down around his neck then bends over his plate.
Laura seemed excited when I called her to let her in on our after-school plans. I think she’s always wanted Mercy to tag along to school with us but wanted to wait for me to offer. She’s cool like that.
“This, Güera, is a tamale.” Her eyes stay glued to the plate as I set it before her. “It’s a little spicy but nothing you can’t handle.”
“Spicy?” She picks up her plastic fork and pokes at it as though she’s not sure where to start.
“You’ll be fine.” I set down my own combo plate and crack open the five extra-hot sauces I requested.
Julian perks up in his seat and stares across the street to a yard surrounded by an old chain-link fence. “I wonder if Mr. Manuel still has that big dog.”
Mercy follows his gaze then looks to me for an explanation.
“We grew up right around the corner.” I nod down the street in the direction of our old house. As far as I know, my dad still owns it even though he’s been hiding out south of the border for the last three-plus years.
Mercy turns around and stares. “It’s nice.” Then she goes back to her food while Jules, Miguel, and I all share a look before busting out laughing. She looks confused. “What?”
“Nice?” Miguel’s grinning, and it’s been a long time since I’ve seen him smile. “This place is a shithole.”
Julian giggles. Curse words aren’t new to him, but living with Laura and Chris, he hears them a lot less than he used to.
“He’s right, Güera. We’re in Harvard Park. Great food, but the neighborhood’s a dump.” Drug deals, robbery, shootings—that all goes down here.
Her cheeks grow pink, and she dips her chin, but I catch the hint of her smile. “I like it. At least it’s open.”
Miguel’s eyes dart to mine.
I shrug because I don’t know what she means either. “Openly shitty.”
Julian chuckles again, this time through a cheekful of food. “I liked living here.”
“Jules, you were a baby. You don’t remember living here.” Miguel sips from his bottle of Mexican Coke.
“Do too.”
The boys argue back and forth, but I can’t stop looking at Mercy, as she seems to be studying every detail of their interaction.
“What about you?”
Her eyes snap to mine. “Me?”
“Yeah, where did you grow up?”
She shifts in her seat, her gaze going from the still-arguing boys back to me, to her plate, then to me again. “I don’t know.”
My eyes widen in shock. “How do you not know where you grew up?”
She pushes her tamale around on the Styrofoam plate.
“Here, let me show you.” I pick at the edges of the cornhusk. “Don’t eat this. It’s just the wrapping. Eat this part.” I motion to the cornmeal and spicy-beef heaven inside. “It’s like a Christmas present. The good stuff is on the inside.”
“Oh, right.” Her head tilts.
I have to check myself to make sure I wasn’t speaking Spanish, because she seems to have no clue what I’m saying. Weird that someone so dedicated to religious figures wouldn’t understand a Christmas-present analogy.
“You were saying?” I ask.
She shakes her head while building a bite on her fork. “I was . . . protected.”
“Sheltered.” That doesn’t surprise me. A woman like Mercy calls to my primitive male. Something about her innocence and her pale skin makes me want to keep her safe, keep her clean. I’m sure her parents felt the same way. Maybe they took it to the extreme and locked her away. Why else would she end up in foster care?
“I don’t know where I grew up because no one ever told me.”
“Did you ask?”
Only now do I realize Miguel and Jules have fallen silent beside us, listening to our conversation. I try to act casual by taking a bite of my food, but it has no appeal as I hang on for Mercy’s next words.
“No.” Her crystal-blue eyes settle firmly on mine.
“No.”
She shakes her head.
“Why not?”
“It never seemed important, I guess.” She pops a forkful of food in her mouth and chews.
“Mercy, you were sheltered to the point that you didn’t even know where you were living?”
Her eyes grow wide, and her lips part.
My blood heats when I imagine what was done to her. “What did they do? Keep you in a cage?” I’ve seen the stories on TV. I know it happens.
She huffs a few times and fans her gaping mouth.
“Your parents never once told you—”
“Hot.” It’s barely a squeak. “My mouth.” She reaches for her water.
“Oh crap.” I snag the bottle from her hands and hand her the single-serving carton of milk I got for just this situation. “Drink this instead.”
She puts it to her mouth and guzzles it. When she pulls the carton away from her lips, she has the cutest milk ʼstache that matches the color of her skin. “It burns.”
“Was it really that hot?” Julian says with a full mouth.
“Yes.” She licks her lips, and her tongue is the prettiest pink against her pale lips.
“Güera,” Miguel says while he laughs.
“It’s all right. It might take some time to break in those gringa taste buds.” I wink at her.
Again, the lightest tinge of color rises to her cheeks. “Is this type of food always this hot?”
“This is nothing, Mercy.” Julian forks a piece of her tamale into his mouth, chewing and swallowing without so much as a cringe. “Maybe we should change your name to Wussy.”
And then it happens. Out of the blue, as subtle as a feather dropping to the ground, yet as striking as a lightning blast.
Mercy laughs.
The sound is like nothing I’ve ever heard before, a mix betwee
n a small bell and breath.
She must notice the boys and me staring at her completely captivated, because she clears her throat. “Sorry.”
“Never apologize for that.” Why am I whispering? I blink out of a haze and hand Mercy a small tinfoil roll of warm flour tortillas. “Here, you should be able to handle this okay.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t get used to it. You’ll have to get accustomed to the spicy stuff if you plan on sticking around SoCal.” I fork a big bite of enchilada into my mouth and practically groan at how good it tastes. Laura’s a great woman, but she only cooks gringo food. We try to get authentic Mexican as often as we can.
We continue to eat, and as time passes, the place fills with people out for an early dinner. With Mercy’s sweatshirt on and her hoodie up, we look like four guys grabbing a meal, from a distance. People don’t stare, and as much as I hate that she has to hide, I’m grateful for her sake that she’s blending in.
“You guys want to drive through the olʼ hood before we head back?” I gather empty plates and dirty napkins as both Miguel and Julian nod in agreement. “Cool, if you need to go—”
“Aguas! The prince has returned.”
The words are heavy with a thick Hispanic accent, and my breath freezes in my lungs as a string of foul curse words fires off in my head.
I turn to see my cousin Sebastian with Omar, the Latino Saints VP, strutting through tables to get to ours. My muscles tense, and all my senses kick to high alert.
“Primo ‘Bastian!” Julian jumps up from his seat and darts toward the gangsters as they move forward.
Sebastian catches Jules as he throws himself at his cousin. “’Sup, li’l jefe?”
I recoil at Bastian’s nickname for Julian. He is not and will never get sucked into the LS. He’s too smart, too damn talented to throw away his youth the way I did.
Bastian’s gaze zeroes in on mine and narrows. “Cuz.” He’s bigger than he was before he went to prison. His once-round belly is now flat, and he looks as though he’s carrying fifty extra pounds of muscle.