by JB Salsbury
I’m reminded of that old song they used to sing in church: “I once was blind, but now I see.” I see Mercy and know I’m never going to let her go.
Since prom, we’ve spent every day together. During mornings on our way to school, I introduce her to my favorite bands. At school, I sit with her at lunch and speed through my jobs in the afternoon to get home and spend more time with her. Whether she comes out to my place to simply sit and listen to music or read while I cram for finals or I go into the main house to flop on the couch and watch TV, we’ve been inseparable.
Laura has come to terms with the fact that she can’t keep Mercy and me apart, so she’s backed off a little. I don’t miss the warning glares she sends when she sees my hand on Mercy’s while we’re watching a movie or how she frowns when she catches us teasing each other in the kitchen. I get that she’s worried, but the age difference isn’t enough to keep us apart, especially when her birthday is in a few months—not her real birthday, but the one-year anniversary of when she was dumped like garbage in the middle of the desert. She’ll be legally eighteen on paper, then nothing will keep us apart.
“Aren’t you supposed to be studying?”
I blink to clear my thoughts and find Mercy sitting up with the earphones pulled down to hang around her neck and her brilliant smile aimed at me.
“I am.”
She smirks at the spiral notebook in my lap.
“What? I’m studying you.”
She blushes but doesn’t duck her chin as she allows me to stare openly at her shy beauty. “Maybe I should go so you can get some work done.”
When she moves to get off the bed, I ache with the thought of her leaving. “Don’t you dare.” I point at her with my pen. “Stay put.”
She freezes and lifts a skeptical brow. “Will you study?”
“Yes.”
She doesn’t look totally convinced but pulls the earphones on and lies back down on my bed. Her eyes close again, and her fingers tap against her stomach to the beat of whatever she’s listening to. Her hair is down, and I know my pillows are going to be soaked with her scent when she leaves, which makes the nights we’re apart a little easier.
When did I get so addicted to this woman?
She must feel me staring at her because she cracks one eyelid and laughs.
I grin and shake my head then force my eyes back to the study guide in my lap.
We can make this work.
We’ll move out together, Mercy and the boys. I wouldn’t need a bigger place because she’d be staying with me in my room, my bed—my bed. A needy groan claws its way up my throat as I imagine what it would be like to have Mercy in my bed, in my arms, every night for the rest of our lives.
Shit, Milo, you’re really doing this.
You’re falling in love with Mercy.
My heart pounds a little harder, my stomach somewhere between my throat and my chest. The room feels too small, and I toss my notebook and study guide onto the table and lean back to stare at the ceiling. Pretending to study is pointless when the woman across the room is sucking all my focus from the page.
“Güera.” I roll my head to the side to see she’s blissfully bopping along to the music in her ears. “We got an issue, Ghostgirl.”
She doesn’t respond.
“I’m in love with you.”
Her fingers still, and her eyelids flutter, but she stares blankly at the ceiling.
Shit, did she hear me?
I can faintly pick up on the heavy hip-hop bass pumping through the headphones, so I doubt she heard me, but then she slowly turns my way. The room charges with electricity when our eyes meet, and . . . Fuck it, now is as good a time as any.
I push up from the couch and move to the bed. The window blinds are open, a stipulation Laura put in place for whenever Mercy was over, like we’re children, but whatever. As long as I get to have her here, I’ll play by Laura’s rules.
Dropping a hip next to hers, I brace my weight on either side of her arms, caging her in.
She responds with wide, excited eyes as she shuffles back to sitting up with her back against the wall. “What is it?” Those eyes—big, faintly blue, and crystal clear—slide from my eyes to my lips, my neck, and back again.
“I don’t want to ever be without you.” I’m extremely close, my nose nearly touching hers, and I’m anxious for the day that I can kiss her freely whenever I want without the worry of getting caught. “When I leave here, I want you to come with me.”
“Really?” She swallows hard. “How?”
“I’ll get us a place. You’ll live with me and the boys. You can get a job or go to college. Honestly, I don’t care what you do as long as we’re together. Please just say yes.”
“Yes.” Her eyebrows pinch together as though she surprised herself with her answer.
“Really?” I groan and lean my forehead against hers. “It’ll be so great. We’ll wait until your birthday, and then we’ll tell Laura and Chris. I’ve scouted out a few places we could move, and as soon as I graduate, I’ll see if I can get custody of the boys, but we can work on that after we move, and God, I want to kiss you so bad right now.”
She snags a quick glance out the window. “I don’t think anyone is watching.”
“Thank Go—”
Her lips are on mine as she swallows my sigh of relief. She opens to me, her hand cups my jaw, and I do the same, holding her as close as I can without hurting her. Our tongues slide together, and we fall into the warmth of each other’s embrace. The sweet scent of her hair wraps around me, and I suck greedily at her tender lips. My pulse races, and I get dizzy from the flicker of fantasies that play behind my eyes, so I remind myself to go slow.
I shake with the effort it takes to finally pull away.
Eyes still closed, I fight for breath. My fingers shake at her nape, and my lips at her ear, I whisper, “I love you, Mercy.”
Her hands slide around my neck and up into the back of my hair. “I love you.”
I pull back to catch her eyes. I have to see her. I have to watch her lips move and her eyes dance when she says those three words that I would swear I imagined. “Say it again?”
She knows what I need and gives it to me freely. “I love you, Emilio Vega. I think I always have. Even before I knew you, I loved you.”
“This is really happening.” I say it to convince myself more than anything. “I’m gonna take care of you. I promise you, Mercy. I’m gonna be the kind of man you deserve.”
She laughs, and the sound is heaven in my ears. “Good. And I will be the kind of girl—”
“Woman,” I say, wishing she could see herself through my eyes.
“Woman you deserve.”
I brush my lips against hers. “No, you’re so much more. You’re already so much more.”
“We can live on the beach.”
Probably not with my income, but I’ll take a second and a third job if that lets me give her what she wants. “You can come apartment hunting with me. After graduation, we . . .”
Her smile falls.
“What is it?”
She turns toward the window just as the sound of screeching tires rips through the air, followed by a dull thud.
“Whoa, that sounded like an accident.” I hop up and head to the door, curious to see which neighbor ran the stop sign and to see if everyone’s okay.
I step outside and feel Mercy at my back as I jog toward the street.
When I get to the corner, my eyes struggle to take in the view. I blink slowly just as a flash of pale hair speeds past me and my vision goes tilt-a-whirl.
A pickup truck.
Underneath the front tire is a tangle of metal and rubber.
A bike.
A few feet away lies a blue helmet.
In slow motion, a man in a baseball cap squats down next to Mercy. Her hair falls all around her, and I have a thought of how beautiful she looks under the glow of the streetlight when I realize she’s hovering over something . . . s
omeone . . .
“Julian!”
With a jolt, I take off at a dead run. I skid to a stop just as Mercy scoops my little brother into her arms.
“No!” The man in the baseball cap says. “Don’t move him.” He reaches down to touch her shoulder.
She whirls around, her face contorted with fury, and lets out an unholy roar. “Don’t touch him!”
I drop to my knees in front of them. Julian’s face is covered in blood, one arm at an unnatural angle. “Oh God, Julian!” His eyes are open, but he’s not moving or talking.
Sirens blare in the distance. A crowd of curious neighbors forms around us. They point their phone cameras and whisper about Mercy as they speculate on who she is and her role in the accident. I’m torn between shoving them all away and being there for my brother, but in the end the choice is easy.
I kneel beside Mercy, her body curled over Julian’s as foreign words pour from her lips.
“Julian, wake up.” My voice cracks and sounds like a whisper against the pulse raging between my ears.
My eyes burn. My throat swells.
Unable to do anything to help him, I turn my focus on the man who hit him.
I push myself up and shove the guy in the chest. “What did you do, motherfucker!”
His eyes are huge, and his hands come up in surrender. “It was an accident. I swear. He came out of nowhere. I didn’t even see him until it was too late.”
“I’m gonna kill you!” I throw a punch that lands with a satisfying crack. He drops to his ass. I stand over him, pull him up by his shirt, and land another punch to the same spot. His body goes slack, but that’s not enough to make me stop. I won’t stop until he’s dead.
“Milo!”
Arms wrap around my shoulders from behind. Two sets of hands grip at me, pulling me back and off the guy. Not until I’m shoved against the truck do I realize Chris and Miguel are there.
I can’t breathe, my pulse races, and my lungs ache as I push the only word I can from my lips. “Julian.”
“We know. The paramedics are on their way, but you need to calm down.” Chris’s normally chill expression is all sharp lines of anguish.
A guttural cry draws my gaze to Mercy, who rocks back and forth with my baby brother crushed to her chest. The sleeve of her loose tank top has fallen off one shoulder, showcasing one big black-and-gray wing.
Chris reaches for her, but she snarls again, her face smeared with my brother’s blood as she spits gibberish at everyone who gets too close.
I stumble to her. My face stings. I didn’t even know I’d been hit. Not until I crawl up beside her do I see the first drop fall from my jaw to the ground. I’m not hurt—I’m crying.
Mercy’s lips move quickly, the gibberish coming faster, punctuated with heaving breaths that make her tattoo wing look as if it’s pulsing to free itself from the binding of her clothes.
I rub my eyes to clear my vision. “Please tell me he’s not dead. Please.”
“I will save him,” she mumbles between the nonsense. “I will heal him.”
I fall back onto my ass, and Miguel drops next to me, his face wet with tears and contorted with pain. Flashing lights blare in my peripheral vision, and paramedics crouch near Mercy and reach for Julian.
She clutches him more tightly to her chest, her top falling farther off her pale back.
“Miss, are you hurt?” The paramedics eyes widen as they take in her blood-streaked chest and arms. “Please, put the boy down.” They try to talk some sense into her, their hands forward, speaking with care. “We need to check him out. Just let us do our job.”
She lets out a sound that is more scream than cry, and they all share a look.
Laura’s face comes into view, and she’s crying as she says something to one of the paramedics. A crowd forms around us, lights shining on us in the darkness, blinding us to everything else. I have a brief thought about how much time has passed since he got hit. It seems like seconds but, at the same time, days.
He’s still not moving.
“Mercy,” I say, but it must not be loud enough, because she doesn’t so much as twitch. “Güera, you gotta let him go.”
A fierce growl rumbles up from her throat. She squeezes my brother so tightly that the paramedics jump into action. One comes at her from behind, wrapping an arm around her. She releases my brother with one hand to claw at the forearm pressed against her neck.
My protective instincts flare. I shove the guy off of her just as Julian falls free of her hold. The paramedics circle his limp body and begin working on him.
Laura stands between Mercy and him.
Mercy scrambles to get at him. “No! No, I can save him. I can save him! Please!”
Two paramedics drag her away. I race for her, only to have Chris grab me again.
“Get off me!” I almost pop my arm from its socket when a paramedic uncaps a syringe and plunges it into Mercy’s bare arm.
She hardly registers the poke, but her fight dies little by little as she’s pulled farther away.
“Mercy!” I call out, and her eyes find mine, full of anguish and panic, just before they go unfocused and her head falls forward.
My body goes limp. “No . . .”
“Emilio, calm down,” Chris says in my ear. “Mercy will be okay. She’ll be all right. Julian needs you.”
I take a deep breath and try to diffuse the adrenaline raging through me.
“There ya go. Just breathe.”
They lift Mercy into the back of one ambulance, and the double doors slam closed before it speeds away with sirens blaring. Julian is lifted onto a stretcher and wheeled toward a second ambulance. The paramedics yell things like “concussion” and “cerebral edema.”
Chris gets in my face. “Milo. Are you okay to drive?”
I watch his lips move.
He shakes me. “Emilio!”
“Yeah.” Drive? “I can drive.”
“Okay, I’m going with Julian. Laura’s with Mercy. You and Miguel meet me at Cedars-Sinai.”
When I don’t answer, he shakes me again. “Repeat it back to me, Milo.”
“Is he dead?”
Miguel sobs at my right shoulder.
Chris’s expression is grim. “Meet me at the hospital.”
He’s flagged over to the ambulance, and after he climbs in and grabs Julian’s shoeless foot—he got hit so hard his shoes were knocked off—the double doors close, and the sirens ring as the vehicle peels out toward the hospital.
Miguel pulls at my arm. “Let’s go. Come on.”
Miguel guides me through the gathering of neighbors. They whisper about us being foster kids, about Mercy and what she is, about her mental health. I ignore it all, my thoughts on getting to Julian, but then I’m stopped by a policeman.
“Excuse me.” He holds up a hand. “I need to ask you a few questions.” I look over to find the guy who hit Jules staring at me. He’s rubbing his jaw where I cracked him. The second he realizes what the cop is doing, he steps forward.
“No, it was my fault,” he says to the policeman, offering me an apologetic frown. “I started it. I don’t want to press charges.”
The cop asks the guy a few questions, and I stay silent, stunned the guy is giving me a pass for nearly breaking his jaw.
Their conversation is like static in my head until the cop says something to me that has Miguel saying, “Thank you, officer,” and pulling me toward the house.
My feet move faster than my thoughts, and not until I get into the driveway do I snap to.
“Where did they take Mercy?”
“I don’t know. She went fucking crazy, man. She lost her shit, and they knocked her out. You think Laura’s sending her back?”
“No.” She wouldn’t do that, would she? “She’s gonna be at the hospital.”
I grab my keys, and we speed toward Cedars-Sinai in silence. The only sound is the white noise humming in my ears.
Thank God I’m numb, because I’m afraid if I could
feel, the pain would kill me.
“HE’S IN A coma. They’re doing what they can to relieve the swelling in his brain, but we won’t know the damage until the swelling goes down.” Chris runs a hand through his hair, looking as if he’s aged about ten years in the last two hours.
Miguel and I came straight to the hospital, only to anxiously pace the waiting room while Julian was stabilized.
“His arm is broken, he cracked two ribs, but he’s young, so he’ll bounce back from those.” Chris rubs his face with both hands. “I should’ve been out there watching him. He never puts that helmet on tight enough. I told him to come in before dark, but I should’ve been out there.”
I lock my hands behind my neck and squeeze. “We could all blame ourselves, Chris. Thing is, sitting around here hating ourselves for not protecting him ain’t gonna bring him back any sooner.”
“They tell you how long it takes for the swelling to go down?” Miguel’s sitting in a plastic chair, his elbows propped on his thighs and his hair a mess from running both hands through it for the last two hours.
Chris shakes his head. “No.”
I drop down next to Miguel and figure I may as well make myself comfortable, because I’m not leaving until I know my brother’s going to be okay. My chest aches with fear and emptiness, and I want so badly to put Mercy on my lap, wrap my arms around her, and let her take away all the dread swirling through me. I don’t give a shit if she’s seventeen, if Laura hates me for the rest of my life, or if they kick me out.
In this moment, I only need two things: Julian okay . . . and Mercy in my arms.
“When will Laura and Mercy be here?” Please say soon.
Chris’s frown deepens, which I would’ve thought impossible.
My heart drops into my gut.
He coughs to clear his throat. “Laura’s on her way.”
When he doesn’t immediately give me news on Güera, I glare and bite out, “And Mercy?”
“I’m sorry, Milo.”
Miguel turns to look at me from under his shaggy hair, and I can’t tell if he’s just as confused as I am or if he’s waiting to see how I’ll react.
Chris crosses his arms at his chest. “Laura recommitted Mercy—”
“What?” I jump to my feet, and Miguel does the same, probably thinking he’s going to have to hold back a swinging fist. “Why? How could she do that?”