Reverb

by S. M. West

  But wait a second—the hair, or more like no hair, gives me pause. The height and build look right. It’s Jared. What did he do to his beautiful hair?

  When I left, his thick locks were just shy of his jawline. Maybe longer. The thickness and weight pulled at his boyish curls.

  The dark figure stares at our house, eventually looking to my window. My heart flips and I raise a hand to wave when he pivots on his heel.

  Maybe he didn’t see me? Already dressed, I bound from my perch and slip on my shoes, noting Bianca’s bed is empty. My feet dance down the stairs, not caring if I make any noise.

  Papi left several hours ago for work, and my mother is sound asleep. Besides, we’ve talked about Jared and the park. She doesn’t like it but didn’t forbid me. Strangely, we both know the greatest risk is Papi learning of my friendship with Jared.

  There’s a light drizzle, and I sprint toward the park where he stands, oblivious to the falling rain, and drops his chin to his chest.

  He’s unmoving and I call out through choppy breaths, “Jared.”

  The darkness and now harder-falling rain make it difficult to see. His shoulders tense and his head rises, but he doesn’t face me.

  My feet stutter, my heart jerks, and I’m confused. This isn’t how I imagined our reunion. I don’t need to see his face to know he isn’t happy that I’m here. His posture and rigid muscles says it all.

  He turns on his heel, shoulders deflating, or relaxing? Do I have it all wrong?

  “I’m so happy to see you.” I throw myself at him, wet and out of breath, arms around his neck.

  His arms are motionless at his side. He says nothing, no sign that the feeling is mutual, yet his head tips ever so slightly toward mine. His nose sinks into my mass of wet hair and he sniffs. Then he’s gone, pulling away.

  “Hey.” His voice is deeper, more a rumble, causing a flutter in my stomach.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” He steps back, wiping rivulets of rain from his face. “Good to see you.”

  “Did you forget I was coming home today? I waited for you in the park like we planned.”

  “Had things to do.” He’s cold, and I shiver, feeling his icy reception in my bones.

  It’s now pouring and the wind has picked up. My hair and clothes stick to my body, but the only discomfort I feel is from the boy in front of me.

  He’s my Jared, and he isn’t. Taller by an inch or two and more muscled, broader. “What happened to your hair?”

  Despite his weird, almost callous vibe, I reach up, brushing my palm against the soft stubble of his dark buzz cut. He slants his head, sidestepping my touch.

  “I was tired of it with work and the heat.”

  I loved his thick curls, both boyish and appealing, but even with scarcely any hair, he’s such a good-looking boy. More intense, more severe, but still striking.

  “Where have you been working?”

  He doesn’t respond, and I don’t need one. Milo. His stony countenance says it all.

  “Can we talk? Let’s get out of this rain.” I motion to the playhouse.

  “Go home, Eva.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Just tired. It’s good to see you.” He turns. “You’ll get sick in this. Go home.”

  “Jared.” I cringe at how broken and desperate I sound. He’s breaking my heart and I don’t understand.

  He flinches, but he doesn’t turn around to face me. The thin, wet cotton of his white T-shirt outlines every twitch and spasm of his hard-muscled back.

  “I’m glad you’re back. I gotta go.” Long, quick strides carry him away from me.

  “Wait.” I grab his arm, stepping in front of him. “You just got here. We haven’t seen each other in months.”

  “Not my problem.”

  “I had to go to my grandfather’s…I thought you understood.”

  “Go, Eva.” He slaps his clenched fist against his now soaked jean-covered thigh.

  We’re going around in circles, and I’m dizzy and lost. “No, I’m not leaving.”

  I jump at the spine-tingling crack of thunder and eye the shelter of the playhouse. It most probably isn’t any safer.

  “Fuck, you’re stubborn.” His hands hold either side of his head. “I’ll walk you—let’s go.”

  “Come stay at my house.” My lips tremble from the chill or maybe it’s from him.

  “Not happening.”

  “My father’s working. My mom wouldn’t want you out here.”

  “Not interested.” The hard gleam in his eyes is like a kick to my chest.

  “Jared—”

  “No!” His exasperation hits an all-time high and strikes my very core. “Don’t you get it? It’s better this way. I’m trouble. Just let it be.”

  “No, you aren’t, and I can’t…” My heart is in my throat.

  “Let’s go.” He grabs my hand, and his touch calms the raging storm within me.

  We don’t walk or talk but run against the pelting rain. Once at my house, he deposits me at the front door, and without a word or a goodbye or so much as a look my way, he rushes for the Jeep.

  He’s hunched against the wind and rain, and it takes everything in me to not go after him, throw myself on the hood of the car, and beg him to come inside.

  He starts the engine, and it sounds like it’s on last its breath. But no matter how dire or in disrepair the car is, he manages to drive away.

  A violent clap of thunder echoes in the hollow of my chest. Both my heart and lungs work no more, stabbed by a grave longing for the boy next door.

  Inside, the outside storm is a distant muffle, almost as if it doesn’t exist, while the storm inside of me is out of control.

  “Eva Ysabel Ramirez.” My mother’s Spanish is a beautiful thing, but when upset, there’s a sharp edge to her words that sends a steel rod up my spine.

  “Mamá?”

  “Get out of those wet things and explain yourself.” Disappointment rolls off her in waves.

  “Jared…” I’m a shaky mess and need to get a hold of myself.

  “Tell me what happened?” Her knuckles sweep along my cheek, and that simple, sweet touch does it.

  A fissure rips through me and I spill everything. Jared’s brush-off and how I don’t know what’s wrong or how to fix it. Fix us.

  She listens, nodding and guiding me to my bedroom where I change, shivering and frantic words tumbling from me.

  Bianca steps into the room. “What’s wrong?”

  I turn to her, and Mamá’s annoyance colors her frown. Instead of chastising Bianca, she fills her in.

  “Tito told me Jared’s been running with his boy, Ike, and he hasn’t been around much. He’s even blown off the band a few times. Paying band gigs.”

  “What?” Messing with the band doesn’t sound like him. He loves playing. “What is he doing? The way we left things…I thought we were okay. How do I get through to him?”

  “Sometimes you can’t.” My mother curls up beside me in the bed, softly toweling my damp hair. “Give him time. He is a good boy and cares for you.”

  “Sounds like he’s moved on,” Bianca says.

  Heart pounding and tears filling my throat, I shake away the thought. School starts in a few days, and if we haven’t talked by then, I’ll corner him in the halls and make him talk to me.

  “Get ready for bed. We’ll talk tomorrow about where you were,” Mamá scolds, and my sister does as she’s told.

  “Do you think she’s right?” Fear clutches at my heart, hoping Bianca doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

  “He could be hurting. I saw him a few times over the summer…” Concern etches her beautiful dark features.

  “And?”

  Her brown eyes are knowing. “I think he feels you abandoned him.”

  My sophomore year starts and the weeks blur together. I still haven’t talked to Jared, and nothing matters to me. Our friendship is done before we even had a chance to be more.


  He isn’t at school or not that I can tell. He doesn’t go to the park, and there’s no sneaking out at night. He isn’t even staying at the Garcias’.

  Sometimes, the Jeep will be there, the same one he drove the night I returned, but never for long. When I see it, I rush next door despite my father’s warning and beg to speak with him. No matter who answers the door, I’m always told he isn’t there.

  Apart from my heart breaking, it’s as if everything goes back to normal. My parents continue to work long hours and Bianca’s world revolves around herself.

  Then everything changes.

  The unthinkable happens.

  Mamá dies on Bianca’s birthday in late October.

  The worst day of my life.

  If I thought things were bad before, I’m shattered now.

  Distraught, Papi goes with my mother’s body when they take her from the house that night. Lucia Bernal, my mother’s dear friend and our neighbor, sits with me because Bianca isn’t here.

  My mother went to bed after cake, complaining of a migraine. We’d had a gathering to celebrate Bianca’s birthday. And like most eighteen-year-olds, my sister took the first chance to leave. She lied, saying she was at her best friend’s.

  Mamá didn’t look well, her complexion pallid and eyes glassy. Papi fixed her a cold compress and brought her painkillers.

  She was dead by ten.

  Wretched howls echoed through the walls, waking me. At first, I wondered what was so funny? Papi only laughed like that with Mamá.

  But the longer I listened, the more the so-called laughter morphed into soul-crushing sobs. I found my father on his knees, crying into my mother’s neck.

  Mamá’s face was near purple.

  I screamed, rushing to her side, and Papi held me in his strong, wiry arms. I still didn’t understand she was gone.

  Later, my father returns, and I’m in the living room. Mrs. Bernal is passed out on the reclining chair but wakes easily, leaving us alone with our grief.

  “Where is Bianca?” He looks around, boneless and weary.

  She still isn’t home, and before I can respond, the front door opens. Unaware of how our lives will never be the same, my sister slinks into the house, shrieking when she comes face to face with Papi.

  “Where have you been?” There’s a quiet edge to his tone, ready to cut down anything in his path.

  Bianca stammers, peering past him and finding only me. Her frantic gaze searches for my mother. If anyone can calm him, it’s her.

  I’m numb. Bianca’s in trouble, and in another state of mind I might warn her or cover for her. But I am neither clearheaded nor caring.

  “I w-w-was with C-C-arly.”

  “It is nearly three in the morning.” His back is taut, arms coiled at his sides. “And you think I don’t know where you were? Your madre is too kind.”

  His voice cracks, and he stumbles as if his knees may give way. She steps forward to help him, but it’s like she senses something is off and hesitates.

  “Papi.” Her voice is a watery plea, still not fully comprehending what we have lost.

  “You’re whoring around with that pendejo when you should be home caring for your family. You were never a good girl like your sister.”

  Her dark eyes dart around, glittering with the emergence of tears and an inkling of fear.

  “This is why she is dead! You bring stress and strain…the poor woman…mi amor.”

  “What are you saying?”

  Papi slips into Spanish, cursing and blaming her for everything, including our mother’s death. My heart clenches. It isn’t true.

  Bianca loves Mamá. She’s no different—good or bad—than me. But my mouth doesn’t open. No words are said.

  She attempts her defense, not reading the situation, and it only infuriates him more. It all happens so fast and I don’t see it coming.

  He slaps her across the face and turns away from her in disgust. I’m not sure if it’s at himself or her. Shocked, my sister shrinks and run from the room.

  My father has never laid a hand on either of us before.

  I’m unfeeling and I’m not clear on how long I stay there. Eventually, I go upstairs, falling onto my bed.

  Heartbreaking sobs from the bed across from mine eventually peter out as Bianca gives in to sleep.

  At some point, Papi sticks his head into our bedroom and I can almost feel what I imagine is his anguished stare, burning into my body.

  I want to both comfort and scold him but don’t. Instead, I pretend to be sleeping, and once he’s in bed, I slip from our house into the dead of night.

  The shadows hug me, and the light drizzle blankets my numb body. Astonished, I find Jared sleeping when I crawl into the playhouse. My heart wants to sing and weep at the same time.

  “Fuck, Eva.” He jolts upright at my touch, and his groggy voice brings instant tears.

  His name comes out as a pained cry. “Jared.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  I lunge at him, sinking into him, and tentatively, his hand strokes my damp hair and I give in to my sorrow, muffling my cries in his hoodie.

  “Eva, what happened?”

  “Mamá…she’s dead.”

  “What?” An arm tightens his hold around me.

  Recounting the events is both distressing and cathartic, even only hours after her death. “It was a brain aneurysm. Mrs. Bernal says there is nothing you can do. No sign to tell you it’s coming and no way to prevent it. Maybe…”

  “What?”

  “Maybe if she’d been at the hospital. If we’d taken her to emergency care when she complained of a migraine, she could have been saved.”

  “Don’t play what ifs. I’ve done that and it’s pointless.”

  “You have?” I stare up at him. “Tell me.” I’ve spent months trying to get him to open up so I can know him. I want everything, all of him.

  “You remember Molly?” I nod and he shifts us. “Her death was sudden too. Nothing would have prevented it.”

  “Tell me all of it. Start from the beginning with your biological parents.” I breathe him in, a balm to lessen the debilitating loss if only for a moment.

  There’s so much we need to talk about but not now. I sense his reluctance, and some other time, I would have let him off the hook, but I’m greedy. I need this.

  He releases a burst of air from his lips. “It’s just not that easy.”

  “Fine.” I try to push away, hurt. It makes little sense, not even to me, but I want to connect on a deeper level, or in a more meaningful way with Jared.

  He grabs me tighter. “I was abandoned. Dumped at a fire station, less than a year old, with my name scrawled on a torn piece of paper and pinned to my soiled sleeper. Molly was the first foster home. I didn’t know about my past and thought she was my mother.”

  I nod, swallowing past the growing lump in my throat.

  “She told me when I was six, and my life blew up. Everything had been a lie.”

  “No, don’t say that.” My fingers lightly trace his jaw and he shivers. “I don’t know Molly, but from everything you’ve told me, she loved you. You were her son.”

  “Molly was my mom. We had one or two foster kids living with us at a time, but not once did I figure I was one of them. When she told me the truth about where I came from, I felt betrayed. I loved her, but I was angry. A kid who didn’t know shit.”

  He closes his eyes, resting his head against the house. “I became obsessed with my biological mother—the one who dumped me outside a fire station—desperately wanting to find her. I convinced myself she’d made a mistake. Maybe she didn’t know I was alive or where I was. If only I could find her, then we’d be a family.”

  I hold my breath. Did he find her? If so, what happened? Nothing good came of it if he’s still in the foster care system.

  “What a fucking joke.” He shakes his head in repulsion. “She was a junkie. She was found dead, overdosed, the same night she left me, only a few block
s from the firehouse. The police said she lived on the streets and went by Esme.”

  “Oh my.” My arms tighten around his middle, burying my head into his solid chest, and he rests his cheek on the top of my head.

  Thoughts of my mother, Molly, and Esme crowd my mind. We’ve both suffered losses.

  “When I was put into the system, I went through withdrawal. They figure she used while breastfeeding but not when pregnant. My signs weren’t as severe. Maybe she was a runaway or something. Got pregnant, who knows how, and ran…they never did find out for sure.”

  Tears splash onto my hands curled around his sweatshirt. He bends his head to look at me, and his fingers wipe at my tears, arm squeezing me close.

  “I’m here for you.”

  “Oh, Jared.” My voice cracks, echoing in my chest. I want to make it all better for him, for me. I want my mother back. Molly back.

  He buries his head in the crook of my neck, his warm breath on my collarbone as his body shakes against mine. His tears fall onto my skin.

  Sadness steals me. A sadness so deep and raw it has me by the throat. I can’t breathe.

  He sniffles and turns away to dry his eyes before peering down at me. Silently, his fingers glide against my cheek, rough tips sending shivers through me. There’s something incredible about his simple gesture, tucking stray strands of my long hair behind my ear. Electric.

  “You should go home. We don’t want your father looking for you.”

  Images of Bianca—his hand connecting with her soft cheek—rush at me and I shudder. I still can’t believe Papi hit her. That isn’t my father.

  I should heed Jared’s advice, worry even that the same will happen to me, but I can’t bring myself to care.

  “Please don’t make me go home.” I’m at Jared’s side, where I want to be.

  He lightly kisses the top of my head, and I tip my head back, looking into his eyes and our lips so close.

  Accepting my unspoken invitation—or maybe he wants to kiss me as much as I want him to—his lips cover mine.

  Closed mouth, tender, and over way too fast. And yet it’s enough for him to soothe my grieving, broken heart.

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