We lose the first game and Trevor’s face is patches of knots. He doesn’t say more than a couple words to me. We win the second game and the latch on his tongue undoes itself.
My forehead prickles in spirals and the grass fades to a stale green. I survey every corner: street to courts to grass and those eyes must hide good because they have completely bypassed my vision. I grab Trevor’s shoulder to maneuver him back toward home.
“Can’t we stay a little?” Trevor asks, and he don’t even know how the eyes are carving into his back. “Ramona say they getting popsicles.”
I glance around, lean down to him so I only gotta whisper for him to hear. “We gotta get home, Trev. Somebody following and you not safe where they can see you.”
I start pushing him into a full sprint and he’s turning around to whisper-yell at me, “You done lost your mind? Acting like Mama.” I don’t got time to let Dee’s face do more than flash through my head. Dee never tried to protect her baby like I do.
We are running again, like usual, but it isn’t no play sprint this time. There are moments along the race where I don’t feel the tingle, short spurts of street that we are free again. Then they come back. Chasing. The entire way home, Trevor groans and complains about how I’m ruining everything and I stay silent, but the moment we are inside the Regal-Hi gates, I grab the string of his sweatshirt, pull him toward me so he can taste my breath. “Boy, don’t you go calling me yo mama when I’m out here protecting you. Better get your ass upstairs and read a book before I really go acting like yo mama and bring out the belt.”
Trevor races up the stairs, bony behind sticking out in those shorts. I follow him up, go into my apartment, shut the door, close all the blinds until we are standing in darkness.
“How am I supposed to read if you gonna make it all dark?” his voice whines from maybe five feet in front of me.
“Use your head and cut on a light.”
* * *
It took less than twenty-four hours for the suicide note to be plastered all over the local news, article after article popping up in the Google search. As promised, Purple Suit blacked out the line that says my name in it. Still, it’s been less than two days and I’ve had eyes tracking me every moment I step outside, following me. I should’ve known the cops would figure it was me, that they wouldn’t just let me off. Only gonna be so long before they make themselves seen. Daddy always said fuck the cops, but don’t fuck with them, unless you got a reason. Guess I fucked some cops, fucked with some cops, and now I’ve been reduced to a paranoid buzz.
I’ve been too scared to go out at night and I don’t got much more money than Mama must. I called Lacy, asked if she could hook me up with a job, but she said she couldn’t, not after what Marcus did. Dee’s still leaving twenty bucks on the counter every week or so and Trevor and I have started buying cereal and ramen, exclusively. My stomach feels like a straight-up sponge, sitting in the dark. Trevor fell asleep as soon as he started reading and I’m on my own, slowly gaining night vision.
I don’t want to get too close to the windows in case they’re there, watching, but I’m hungry. Eat every part of the chicken hungry.
I stare at my phone for a while before I finally dial Alé’s number. She picks up, says, “Hey.”
“Hey.” I know she doesn’t talk much, but the silence makes my stomach bubble. “Glad you picked up.” I try to sound nonchalant, except there’s nothing chill about me right now and my voice cracks.
She coughs. “Yeah. What you need, Kiara?”
I pause. Maybe I shouldn’t run to Alé when everything else starts shattering. She done picked up enough pieces. “I’m hungry.” I whisper it into the phone, sort of hoping she won’t hear.
Alé’s laugh is a familiar jingle. It recedes into her voice. “You hungry. Damn, aight, come in and I’ll cook you something.”
I suck in my breath. “Can’t leave the apartment.”
“What you mean?”
“Listen, I’m being followed and I can’t leave and I need you to come here because I don’t got no money and I gotta feed Trev and I’m so hungry, Alé. Please.” My words are so tangled I don’t know if she heard right.
“Give me twenty.” She hangs up and I don’t have the guts to say I love you first.
Twenty minutes turn into an hour real quick and my vision is now sharper in the dark than it is in the light. I sit by the door, knees to chest, watching Trevor across the room curled into a ball sleeping.
The knock rocks my diaphragm and I raise my hand up so quick it hits the wall. I cuss, wave it around until the initial shock of the collision reduces to an ache, then stand.
“Who is it?” I call, ear to door.
“Alejandra, who else?” Her voice fades to a mumble she probably doesn’t think I can hear. “No seas cabeza hueca, ay.”
I open the door enough that she can slip through. She’s carrying a bag that smells like her mama’s kitchen and all I wanna do is snatch it out of her hand and begin devouring, but then I take a second to stare at her. Alé is a picturesque image of herself, the whites of her eyes the brightest thing in the room. She is scared.
“Damn, you not even gonna turn on a light for me?” She walks slowly, arms out, like she’s walking a tightrope, and I bet she thinks she’s clouded in dark, but for me she is just as clear as ever. Almost too easy to see. The paper bag is clutched tight in her hand and it’s wrinkled. “Can’t get your food if you don’t gimme some light.” She isn’t even turned toward me, facing Trevor across the room, and she’s real close to running straight into the counter. I turn on the closest lamp to me and a dim orange illuminates half of the apartment.
Alé straightens her body and turns to face me. This must be the first time she’s really seeing me because the lines in her face turn downward and her skin becomes this tender softness, rippled and babyish.
“Good to see you,” I say, still standing by the lamp in the corner. Corners are safer, I think. Two walls instead of one.
“Yeah.” Alé sighs. “Said you were hungry?”
I nod and she puts the bag on the counter and opens it, lets out this whirlwind of steam and the scent of fish and carnitas and food I’ve been dreaming of since the day “normal” suddenly faded to this. She lifts out three plastic boxes. “Snuck it past Mama like I was doing a delivery and she didn’t say shit.” She laughs, small bubbles of sound escaping.
“La Casa don’t even deliver.” I laugh with her.
Alé reaches into the bag again and takes out a purple spray paint can. “Happy birthday, by the way.”
I smile. “Thank you.”
“You coming?” She’s still standing in the kitchen, her eyebrows lifted.
“Maybe you could bring it here?” I stare at the cracks in the lampshade, slivers of sharp light that break the subtle warmth of it.
Alé sighs. “You scaring me now, Ki.” She piles the boxes and paint into her arms and walks over to me. “At least sit down.” The usual light in her voice—the witty note at the end of each of her words—is gone and she just sounds exhausted.
I sit on the floor and Alé follows my lead. I want to just snatch the food and begin gobbling, but she’s gripping tight and I know she won’t let me eat until I talk. Quietest girl I know wants to talk. I nod my head to Trevor, place my finger to my lips to tell her we gotta stay quiet so he don’t wake up. She nods.
“You gonna get right up and leave again if I tell you.” The only thing left for me to stare at is my hands. All the lines in my palm Alé used to read are cut; some of them bleeding, some of them scabbing, some of them too deep to decide how to heal. I’ve been clawing at them, after I finished gnawing on the nails.
Alé puts the boxes beside her and leans toward me, legs crossed, coming closer until her knees are touching mine. She angles her head so that it is directly in front of my hands, looking up into my face. Makes sure she has my eyes. She does.
“I shouldn’t have left in the first place. You tell me to stay and I stay. Say whatever you gotta say and I’ll stay. Siempre.” She doesn’t blink.