This is me trying, p.17
This Is Me Trying, page 17
Bea’s hands still, but she doesn’t look up. “Olive will be fine. They’ve been through worse.”
chapter thirty-one BEATRIZ
If I hadn’t been awake most of the night, I’d be convinced someone ran me over with a bus while I was unconscious. I chalk up my perpetual exhaustion to my lack of sleep and the life I’ve lived, but today my runny nose, burning cheeks, and watery eyes tell me that something else is at play.
Mom left right after “waking me up” to cover both her and a coworker’s shifts all day. Her ignorance about my current state of being saves me the trouble of convincing her not to stay home.
My bed is drenched in sweat, so I gather up whatever blankets are still dry and a ruana that hasn’t fit since my growth spurt and wobble downstairs to the sofa. Once I’m relatively comfortable, I pull my phone from my waistband and tap on Santiago’s name.
He answers on the second ring. “Santiago Espinosa’s office, this is Santiago speaking.”
“You’re going to have to fire me as your personal driver.”
“Why does your voice sound so gravelly and hot?”
I produce something between a laugh and a cough. “Are you implying that my voice isn’t normally gravelly and hot?”
“That’s exactly what I’m implying.” It sounds like he moves the phone to his other ear, hair tickling the microphone. “You sick?”
“Yeah, sick of driving you around,” I say as my words grow strained by a coughing fit that racks my lungs.
“Wow, and I thought you sounded hot before.”
“I want you to know I’m using my last bit of strength to flip you off.”
“I’m honored,” he says. I touch my mouth and realize I’m smiling. “Guess I’ll have to sit alone at lunch, see what all the hype is about.”
I want to remind him he has other friends, but it’d be too much of an admission. “Try to survive one day without me, and I’ll try to survive this flu.”
“Ask Magda for extra honey in your tea.”
I snuggle deep into the cushions, sleepier from the idea of warm tea. “Maybe when she gets home tonight.”
“Wait, no one’s there to take care of you?”
I cover the phone when another storm of coughs passes through. “I’ll be fine. I’m a big girl.”
“I don’t see what your height has to do with you being bedridden and alone.”
“I promise I’m good.”
We hang up and I manage to get what could be seconds or hours of mediocre sleep, tossing and turning at the mercy of hot and cold flashes, when someone starts knocking on the front door.
It blends in with the pounding in my head, so I ignore it at first. It’s not like I could get up and answer anyway. But after a moment of quiet, the knocking intensifies. If someone is about to break in and find me in Kermit pajama pants and a crop-top ruana, so be it.
My phone starts ringing. In my half-conscious fever-dream state, I have a Sherlock moment and realize there might be a correlation between that and the knocking.
Groaning, I stretch an arm out from under my pile of blankets. My fingers graze my phone on the coffee table over and over, the slipperiness of the screen matching the slipperiness of my sweaty hands. Finally, I grasp it and drag it back to my chest.
Five missed calls from Santiago. Hmm, maybe a correlation after all.
I call him back, practically prying my eyes open with the hand that isn’t holding my phone.
“Most people answer the door when someone’s knocking,” Santiago says.
“Hi, Santi, yeah I’m feeling fantastic, thanks for asking.”
“All right, I’m opening the door, smart-ass.”
He hangs up as I hear the front door unlock. Sunlight bursts into the room behind him, cuffed jeans and a blue sweater hugging his frame. I study him as he strides over and dumps plastic bags onto the coffee table, kneeling before me with a tenseness that wasn’t present on the phone. He presses the back of his freezing hand against my forehead. “You’re really hot.”
“You’ve been flirting with me a lot this morning.” I attempt a wink but I’m pretty sure I just blink.
He ignores me, which I distantly know I’ll be grateful for when I’m not feeling so out of it. “How long has your fever been this bad?”
I try to shrug under the blankets but it goes about as well as the winking. “I probably would’ve slept through it if someone hadn’t broken into my house.”
“Keep sassing me and I’ll eat your sopa de pollo,” he says, but his tone is as gentle as his touch. He feels my face again and I find myself leaning into it, a relief for my aching body.
“I don’t mind sharing,” I say sleepily, feeling my consciousness fading again. “Why aren’t you at school?”
To my disappointment, he stops patting my face. His attention shifts to tucking my blankets in tighter, stopping only for a second to smile at the ruana. His fingers glide over the wool. It’s getting impossible to keep my eyes open.
“How’d you get in?” I try instead.
“Get some rest, Bea,” he whispers.
The last thing I see before passing out is a key in his hand.
* * *
Religion’s cashmere sleeves never quite fit me. Instead of a soft embrace, I often felt stifled by Catholicism, found myself picking at stray threads and pulling at the stitching. As a child, I recall watching peace wash over Mom’s face the few times she swept us into a church. I wanted that for myself. Instead I squirmed, wondered why the pews were so rigid in a place meant to be comforting. I suspect my baptism was an appeal to my mom’s already estranged parents more than anything else, but the notion of being prepared for an afterlife I’m not sure I believe in always leaves me feeling conflicted.
Regardless, I imagine I’ve muddied that ticket beyond recognition. Which is okay with me, generally speaking. If there is someone out there who deliberately planned my life thus far, I’ve got feedback for them.
All this being said, on the sofa, I dream of a kind of heaven. We’re all stars making up a single constellation in the sky. Me, Santiago, Whitney, and Bryce. The latter brilliant and bold in all his glory.
Except I remember what he told me once: Stars burn brightest right before they burn out. And, almost like I make it come true by remembering, he flashes until everything goes white, and then he’s gone.
The rest of us can’t stay here. So we do the only thing we can. We fall.
Spiraling down to Earth, dropping from whatever graces we once considered permanent. Our crash is silent and quick, but unimaginably painful.
And then there we lie, husks of our former selves. Our twinkle has gone out, and I don’t think it can ever come back.
* * *
I wake up to the sound of humming, my eyes peeling open like wet paper. Everything is blurry for a few seconds, but the dark room slowly comes into view. Yellow light bleeds in from the kitchen alongside the delicious scent of spiced meat.
Groggily, I manage my way into a sitting position and take inventory of my body. My head isn’t pounding anymore, but soft pain still pulses like an unassuming heartbeat. My fever must have broken, because I’m sticky with sweat and feel only the warmth of the blankets wrapped around me. My lungs don’t shake when I inhale.
The glass of water on the table is empty, so I free myself from my cocoon and stand on unsteady feet. Carefully, I teeter my way to the kitchen, where the brightness pains me.
“Hey, let me help you.” Santiago’s voice gets louder as he gets closer. He blocks out the light, sheltering me in shadow, and takes hold of my shoulders. We get me to a stool and I drop down onto it, practically lying on the tile counter.
I don’t know where he found a thermometer, but he slips it into my mouth and waits, watching my lips so intently that I’m scared I might be blushing. I lightly scratch my chin and check under my nail to confirm there’s no makeup there, nothing to hide behind.
After the longest minute of my life, he plucks the device out. “Good, you’re not as hot as you were before.” I open my mouth. “Don’t make another bad joke.”
“It was going to be good, I promise.”
He smiles. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
A timer goes off behind him and he leaves me long enough to grab a bowl of soup. “Eat.”
I take the spoon and blow on the liquid before cautiously slurping it. “How long was I out?”
He leans his forearms on the counter. Sometime while I was asleep, he traded his sweater for a T-shirt. I don’t remember his arms being this distracting. “Awhile. It’s about five now. Magda said she’d be here in an hour or so after dropping my abuelo off. I’ll wait with you until then.”
I eat another spoonful. “You called my mom?”
He shrugs, the shirt lifting to reveal a sliver of stomach. “Wanted her to know you weren’t feeling okay.”
I watch pieces of chicken swim after carrots in my bowl. “Thanks for ruining your perfect attendance for me.” Bryce wanted to win an award for that in fourth grade but lost by October when his dad took him to an overnight observatory upstate.
“Anything for a classmate.” Through the haze of soup steam between us, Santiago looks ghostly. Which reminds me.
“You kept your key.”
He swallows. Makes a sort of helpless shrug.
Mine is upstairs on my bedpost, growing cold without me. “Can I see it?”
He pulls the familiar key out of his back pocket and rests it on the counter. “Bryce threw his away. Yours is to a house no one even lives in anymore. It doesn’t seem fair for me, of all of us, to still have the only functional one.”
I touch it. The metal is warm from his body. “I’m glad you do.”
His throat bobs. “Yeah?”
New Year’s. The almost-accident. Dustin. I’m playing a dangerous game. I blame it on anything but myself. I’m not supposed to want like this anymore. “Yeah.”
chapter thirty-two SANTIAGO
I text Pa as I wait for Bea at her locker, typing with one hand and using the other to twirl the gift I perfectly stumbled upon earlier. She had to help her mom bring a bunch of festive goodies to the hospital, so Billy dropped me off this morning.
“Please tell me that isn’t for me.” Her voice startles me as my text goes through. Hot-pink eyebrows arch over her red-rimmed eyes, crimson eye shadow and mascara giving her a sickly appearance, though she’s long recovered from whatever bug she had last week. I don’t know why the look still makes my chest flutter.
“Happy Valentine’s Day.”
Bea takes the limp, wet rose from my hand. “Wow. It’s beautiful,” she deadpans.
“Peeled it off the parking lot concrete just for you,” I coo. “I saw Dylan Abbott run over it first, but I think that gives it a little something special.”
“I’m honored.” She chucks the rose into her locker, where it lands flaccidly. “For safe-keeping,” she singsongs, and slams the door. “I gotta go ask Mr. Duval something about my physics homework. I’m going to try to finish it during art.”
I tsk. “No respect for the humanities.”
“Says the aspirational STEM major. See you in calc?”
I nod, a little uncertain of where I’m going with ten minutes left until first bell, before making eye contact down the hall.
Olive stands in a circle with their friends, an excited exchange of gifts happening, though their attention is on me now. They smile, and it lifts the red heart painted on their cheek.
We’ve texted a few times since our date, mostly about innocuous stuff like the party Candace is planning for Bryce’s upcoming birthday—which I’ve been doing my best to avoid thinking about—or if I need a ride to school. It’s sweet of them to offer considering it’s Whitney who would actually be picking me up, but I’ve consistently declined in favor of Bea.
As they leave their friends to approach me, chased by a chorus of oohs and aahs, I remind myself what fucking day it is.
Olive’s outstretched hands somehow make contact with mine, leaving a bundle of red tissue paper in my palms. “Open it.” I listen to them, unearthing a small clay bird painted oddly familiar shades of blue and orange. “It’s a little bird, almost like a birdie. Like from badminton?”
I turn the creature over in my hands and finally recognize my old team colors. Olive must’ve scrolled down on my Instagram. “Thank you,” I finally manage, focusing my eyes on the small bird instead of Olive.
They clear their throat. “So, did you have any plans tonight?”
I wish I didn’t have to do this.
“Um, Olive, I’m really grateful for the gift.” I lift the bird and my gaze. “And I had fun the other night. But I think we might be better off as friends.”
“Oh.” Olive’s brow furrows, but they don’t look upset, just confused. “Did I do something wrong? I know bringing up Bryce and all of that might have been a lot, bu—”
“No, no, you’re so good.” I move to put the bird in my jacket pocket, and my thumbnail grazes the top of my other hand. I try to do it again but hit my knuckle instead. Okay, hit the knuckle again. Okay now the hand. I can feel the spot, but I keep missing it and tallying up new ones. Finally, I touch my nail to the back of my hand, dragging it lightly over and over until pink rises to the surface, and Olive’s words from the other night are a distant memory.
“Are you okay?”
I look up at Olive’s concerned face and see Bryce there, somehow. The key I’ve taken to wearing again burns straight through my shirt.
“Yeah, I just … I need to go call my dad.” Finally, I get the bird into my pocket. “We’re okay though, right? We can still be friends?”
“Of course,” Olive says, and I almost believe them.
* * *
Pa doesn’t answer my call before class, or the one I make during lunch in a bathroom stall, or the two more I make while walking to Bea’s car after school while she drops something off at her locker. When a fifth goes to voicemail, I wait for the beep this time.
“Hey, Pa, it’s me. Just calling to see how you’re doing. Probably just busy today, serenading couples and whatnot.” An unconvincing laugh halts my rambling. “So just, uh, shoot me a message whenever you’re free. No rush, it’s all good here. Okay, yeah, bye.”
As I hang up, a hand touches my shoulder.
“Hey, stranger,” Whitney says, swinging a bundle of fabric roses tied together with red ribbons in her hand. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”
“Hey, Whit,” I say, eyes back on my phone as I type out another text to Pa. He’s at practice or sleeping off a late-night show. Maybe he’s on a date. He’s not dead just because he isn’t answering my calls or texts. That’s not how this works.
“Hello?” Whitney’s hand cuts through my vision, blocking my screen. “Are you listening? Do you want to come to dinner with us tonight?”
“Um—” I try to run back her offer, but I can’t hear anything besides the memory of Abuelo calling to tell me Bryce died. I wonder who would call if Pa did.
A horn honks, and I look up to see Bea waiting in her car, flashing Whitney a quick glance.
“Sorry, I gotta go,” I tell Whitney, shoving my phone into my pocket and trying not to focus too much on how my shoes crunch the parking lot snow so I don’t need to replicate it as I make my way to Bea. “Have fun!”
* * *
Abuelo and I cook sancocho in honor of Abuela, filling the house with the scent of her favorite meal. She passed when I was too young to understand what I was losing, the closest person to a mom I’d probably ever have in my own family, but the older I get, the weirder it feels that I even knew her at all.
I’m serving Abuelo seconds when my phone starts ringing from where I left it on the table. “Who’s calling?” I shout from the kitchen, nearly dropping Abuelo’s bowl. “Is it Pa?”
“I don’t have my glasses,” he groans. “Alo? This is Santi’s abuelo speaking.”
I rush into the room, forgetting Abuelo’s food. “Dámelo.” He obliges, and I don’t even check before slamming the phone to my ear. “Dad?”
“Um, no. Hey.”
I step away and check the screen to confirm. “Hey, Eric,” I say over the sound of my pounding heartbeat.
“Are you—Have you been getting my calls and texts? No one’s heard from you for a while.”
Eric is the only one who has called or texted, so I don’t know which of us he thinks he’s fooling. “I’m fine. Good luck with the team. I gotta go.” I hang up in the middle of him speaking, leaving the echo of his interrupted apology ringing in my ears long into the night. When I wake up the next day, it’s to a text from Pa.
All good here junior <3
chapter thirty-three BEATRIZ
Mom clears her throat across the dining room table. “Is that Santiago?”
I look up from the texts I’ve apparently been smiling at.
Santiago: did you know your initials spell out BAD
Santiago: much to think about,,,
I lock my phone and set it aside. “Did I cook it all the way?” I ask instead of answering. The pasta is leftover from Valentine’s Day. She had “plans” with “coworkers,” so I took a crack at making a meal. I went a few minutes over the box time to be safe, but I think I passed some threshold. The texture isn’t great.
“You did perfect, honey.” Her hand finds that bracelet under her sleeve again. “So, um, Eileen called earlier. She wants to know if you’re free to have lunch this weekend.”
“It’s not Thanksgiving.”
“There’s that brilliant mind I’m always bragging about.” Her bracelet tinkles.
I want a clearer look at the charms and clasp and design. Its fragility. “So why does she want to have lunch?”
“Probably because she’s your grandmother.”
“Did she just learn this?”
