“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.
I cough. “You heard about the story? Cop who killed himself?”
Alé’s eyebrows do a quick wave and her eyes glaze a little. “Oh shit.”
I can tell she wants to look away from me, can see the way her eyelids flutter like the last thing she wants to do is stare into my eyes, and I can’t blame her because this is everything she ever told me not to do and I bet I’m splintering her bones like Mama splintered mine. If only some Sunday Shoes and a funeral could mourn all this shit, bandage us up.
“Didn’t mean for it to happen. They found me and it was prison or that and you know what Mama been through, I wasn’t about to get locked up.” Alé’s eyes close and I shut my mouth. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“Why you sorry?” She’s still got her eyes closed.
“I know you didn’t want me in this mess and—”
“So you’re sorry ’cause you think you disappointed me?” There’s something scratching in her throat and I can’t tell if she’s angry or sad or if she thinks that’s the funniest thing she heard in a damn long time.
I fumble. “I guess.”
She looks at me and smiles, the brown in those eyes magnetic. “I just wanted to keep you safe, Kiara.” She shrugs, and I wonder if she’s thinking about Clara. “And the only reason I ever been disappointed is ’cause we never in the same place at the same time.” She coughs, maybe to get rid of the nakedness in her voice and maybe just to fill the room with sound. “Except maybe when we eating.”
Alé opens the lids, three tacos in each box, and slides them toward me. She scoots back so we aren’t touching anymore and I lift a shrimp taco from the box and consume it in three bites. I reach for the next one. She could be eating, but instead she watches me, sly smile. I look at the newest tattoo on her neck. It’s a beehive, except I don’t think it’s full of bees. I lean in, sauce dripping from the corner of my mouth. The swarm is actually a bunch of butterflies mid-flight. I want to touch them and see if the wings flutter because it looks like they would, but there’s food to be eating and it’s too dangerous to make contact with Alé’s skin when it’s this dark.
“Any for me?” My stomach leaps at the sound of Trevor’s voice. Both Alé and I whip our heads to look at him sitting up in bed. We must not have been quiet enough.
Alé waves him over and he practically runs to us. I don’t remember him taking off his shirt, but he isn’t wearing it no more and his bare torso makes me want to scoop him up and cradle him, lengthening body and all. That boy is a wonder. He’s my autumn rain. My last picture of the sun before it sets. Daytime is not possible without Trevor. Not even sure the sun comes out without Trevor.
He sits beside us and picks up his own taco. I pause to watch him bite into it and chew with his mouth open, like I know he will. He’s staring at me and waiting for me to tell him to shut his mouth while he’s eating, but tonight I stay quiet. If the boy wants to eat with his tongue out, don’t he deserve that joy? Too dark for anyone else to ever know.
Trevor pauses before his next bite and looks around in the black. “Think there’s ghosts up in here?”
Alé glances up at the ceiling like that’s where she might find them. “Nah, just spiders.”
Alé sleeps like a mix between a corpse and a starfish. She never said she was gonna stay the night, but we both knew she would the moment she laid her head in my lap. Never seen somebody sleep on a hardwood floor like that: extremities spread out and not moving a single inch. Mouth open just enough that you can see she got teeth, but not a tongue.
I watched her all night, waiting for my own body to swirl me into a slumber. Never did. After we finished the tacos, Trevor went back to the mattress and fell asleep. I told Alé everything else about the cops and Purple Suit and the tingle and she said I needed to have Tony or Marcus with me, just in case the tingle turns to a full quake and not even the blinds can keep me safe. I argued with Alé, told her about Marcus, but she wasn’t having none of it, so we made a deal that I would go to Cole’s in the morning and she would take Trevor to the taquería and make sure he’s fed.