“Um, no, we’ve been talking,” I lie. If she doesn’t know about what I told him, she doesn’t need to know about the aftermath.
We don’t talk much the rest of the evening. I bead faster to keep from thinking. I don’t stop working when Mami’s tired enough to go to bed.
I wake up with the worst crick in my neck, lying on the couch with a blanket over me. I guess I fell asleep working, and Mom must have tucked me in here. It takes a minute before I realize that Cesar and Jamal are talking by the front door. I’m too tired to get up and give them privacy, though. I’m probably half-sleep dreaming anyway.
“Can I hug you?” I hear Cesar ask, and he sounds like he’s crying. Why would he ask to hug his boyfriend? I don’t open my eyes, because I probably shouldn’t be seeing this, or hearing it. I don’t hear Jamal’s answer, only the sound of two boys quietly whimpering for what feels like forever. Then the door closes, and Cesar goes back to his room.
I roll over, still not sure if I’m dreaming.
Cesar: Jamal left, if Mom asks.
“You good?” I ask Cesar while we both get ready for school in the bathroom.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” he asks, then shoves his toothbrush into his mouth and starts brushing. A smart move, so he won’t have to answer any questions coherently.
“You just seemed off yesterday, and with Jamal going back home and everything, I wanted to check. He can still come visit, right?”
Cesar gives a half-hearted grunt in response, but doesn’t stop brushing until he’s ready to spit.
“He didn’t go home. He’s”—spit—“staying with his cousin. In New Mexico.”
“Oh, that sucks. . . . Are you guys okay?” I ask.
“We’re spectacular.” I don’t believe that for one second, and I’m about to call him out on it but he gives me finger guns, flicking nasty toothbrush water in my eye.
“Gross!” I snatch his toothbrush from his hand and flick it back at him, but he runs away to his room, cackling. I shudder and wipe his disgusting spit-water off my face. Part of me worries that he’s hiding something about what happened with him and Jamal, but it doesn’t seem to be bothering him too much. At least he’s back to normal, somewhat.
When I go to tell Mami about Jamal leaving, she’s wearing her post-crying sunglasses, sitting at the counter with her laptop open.
“Mami, what’s wrong?” I ask. She turns her laptop to show me an email from Jamal. It looks like I won’t have to break the news after all. He did it himself, with a lengthy goodbye email thanking all of us for letting him stay. Mom is such a sap.
“I’m going to miss that boy being here the last few weeks. Are you two going to be okay?” she asks.
“We’re trying the long-distance thing,” I say without thinking twice. Lying is starting to become second nature.
“Bueno. I’ll pray for you two.”
“It’s not like he died,” Cesar says as he walks into the kitchen, grabbing a piece of toast from the toaster.
“Don’t be insensitive,” she scolds before shuffling us into the car to head to school.
In art class, we have another creative freedom day.
I look around the room, thinking about what to do. David’s and Hunter’s portraits of each other from earlier this year are hanging up on the wall, along with some other student art projects. It’s not lost on me that Bo still hasn’t let me see the portrait she drew of me months ago. The only thing worse than knowing how she really sees me is not knowing.
Bo and I end up doing a joint drawing. I draw a little doodle with a dark brown colored pencil and hand it to her to add to it. We keep going back and forth like that most of class.