Before You (18 page)

W
hen Faith says she's going to the car for something, I don't expect her to come back holding two giant beanbags.

“What are you doing?” I ask, amused.

“Getting our new chairs.” She smiles.

Yes, chairs are definitely good. Faith plus my bed equals trouble for me. Still, did she have to pick a purple one with pink flowers?

“You're not bringin' that into my room,” I say.

“Aw, come on. Yours is blue,” she says, trying to justify the flowery stuff.

“No way,” I say.

Truthfully, I'll probably let her get away with it.

“What's wrong with regular chairs?” I ask. We even bought a new one for Faith.

“These are more comfy since we'll be watching a movie,” she explains.

“We will?” I don't know how she expects that to happen with no television.

Faith pulls out a miniature DVD player.

“Want to?”

I can't help thinking how different this is from my cartel days. It's a good thought.

“Only you could get away with this,” I mumble.

She laughs at the look on my face. Throws her arms around me. “You know you love me.”

She meant it as a joke, but I tense anyway. All of my muscles violently collide with each other.

“Oh no. Sorry. I didn't mean it like, um, just forget I said—” Faith breaks off nervously.

It is not that she said something wrong; it's that she's right. I'm falling for her. I don't know what to do with that yet. It's scary. Big. Enough to make me consider staying distant. Because if the cartel finds me alive, Faith will suffer.

I walk to my room. Pretend she never said anything. Faith starts the movie with shaky fingers. I should comfort her, but I focus on the film instead.

If I try hard enough, my past weakens to a dim pinpoint. Like a dying star in the vast universe of my mind. There, but fading.

 

I search the auditorium for Faith, replaying our movie night in my mind. Replaying the beach. All of it. Anything to picture her face. The book fair is in full swing. Everywhere I look, books, books, books. Some new. Some old. Some filled with messages from people long gone, who speak to us still. Letters on papers so powerful that those in the grave can rest, knowing their voices are forever heard.

The walls are covered in posters. This is our work, mine and Faith's. We put this together.

I spot Lori and make my way toward her. “What's up?”

“Hi, Diego. Everything looks great! Couldn't have pulled this off without you. You worked so hard. Did I get a chance to thank you yet?” Lori talks fast, excited. It's hard to keep up.

“I think you just did,” I reply.

She gives me a hug. “Anyhow, you're the best. Got to run. Catch you later, okay?”

Lori is gone before she finishes the sentence. I never got to ask if she's seen Faith. I make my way through the crowd. My eyes snag on something. Jason in a corner, folded between two walls like the edge of a blanket. I catch a flash of the person in front of him.

No words. No words. No words.

I push my way through people to get to them. Apparently I push someone too hard because they shove me back and say something. I don't hear them over the roar in my ears.

Jason's hands are on Faith. One hand touches her arm. The other strokes her cheek.

Closer. Closer. Not close enough. Too many people.

“Can't, Jason. I'm done,” Faith says.

I pause. Try to hold it together. Any second now she'll walk away from him.

“But we had years together, Faith. I miss you. I love you,” Jason replies.

The last thing I need is a school suspension. The last thing I care about is repercussions.

“I know,” Faith says. “But I'm done. I can't turn back.”

Faith doesn't see me. I wish she would look my way. I remember our conversation: Faith warning me about the rumors, the gossip, about Jason wanting her back. I also remember her not defending me, her laughing as her fake girlfriends talked shit and called me names.

“Come on. Don't throw this away. We're good together.”

Faith doesn't reply. But she doesn't walk away, either.

“I waited a long time for you, Faith, while you were studying around the world.” A flash of pain cuts across Faith's face like lightning in the black of night. She covers it up. “And then, I don't know, I just lost it. I'm sorry.”

Faith tries unsuccessfully to wiggle away, to slip the knot of memories Jason is hanging her from.

“I forgive you,” she responds. “Can't we just be friends?”

Friends? Why would she want to be friends with him?

Jason runs a hand through his hair, looking miserable. “I guess. I just, God, how are we supposed to do that? I want to kiss you all the time. I can't stop thinking about you.”

My fists ball.

“Don't you miss me?” he asks.

Faith looks down. Her voice is soft. “Yes. Sometimes.”

Faith's words are a sucker punch to my diaphragm.

“Is it Diego?” her ex asks.

Faith's answer comes without hesitation. “No. Like I'd have anything to do with him.”

It shouldn't bother me. But it does. I knew she'd deny it, but did she have to sound so repulsed?

A group of students walks in front of me. I lose sight of Faith. When they clear away, Jason is kissing her. She tries to push him away, but he has her backed against a wall.

My hands are on Jason's shoulders, ripping him away like torn paper. Effortlessly.

“
¿Qué crees que estás haciendo?
”

“Back off, man,” Jason says.

He tries to shove me. I'm stronger. I slam him against a table. People stare.

Too many eyes.

“Don't you ever touch her again,” I growl.

Faith wipes her lips and shakes her hand as though she can dislodge the kiss from her skin.

“Diego, stop,” she says.

A crowd has gathered, half-circled around us like a horseshoe.

“No means no, dickhead,” I continue. “If I ever see you anywhere near her—”

“I'm serious, Diego,” Faith says. “Stop. Now.”

I turn to the sound of her voice. Her eyes are volcanoes, ready to erupt.

“How could you let him—”

“I didn't let him do anything,” Faith says, voice full of poison. “As you probably saw, I didn't initiate anything. Not that it's any of your business.”

“None of my business?” I hiss.

Secrecy isn't working. If it's not Jason, it'll be another guy. They'll step on each other to get to her now that she's single.

“That's right,” Faith says. “None of your business. And I've had enough of this, so if you're done—” Her words linger. Their meaning is clear.

Faith dismisses me as though I'm not worth her time. My anger bubbles over. Burning everything. Everything. I release Jason.

She isn't the only one who's had enough.

N
ight bleeds into day, and day into night, until neither is distinguishable. I'm a clot of deadly emotions. Fear. Hesitation. Eagerness. Guilt. Love.

Diego hasn't talked to me in five days. With dance competition less than an hour away, I shouldn't be thinking of him. Everything we worked for, every shared moment, broken by one wrong move. I'm left alone, buried in an avalanche of jagged pieces.

I wish I could've stood up to Jason. The pain on Diego's face was serrated, sawing through me.

He won't return my calls. He missed two days of school. I don't know how to fix anything. I'm nothing more than a busted heart.

I ease into a split, my legs scissoring on the mat. Backstage, girls stretch around me. My dance team is present, preparing like everyone else. Competition starts soon. We're one of the last to go.

Forty minutes to get Diego out of my mind. I reach for my toes. They're a thousand miles away. Everything is tense. I rise up. Lay myself flat on my stomach and arch back, grabbing my ankles.

“Smile, babe,” Melissa says, stretching next to me.

“Can't,” I grumble.

Only Melissa knows how much pain I'm in.

“I feel horrible. I lost one of the best things that's ever happened to me, didn't I?”

I blink back tears. One slips away. I wipe it quickly.

Melissa doesn't reply. Her silence confirms my worst fears.

“Oh, Lissa. He's going to break up with me, isn't he? What do I do?”

“I don't know,” she says. “I think he's pretty crazy about you, and you treated him like he meant nothing. It's hard to come back from that.”

We have to come back from it.

I can't lose him.

“Don't think about it now. Concentrate,” Melissa says. “Come on. We'll work on flips.”

I stand. Stretch my arms. Roll my neck. Tell my muscles to relax. I approach the mat. People practice tumbling. I wait in line for my turn. Tracy Ram is in front of me. You'd think that after years on the same team, she'd get over whatever it is that makes her hate me. Guess not. She sneers and whips her head around. Her blond hair whacks me in the face. An undeserved lashing. The team knows that she despises me. We try to work around it, ignore the tension hanging heavy like an impenetrable fog.

Melissa says Tracy is jealous of me, that Tracy wants everybody's attention. But with such a foul attitude, she pushes people away. The smell of her envy is putrid.

Tracy's up. She's confidence and hunger, eating yards of mat with each landing. My turn. I blink. Try to remove the embedded image of Diego.

Don't think about him
.

My first run is good. Three backhand springs followed by a twisted pike. I nail it. Melissa doesn't tumble. She cheers. I tell her to practice the routine, but she refuses to leave me.

Tears threaten.

“Stay strong,” Melissa says in my ear. She notices the tears, of course.

My turn again. Seven backhand springs in a row. The final landing is wobbly, like a fawn on unsteady legs, but I pull it off. Competitors gasp. I'm a good tumbler. Better than most.

I wait for my turn again. My mind disobeys me, reaches for Diego. Remembers so much so much so much. His spicy smell. The way pieces of hair fall into his eyes, determined to stand out from the rest. Much like him. I allow myself a small smile. I picture his plump lips. I want to kiss them.

My turn now. I inhale a shaky breath and take off. I land my last backhand spring on my knees. Pain shoots through my legs. Melissa runs to my side. Emergency workers, too.

“I'm fine,” I tell them.

By regulation they have to momentarily massage my knees and apply a cream. The one in charge gives me the okay to continue.

Melissa pulls me to the side. “Faith, you're not going to make it through this if you don't stop thinking about him.”

She's right.

“I'll try,” I say.

When my team finally takes the stage, the crowd goes silent. We almost always win. That's another thing. Last year during my absence, Tracy was the captain. And our team lost the competition. I think she hates me for that, though it's not my fault.

We begin our routine. Music echoes through speakers. My heart thuds, adrenaline pumping it faster and faster. I smile, just like my teammates, keeping up with the beat. Everything goes off without a hitch until the end. I think about Diego again.

Raw pain in his eyes. Staring at me as though I've broken what we have. I want to say sorry. I want to go to him. I stand my ground instead, watching him leave. Farther and farther.

All my strength is not enough to push Diego out of my mind.

As I land a triple flip, the grand finale, my foot twists the wrong way and I fall hard.

Pain shoots through my leg like a rocket taking off. I can't catch my breath. Spots take over my vision, a hundred flashing lights. I look down. The spots dim to a pinprick. My foot is the wrong way. My toes reach behind me. I can't stomach the image.

We've lost the competition, I'm sure. No one can fall like that and win.

The pain is too much. I close my eyes and think of Diego. My only relief.

 

Something beeps in my right ear, waking me from a deep sleep that feels like hibernation.

Where am I?

I blink. Bright lights sting my eyes, making them water. I pull a hand to my face to block the glare. My arm snags on something. Pain lacerates my veins like a hot poker.

Eleven seconds until my eyes adjust. And even then, everything blurs slightly as though I'm looking through a distorted lens. I look down. I'm wearing a hideous yellow gown, the color of mustard. The beeping to my right is a heart monitor and my leg is in a sling of some sort, connected to the ceiling by narrow chains.

What the—

“Faith! Are you okay?” Melissa runs to my side. “I only leave the room for what, five minutes? And you wake up. Go figure.”

Her voice is too loud.

“Shh,” I try to tell her but my throat is sandpaper that's been left in the sun for days. I'm not sure that I actually make a sound.

“I only went to grab a muffin. I didn't think you'd wake up. The nurses said it could be hours,” Melissa says. “How are you feeling?”

I can't talk. I try to lift my arm again, and realize why it's so difficult. A bracelet of IV tubing is wrapped around me. I untangle myself—careful not to move my hand too much—and reach my fingers to my throat.

Melissa understands. “Here,” she says, putting a cup to my lips. I lift my head and swallow. The effort is painful. Like a fork grating the inside of my throat.

“What happened?” I ask. My voice is hoarse.

Melissa winces. “You fell, sweetie. At the competition. You landed wrong and, well . . . Faith, you really messed up your foot. Then you passed out. Probably better that way.”

Memories attack me.

“How serious?” I whisper. It's easier to whisper.

Melissa takes my hand. “I'm not a doctor, but from what I understand, it's not that great.”

I put my right hand, the one with the IV, to my head and rub circles on my temple. My brain hurts. My left hand is sore, too. A cast molds around my pinky and ring finger.

“When you fell, you gave yourself a concussion. The doctors had to stabilize you before they could take you into surgery,” Melissa says.

“Surgery?” I ask.

Melissa points to my leg. “You broke a bone in your foot and ruptured your Achilles tendon. They had to surgically repair it.” She points to my hand next. “And you broke your fingers when you landed. One of the fractured bones popped through the skin. They repaired that surgically, as well.”

My God. “I don't remember anything after the fall,” I say.

“I wouldn't, either, if I had the amount of medicine you have pumping through you.”

Well, that explains it.

I look around my hospital room. Everything is focused now. The walls are off-white with pictures of palm trees and oceans. One window. Blinds closed. A television hangs from the ceiling. Flowers decorate the nightstand and windowsill. Balloons float around the room like multicolored bubbles. I spot a card with Jason's name on it.

I wonder if any of them are from Diego.

“Then you decided you wanted to be combative,” Melissa continues. “They had to give you a medicine that knocked you out for a few days so you wouldn't injure yourself further. You are the most stubborn person I—”

I interrupt. “A few days?”

“Yes,” Melissa says. “It's Monday. Four o'clock in the afternoon. I came straight from school. You were supposed to be taken off of sedatives today. I wanted to be by your side when you woke up. Susan is working on some big case that she can't get out of and your dad is home with Grace. They didn't want to expose her to all the germs here, so I came instead. I promised your dad I'd call as soon as you woke up.”

A nurse walks in and takes my vitals. She asks me no fewer than a million questions. Then explains the reason my throat hurts. Breathing tube during surgery. She tells me it will take eight weeks for my hand to heal, and six months of physical therapy for my foot, though I'll be able to walk on it much sooner than that. I should be able to dance again, too, as long as therapy goes well.

It will be too late.

Dance season will be over by then, which means Tracy Ram will be captain once again.

My days on the squad are over.