Chapter 1
Mayte
God, don’t let it be worse. Please don’t let it be worse.
I didn’t tell Claire and I’m not sure if Leo knows or not because we haven’t talked about it.
I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t even know if she’s getting worse (God, please don’t let it be worse), but isn’t that what cancer does?
It gets worse? Or it gets better, but so far it’s never gotten better.
Every appointment has been worse news. Eventually the news has to be as bad as it can get.
Eventually the appointments have to stop.
As we’re leaving at the end of the day, Leo makes sure Claire and I are still down to go to Hammonds tonight.
Hammonds is a little diner place walking distance from the school, typically full of pretty little families during weekend days and drunk teens trying to sober up with milkshakes and chili fries on weekend nights.
Hammonds has not been on my mind at all, but I confirm.
“Dress hot,” Leo says. “Casual hot.”
“For Hammonds?” I ask.
“Yeah!” Leo says. “We’re hot girls. We can be hot in a trash heap eating burgers.”
“Fair,” I say.
“Ooh, Mayte,” Claire says. “What about that red dress you have?”
“The tight one that makes her boobs look good?” Leo asks.
“Her boobs do look good in it, don’t they?” Claire says. “Yeah, that one. Bold red lip. Casual shoes to cool it all down a little, or you’ll burn down said trash heap.”
I laugh, but even I can hear how distant the laugh sounds.
“Hey, babe, you good?” Leo asks. She grabs my hand.
“I’m fine.” I pull my hand away. I can feel the tears in the corner of my eyes, and my mascara isn’t the good waterproof shit like Leo’s. They’d be able to tell in half a second. “Stomach hurts.”
Claire and Leo exchange a worried glance.
“Stomach hurts like… you can’t come to Hammonds?”
“No, I’ll be there,” I say. Pull the tears back in, Mayte. You’ve got this. Hold it together. You’re getting upset about literally nothing. “Of course I’m gonna be there.”
“Okay, good,” Claire says. “I miss the three of us.”
“I know,” I say. “Things have just been wild at home—”
“We’re not blaming you,” Leo says. “We just miss you.”
“A lot,” Claire says.
I smile at them and pull out my phone. “I love you g—” The smile drops from my face. Three missed calls from my mom.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.
“I have to catch the bus,” I say, my breath starting to come faster. “Can you just pick me up from Abue—” My voice cracks. “Abuelita’s after I’m done with duty?”
“Mayte,” Leo says, “are you sure you’re—”
“Yeah,” I say, starting to walk away and calling my mom back. “I just gotta get some Tums or something at Abuelita’s. See you guys tonight.”
I run toward the bus and look down at my phone. Gone to voicemail. I call again. Voicemail again. I board the bus and sit near the front in an empty seat where I’m hoping no one will try to sit beside me. I put my backpack on the seat next to mine to be even surer.
Please, God. Please don’t let it be worse. Just please don’t let it be worse.
“Please, God,” I whisper out loud. The bus starts to move and I grip my phone as tightly as I can.
“Please, please, please.” I let go of my phone and reach into my backpack.
Inside is the yellow hat that I finished last night.
It’s not the prettiest thing by any means, but I hold it tightly against my face.
“Um…” A girl stands by the seat and looks down at me. “Are you okay?”
“No standing while the bus is moving,” the driver says.
I look away from the girl, don’t say anything, and she leaves.
“Please, please—”
My phone buzzes.
“Mami,” I say as soon as I answer.
No words. My mom is sobbing on the other end.
Nononononono.
“Mami?”
Then a laugh.
“Mami?” I ask again.
“Baby, she’s in remission.”
My exhale is loud and shaky.
“What?”
“She’s in remission. She’s getting better.”
“She’s getting better?” I repeat.
Blink back the tears. Not here on the bus. We’re not going to do this here on the bus.
“Yes, baby, she’s getting better.”
“Is she at home?” I ask.
“She’s on her way back with Tía Elisa now.”
“Okay,” I say. “I’m almost at the bus stop and then I’ll head over there.”
Remission. Remission.
“Thank you, God,” I say before hanging up.
Thank you, God.
When the bus pulls up at my stop and I get off, it’s windy out, the limbs of the trees bending, the leaves shimmying against the sky, but I don’t care.
Abuelita’s house is over a mile away, but I don’t care.
I run down the sidewalk in her direction.
Tears roll down my face and the trails they make sting a bit in the cold and my chest aches, but I don’t care.
Once I’m out of breath, I take my phone out and turn it to selfie mode, rub at the black smears I’ve created beneath my eyes until there’s no trace.
I realize I’ve made a mistake because now I have to walk the rest of the way in the cold out of breath, but I don’t care. It’s okay. Everything’s okay.
When I get to her house, I burst through the door. “Abuelita?”
“Mayte?” she says, and my name in her voice is the same color as the hat in my backpack.
When I see her, I rush up and wrap her in my arms, but somehow I still feel like I’m the one wrapped in hers.
“?Oíste?” she asks, wriggling her eyebrows.
I laugh. “Yes, I’ve heard.”
“Take that, cancer!” she says, punching the air.
“It really should’ve known that you were not the one to mess with.”
“It should’ve. Stupid sickness.”
“Hey, I’ve got something for you,” I say. I take the hat out of my backpack. “Ta-da! What do you think?”
“Dámelo,” she says, and I hand it to her. She looks it over, viewing it from different angles, checking out the inside. “It’s good.”
“That’s all I get?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Something better than good.”
“It is not the most beautiful hat I’ve ever seen,” Abuelita says. “And it’s not the ugliest. It is a good hat.”
“Wow.” I throw myself on the couch. “Rude.”
She sits beside me and grins. “Now mine, once you teach me, will be the most beautiful hat in the world.”
By the time my Abuelita Duty is over, she has a finished purple hat. It is no better than mine, but of course she thinks it is much better. She dons hers and I do the same with mine.
“How do I look?” I ask. I pose and she claps.
“A model!” she calls. “Walk like a model.”
I get up and start to strut through the living room but get too embarrassed and stop, my hands on my knees while I laugh.
“You think this hat will make me look hot?” I ask.
“I’m going out with Leo and Claire tonight and I was supposed to dress up, but when I found out you were getting better, I didn’t even go home.
I just ran all the way here.” I pose again with the hat.
“I feel like this is as good as the red dress.”
Abuelita sits up. “That is tonight?”
“What’s tonight?” I ask.
“The dinner.”
“What dinner?” I say. “With Leo and Claire?”
“You need your dress.”
“What do you mean I need my dress? We’re just going to a little diner by our school to get milkshakes. It’s not that big of a deal. They won’t care.”
Abuelita stands up and shuffles into the kitchen. “Do we have time to take you home?”
I laugh. “Abuelita, I don’t need to go home. I’m going to be fine in this.” I grab my phone from my backpack and swipe it open. “And anyway, we don’t have time. Leo’s going to be here in five minutes.”
“Ayyy, mierda,” Abuelita says, and I gasp.
“Abuelita!”
“Take off the hat.” When I don’t immediately do as she says, she runs over and takes it from my head, shoves it into my backpack, and leaves the room. A few seconds later, she returns with a hairbrush and begins brushing my hair.
“What the hell is going on?”
I hear the front door open. “I’m here!” Leo shouts. “Let’s see you in your—” She stops in her tracks when she sees me, and Abuelita freezes, the brush still in my hair. “Jeans and sweatshirt.”
“What is happening right now? Why are you guys being so weird?” I ask. I take the brush from Abuelita and finish brushing out my hair. “Is this what you two have been secretly planning for me? A fancy dinner? At Hammonds?”
“I tried,” Abuelita says, staring at the ground. “But she is dressed like a slob and I didn’t know it was today.”
“Ouch,” I say, looking at Abuelita. Then I turn to Leo and pull the hat out of my backpack, putting it back on. “Look what I made!”
Leo sighs. “Awesome.”
Once Tía Dely gets there, Leo and I head out. Leo is quiet and taps her finger on the steering wheel, which makes me as nervous as she seems to be.
“Are you mad at me?” I ask. “For not dressing up?”
“No,” Leo says. She sighs again. “Everything’s fine.” She smiles at me. “You’re still hot in jeans and a sweatshirt.”
“But look at you,” I say. She’s in a corduroy jumper with a maroon turtleneck, and dark red lipstick to match. Black knee-high boots climb up her legs. “You’re literally perfect.”
“No, you,” she says.
“Wait!” I yell. She slams on the brakes and glares at me. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I forgot I’m not supposed to do that while you’re driving.”
“You think?” she asks.
I force my mouth shut until we finally pull into a parking spot and Leo kills the engine.
“So what was so important that you almost got us killed?” she asks.
“Abuelita’s in remission.”
She looks at me. “What?”
I smile and nod. Tears tickle the corners of my eyes again.
“Oh. Oh, thank God. Oh, thank God,” she says. She begins to cry and so I allow myself to cry a little too.
I wipe my tears away with my sleeve and slow my breathing. She’s still crying, but that’s okay. We sit silently in the dark for a moment, then Leo leans over and hugs me, breaking into sob-gasps. When she lets go and pulls back, she just straight-up gasps.
“What?” I ask.
“You look like a raccoon.”
Suddenly, her phone starts to ring in the console. We both look down to see it’s Janko, the baseball player she’s got a new thing for.
“Here, I’ll go grab us a table,” I say, opening the car door.
“No!” she says. “I mean, wait, I mean, you have to fix the raccoon-ness.”
“It’s fine,” I say. “I’ll run and do it in the bathroom real quick before I get the table.” I grab my yellow hat. “I’ll just pull this low so it’s not so visible.”
“Mayte!” she calls as I shut the door. But I’m not about to sit in there and listen to her get all mushy over the phone. Plus, I need a second to breathe, to splash some water on my face. Besides, it’s not even drunk student hour yet.