Chapter 13
After Timothy excuses himself from the tub to pour himself another drink, the casual, teasing vibe of the party is back as if nothing happened. Kiki and Carla smile at one another like they didn’t look like were about to tear each other apart seconds earlier.
Timothy returns and slides in on Carla’s right instead of her left this time.
Which puts him directly next to me. He stays silent as we play another round of Never Have I Ever.
I brace myself for him to slide in closer to me, or worse—for his hand to disappear beneath the water to somewhere he knows it shouldn’t be—but he keeps his attention focused on Carla and the game.
After two more rounds of increasingly more specific things, it’s down to me, Kai, and Carla.
“I thought you were on my team,” Kai grumbles as he lets his hand fall into the water with a plop. Looks like having been to Europe was his downfall.
“There are no teams, just winners,” I reply with a teasing smile, surprised at my own boldness—either from the rush of being here tonight with him, or the rum. Most likely a combination of both.
Kiki, who struck out shortly after Timothy, raises a brow in surprise. “That’s the spirit,” she says, and I can’t help but beam at the small sliver of her approval.
Carla, on the other hand, doesn’t seem as entertained. Down to just one finger while I still have four, we both know who’s most likely going to take the game. With it now being her turn, though, she can at least go down swinging.
“Never have I ever…” She pauses, and I can see the moment the idea comes to her. Watch as her eyes light up with a wicked thrill. “Had a dad who was a murderer.”
It’s as if all the air has been sucked out of me.
The silence weighs so heavy, even the hot tub’s jets seem to simmer down, the cicadas in the surrounding woods hushing.
I can’t move, can’t even so much as blink as my vision tunnels—focused on Carla’s sneering smile.
Dozens of thoughts whip through my mind at lightning speed, all of them fighting for dominance.
I want to push her. Make her pay. I want to beg her for forgiveness for a crime I didn’t commit. I want to scream.
More than anything, I want to disappear.
“What the fuck, Carla?!” Kai shouts loud enough to break me from my daze. He stands up out of the water, looking as though he’s going to lunge at her until Kiki grabs him by the wrist. “That’s not cool.”
“It’s not like it’s a secret,” Carla protests casually as she gestures toward me like I’m a zoo animal. Like she didn’t poke at the rawest part of me—all for the sake of winning a stupid drinking game.
It may not be a secret, but that doesn’t mean she knows anything about me, or Papi, or our family. She has no idea who we are. Or what we’re capable of.
“Her dad probably didn’t even do it, though,” Timothy says suddenly, the statement so jarring that everyone—me included—whips around to face him. “Those guys were assholes.”
I swallow down a gulp, feeling more lightheaded than ever. He’s right, but it’s not something anyone ever says out loud. In death, those boys were forgiven of all the things they’d done. How they broke our family in ways we didn’t know were possible.
People often forget about those details.
That there was more to the story than what happened that afternoon because Coach Kills Two of His Star Players makes a better headline.
Hardly anyone mentions the months leading up to it.
The anti-bullying seminars we were forced to sit through month after month and the school-sponsored psychologists that assured us their doors were open but never did anything to help those who really needed it.
They forgot all about my brother because something darker came along to take his place.
“Timothy,” Carla replies in warning, bitter and biting as ice. It was bold enough for Timothy to say what everyone thought out loud, but especially in front of her. The mourning ex-girlfriend.
Timothy shakes his head lazily, completely unfazed by Carla’s glare. “Please, you said it yourself. The guy was a dick.”
The truth of what happened between Carla and Jose, the king and queen of Millcreek High, isn’t public knowledge like the rest of her breakups.
Maybe it was at one time, but anything unkind people had to say about Jose Perez is long buried with him.
But it’s not surprising that they didn’t last long.
He was a senior dating a freshman—that alone painted an ugly picture.
“That doesn’t mean he deserved to die,” Carla snaps back, her cheeks flushed just a few shades lighter than her red bikini. I’m not sure if the frantic edge to her tone is rage or defensiveness.
“That’s not what I meant,” Timothy says, rolling his eyes.
“They just did a lot of shitty stuff. Like a lot. The whole goddamn soccer team hated them. Danny was on the football team my freshman year, and he made our lives hell before getting kicked off.” He looks around at us as if we’ll all jump to agree with him—though he spends extra time lingering on me.
I don’t give him the satisfaction of any kind of response.
Not a blink or a twitch of a smile or even a breath.
He flushes when he looks away from me, sober enough to realize he put his foot in his mouth but not enough to shut up while he’s ahead.
“Lots of people could’ve wanted them dead. ”
Timothy holds his hands up as he leans up against the wall of the hot tub. “I’m just saying, the story seems a little too convenient.”
His theory isn’t the first I’ve heard like it, and probably won’t be the last. While it’s easy to feel like the entire world is against us, there are some people who believe Papi is innocent.
Usually, I found comfort in knowing that there were people out there who saw to the core of Papi’s heart—who knew as well as I did that he was good and kind and gentle.
But this is different. Timothy doesn’t believe in Papi.
He just hates those boys for hurting him like they did us.
Even if he believes that Papi was—is—innocent, he’s not any better than the others.
He doesn’t care about the truth, or about us, or about who we really are.
All he wants is to mold us into exactly what he needs us to be.
Just so we can fit his version of the story.
As much as I hate to admit it, Carla is right. No matter what, those boys didn’t deserve to die. They deserved consequences, but not ones that cost them their lives. And I’ve always wished I could say that out loud.
With Timothy resting his case, no one bothers to argue with him.
No one tries to change the topic either, the air too loaded with tension for us to act like everything is okay.
Suddenly, I’m warm all over with the urge to be sick.
I grip the edge of the hot tub, prepared to make a bolt for the bathroom, but just as I lift myself out of the water there’s a pop somewhere in the distance.
I swear I see a spark somewhere between the trees, moments before the world goes black.