Prologue
Xavi
“Hey.” A kid his own age waved at him from the library front desk next to a door with a sign that said Archive.
At least he looked to be around Xavi’s age, although he was a lot shorter.
He’d seen him around school, always smiling and bouncing around like a pinata on a string, his loud voice ricocheting off the bare walls in the long corridors.
Xavi lifted his hand, waving back, as he shuffled closer.
“Hey.” Xavi’s voice hung in the space between them for a few seconds, then the kid’s face split into a broad smile, his rich brown eyes lighting up with something that could only be defined as trouble.
“I’m Joe.” The kid continued to smile, his eyes sparkling with genuine interest, something that didn’t happen too often in Xavi’s life.
He was one of the more invisible kids at school, but he mostly preferred it that way.
Invisible at least meant that you weren’t an obvious target, and that you could blend in with the dull gray walls.
“You’re Xavi, right? You’re Abe’s brother?
” Joe blushed, shifting on his feet, the tips of his white tennis shoes scuffed and way past their expiration date, just like Xavi’s own.
He wasn’t surprised that Joe knew Abe; everyone did.
His older brother was, after all, the star on the school swim team and everything Xavi wasn’t.
Athletic, popular, accepted. And most days, Xavi was okay with that because he loved Abe, but sometimes, when he’d had a really shitty day, and he was feeling really low and was doubting himself, it was hard to have a brother two years older and who was the embodiment of everything classically masculine and handsome.
Abe was a tall, dark, and exceptionally good-looking kid who belonged with the popular kids, whereas Xavi was the weird kid with two fingers missing on his left hand and probably would’ve been bullied every single day of his life if it wasn’t for Abe’s high status at school.
Xavi already dreaded next year when Abe would start high school and Xavi would be left alone to fend for himself at the D’Youville-Porter Campus public school for another two years.
“Yeah,” Xavi swallowed, as his gaze remained locked on the notice board behind Joe’s head.
Something was different since last week when he’d last been in detention, but it took him a few seconds to realize what it was.
Then his eyes registered the large pink flyer smacked right in the middle.
Cabaret, the header said in bold black letters against the hot pink paper.
The D’Youville-Porter Drama Club was putting up Cabaret as their yearly Christmas show?
Xavi frowned, and now Joe turned and looked at the board too, still smiling.
“That’s fucking bold, hermano,” Joe laughed, his voice way too loud for the quiet library, and yet it wasn’t the volume Xavi got stuck on but the casually spoken hermano.
Xavi just nodded, because yes, it was in fact bold to put up Cabaret as a school performance, and Xavi couldn’t help but wonder how the drama club had gotten away with that when it was usually something lame and safe like Peter Pan or Singing in the Rain.
“Yeah,” Xavi agreed, thinking that maybe he’d actually go watch the play this time.
He loved Cabaret. He’d lost count of the times he’d watched it with his mami, Veronica, and his two tias, Angelica and Telma.
They were all equally obsessed with Liza Minelli and knew all the songs by heart.
Abe would usually lock himself in their shared bedroom when it was musical night at the Bernal residence, or go hang out with his friends at the Front Park.
“Mr. Pérez and Mr. Bernal. Now why am I not in the least surprised?” Ms. Hatcher’s raspy smoker’s voice sounded behind them.
They both turned and simultaneously took a step back, bumping their backs against the wall behind them.
Every kid at D’Youville-Porter knew better than to be caught in the nicotine maelstrom that was Ms. Hatcher’s secret weapon of mass destruction.
The school librarian tilted her head, eyeing them both, then sighed languidly, her stale breath wafting along Xavi’s chin.
He held his breath, trying not to look at the prominent wart on her nose, but it was as impossible as trying not to stare at a traffic accident.
It just sucked you right in, that black hair in the middle of the wart waving at you.
Look at me. Look. At. Me. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” she continued.
“Two of my favorite delinquents on the same day. Maybe I should get a lottery ticket later, too.” She cleared her throat, which quickly escalated into a coughing fit.
Joe eyed Xavi nervously, probably thinking the same; that on an already epically shitty day, the last thing they needed was for the school librarian to expire on them.
Then her words registered, and Xavi had to agree it was rather strange that he, as a frequent user of the school’s detention facilities, had yet to run into Joe if the kid was in fact a fellow juvenile delinquent.
Finally, it seemed like Ms. Hatcher was over the hill as her coughing fit subsided and changed into a low gurgling sound.
“Where’s Mr. Cisnero?” She wheezed, her pale fishlike eyes trailing over the attendance protocol she was holding in her claw-like fingers.
“Dunno,” Joe replied, relaxing next to Xavi now that the apocalypse had decided to do a rain check. “Never heard of him.”
Xavi hadn’t either; then again, it was a large school, and since Xavi wasn’t a social bird and mostly kept to himself, he mainly knew the students in his own class or those who really stood out one way or another.
“Well, let’s get on with it so we can all go home,” Ms. Hatcher sighed, failing to hide how big of an inconvenience this was, as she moved to the archive and unlocked the door.
The dusty, moldy odor hit Xavi as soon as he entered the small room right behind Joe.
He hated it here; the stuffy, tight air made his brain fuzzy, and the fact that there were no windows gave the room a claustrophobic feel.
For a few terrifying seconds, he was thrown back to that night when his entire world had drowned in thick, impenetrable clouds of smoke.
His chest automatically clenched, while his lungs struggled for his next breath, until his brain caught up with his body and reminded him it wasn’t that night. That he’d made it out. He had.
Like he always did when he entered the room, Xavi swore that this would be the last time, although he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep that promise.
He would be here again, if not next week, then definitely before November turned into December.
He needed to learn how to keep his mouth shut, but it was hard when you’d always been taught by your mami and your tias that your voice was just as valid as the next person’s.
And with a case of chronic ignorance going on around most of the teachers at school, it was a near-impossible task.
“Take a seat, gentlemen.” Ms. Hatcher waved at the area behind the archive cabinets that had been converted into a wannabe classroom with a row of worn desks and mismatched chairs.
Xavi went straight for his favorite table in the front, closest to the door, and Joe surprised him by plopping down right next to him.
People usually kept their distance in detention, so Joe was breaking all social cues by initiating some sort of connection between them, but for some reason, it felt nice not to be ignored.
Joe smiled at him, then shook his head, his near-black bangs tumbling onto his forehead.
Xavi found himself smiling back, a warmth spreading in his chest as he slowly let his guard down.
He knew he shouldn’t. Letting your guard down amongst your peers could be dangerous, but still, there was something disarming and genuine about the smile that spread widely across the other boy’s face.
Xavi’s gaze dipped to the table, the surface adorned with carved and written profanities, some bolder than others, creative variations of both the English and the Spanish language.
There was the usual piece of paper and pen too, which was really just pro forma because none of the teachers ever checked if you’d listed all your trespasses and sins against the Buffalo Public Schools District by the end of detention.
Xavi knew he was a sinner, but no way was he going to put it down on a piece of paper.
Because what good would it do to confess all your sins and ask for forgiveness and redemption, when Xavi’s existence in itself was—and always would be—considered an abomination to many so-called God-fearing people?
When, by being himself, being the person he was always meant to be, he was a freak to some and a sinner to most. It didn’t matter that his mami held great respect in the Latin-American community.
He knew that when—because one day there would be a when—he came out as a boy who liked other boys, their neighbors and friends would pity his mother, although she never, not once, made him feel he was anything but perfect in her eyes.
People would look at him differently too.
He would no longer just be Xavi Bernal, the kid who lost his father and two fingers in a fire.
He would be Xavi Bernal, the gay kid. He’d seen it happen over the years, young men and women in their community who came out.
Very few were actually ostracized; no, it was more of a subtle condemnation.
Some moved away and rarely visited their families, while others stayed but were frowned upon and called names behind their backs.
He saw it happen to his beloved tia Telma.
The subtle whispers and the disapproving glares.