Chapter 9
“Why did you cancel their memberships with the gym?”
“They didn’t… work out.”
“Not funny, Rey.”
I shrug like it’s no big deal, but to Javier, every fighter who wants to train and improve is a big deal.
“We are almost at capacity as it is. Someone will take their places by the end of the week.”
“Fine. But I want to know why?” I glance toward the empty office.
“I thought they were good.”
My eyes slide to his. “I have my reasons.”
I don’t wait for him to respond. I press play on my headphones. The faint beat from the music plays as I hit the speed bag. It’s almost midnight. The gym is empty, and I know he will leave because he needs to be up at four in the morning for his run.
After Javier leaves, I head to the office and don’t bother turning on the light before I sit behind the desk in the dark. I close my eyes and take a deep breath, inhaling the scent of strawberries.
“Your son has a problem with his anger, Mrs. Vicente. I understand he has a long road ahead, but we can’t have this behavior in our school.” I could still hear their muffled voices from where I sat outside the office.
“Please,” my mother pleads, trying to hide her accent. The anxious look she gives the principal from Texas tears me apart inside. Mr. Gonzalez is originally from Puerto Rico and moved to the States after he was hired last year. “Rey is a very good boy,” she continues.“He has a kind heart. What about the other kids? Did you speak to their parents about how they pick on my son?”
“We have. But we also had one kid with a busted nose and another one with a bruised jaw. Some witnesses say when he was provoked, he attacked them. One said it was because he was teased, and the other because of a girl.” The girl wouldn’t leave me alone and wanted to give me a blow job in the bathroom. She was pretty enough with dark hair and a pretty face. It also helped that she was Marcus’s girlfriend. She was upset after I ignored her and then told Marcus I was a freak that left her alone.
“Violence is not tolerated,” Mr. Gonzalez finishes saying. “They provoke him because he was placed in special classes. My son deserves to be treated the same.”
“Mrs. Vicente, placing your son in a regular class will not help him. He has stopped speaking. He needs…”
“I know what my son needs. He needs to be treated like a normal thirteen-year-old boy.”
I watched the principal’s irritation cross his face. All I wanted to do was walk in there, reach over the desk, and show him what normal felt like, but I couldn’t. I could see the strain in my mother’s eyes—the dark circles from lack of sleep. I was the cause. I was the problem.
“He is…under the circumstances. We are willing to keep him here if he can behave like he is supposed to after a school psychologist evaluates him. If you could discuss this with his father, maybe he…”
“He left,” she blurts. “Unfortunately. ”
The principal’s face softens a fraction, and he says, “I see.”
He didn’t. No one saw, and no one cared. All they saw was a troubled teenager with a problem—a problem that would get worse.
I wake up with a jolt. I look around the dark office and realize I fell asleep in the chair. I sit up and rub my sore neck and stretch my stiff muscles.
Memories from my past remind me of what people thought of me. I’m considered violent, quiet, and emotionless. That was what they see when they looked at me—the part I let them see.
I never thought anyone would ever see the real me, that a person could simply didn’t exist. That I would be doomed to ever feel anything other than guilt and anger. Guilt for my brother and mother for what I put them through. Anger for my father leaving and the way the rest of the world thought of me.
Some say angels exist, and for some, they have appeared. That’s what crossed my mind after I saw her for the first time. That was what she looked like sitting in the chair. The way the sun hit her with the glow of its rays when our eyes first met—an angel with soft features and a soft nature—even the way she looked at me. If she only knew what I saw and how I felt, but I could never tell her. I have to keep her at a distance if I can’t convince Javier to let her go.
I take a deep breath, and the scent of strawberries floats in the air, calming me the same way her smile does. The glint in her eyes when she talks to me, with her pink lips two shades away from red against her creamy skin. All I can do is watch her when she isn’t aware and ignore her when she knows I’m around.
I don’t care if she is frustrated. I don’t care if she hates me for not wanting her here even though a part of me wants nothing more than for her to stay. I prefer her to hate me than to see the look in her eyes if she knew the truth.