Chapter 10
RAUL
"Isn't that your dad's car?" Diego asks as we cut across the yard.
We just came from the park, sweat still drying on our skin, the sound of the ball and our voices still hanging in the air behind us. We'd been talking business, talking plans, talking like the world ahead of us was something we could actually control.
Now my stomach drops so hard it feels like a shove.
"Fuck. What does he want?"
We push inside and the house greets us like a held breath. Dad is at the table with a bottle in front of him, slouched in his chair like he owns the weight of the whole room. I think I'd be more startled if he were anywhere else.
Then Aunt Val's voice cuts through the halls.
"Diego! Raul!"
"Comin', Ma," Diego answers, but his face changes before he even finishes saying it.
Her voice is coming from our room.
My feet slow. My pulse doesn't.
We round the corner and find her crouched under my cot, one arm buried in the shadows beneath it. She pulls back with something clenched in her fist.
Fuck.
She stands and opens her hand. A bag of pills spills into the light.
"Whose are these?"
It's only a few stragglers from the last batch, but my mouth goes dry anyway.
Diego looks at me once, quick and sharp. "They're mine."
"Mijo," Aunt Val says, disappointment heavy in her voice.
"No, Aunt Val," I blurt out. "They're mine."
"Raul. Is that true, Diego?"
"I mean —"
"Yes," I cut in before he can finish, before he can make it worse. "It's true. I'm sorry."
"Ernesto!" she calls, and the name lands like a warning.
Dad appears in the doorway a second later. Aunt Val holds the bag up between two fingers like it's something rotten.
"What?" he snaps, already irritated.
"Look what Raul has."
Her hand closes around Diego's arm before either of us can stop her. "Come, Mijo."
She drags him out, and the room swallows the sound of her footsteps.
Then it's just me and Dad.
Silence stretches between us, thick and ugly.
He turns the pills over in his hand, studying them like he's deciding whether I'm worth the effort of being angry. "Are these yours?"
"What's it to you?" I spit back.
His eyes harden. "Mijo, I'm your father."
"Since when?" I say, louder than I mean to. "You barely showed your face after Mom died."
His jaw tightens.
"Raul."
"No," I snap, and something in me breaks loose. "Don't 'Raul' me like you have any right. I'm the one here. I'm the one who had to figure out how to live in this house while you disappeared whenever it got too real."
"You're just a kid," he barks.
"Since when?" I shout back. "Since when am I supposed to be a kid? I'm left alone, trying to survive this place. I'm trying to enjoy anything I can before it all gets worse."
He crosses the room fast.
Before I can move, he yanks my backpack off the bed and dumps it open. I lunge for it, but he shoves me back hard. My shoulder hits the mattress, the springs groaning under me.
He starts pulling bags out one by one.
One.
Two.
Three.
My stomach turns cold.
He holds them up, disbelief flashing across his face. "Are you serious, Raul? You're selling?"
"So what if I am?"
That gets his attention.
He slams a fist into the wall so hard an old snow globe rattles off the shelf and hits the floor.
When he looks at me again, the shock is gone. What's left is worse. Recognition. Calculation.
"You think you're grown?" he says, voice low now, dangerous in a way shouting never was. "Fine. Then you're going to help me."
I stare at him. "Help you?"
He gives a short, humorless laugh. "What do you think I've been doing? I'm making money any way I can to keep this house afloat and keep myself alive."
I can't speak.
He lifts the bags close to my face. "You want to act like a man? Welcome to the family business."
The words sink in slow, each one heavier than the last.
"At least this way," he goes on, "I can keep an eye on you. Make sure you're not doing anything stupid."
"But Dad —"
"No buts."
He shoves the bags into my hands like he's passing me some stupid chore, then turns and punches the wall again, this time with a groan that sounds almost like pain.
"Fuck! I didn't fucking want this life for you."
"I-I…" The words jam in my throat.
"Just shut the fuck up." He cuts me off, jaw tight. "You were supposed to make her proud, Mijo."
That one cuts deep.
My voice comes out small and thin. "I'm sorry."
"Whatever." He drags a hand over his face, furious and exhausted all at once. "Do you have buyers for these?"
"Just some kids at school. And the park."
"Then we're in business."
He steps back, already done with the conversation. "Go get your cut. After that, you run for my guy. Not whoever the hell gave these to you. Aunt Val knows what I'm doing, but if she asks, we talked and you're scared straight. Got it?"
"O-okay," I stammer, folding the bags back into my backpack with shaking hands.
He turns to leave.
No lecture. No punishment. No outrage.
Just that.
Like he didn't just hand me a life sentence wrapped in a father's voice.
The door swings shut behind him, and the room stays dead quiet.
I sit there with my backpack in my lap, staring at the floor, at the bed, at the place where my life just split clean in two.
What the fuck just happened?
Diego steps slowly into the room, looking around skeptically.
"You good?" he asks softly, almost in a whisper.
"Yeah," I breathe out. "I don't know what just happened, but I think I have a job now."
"No shit, man. If it's replacing selling, what else are we going to do?"
I never told my aunt or my dad that Diego runs with me for Marcelus and "B."
"You're still good, man. Keep pushing. We have a lot of product to unload." I motion to the backpack.
"Yeah, a few kids from the party the other night are asking me to bring them some before school tomorrow," Diego says.
"Hell yeah." I nod, staring into the distance. Nothing has really changed but everything feels like it has.
The next morning, we wake to Aunt Val singing in the kitchen.
The smell of fresh coffee drifts through the house, warm and bitter, followed by the sweet pull of a box of donuts that yanks us straight out of bed. For a second, it almost feels normal.
"Boston cream," Aunt Val says when we shuffle in. She lifts the box with a small smile. It's her favorite, and we usually get them once a week.
"Oh!" Dad growls from the living room.
I flinch so hard my chest tightens. Fuck. I forgot he was still here. He scares the hell out of me.
Diego and I grab a donut each and eat fast, barely pausing long enough to say goodbye. Across the kitchen, Dad catches my eye. He gives me a small nod, then a wink.
I look away before I can decide whether to feel sick or angry.
By the time we meet Ty and Michael, they've got a few other guys with them too, all runners, all quiet and keyed up in that way people get when they're trying not to look nervous. We pile into Michael's car and drive to a gas station down the street from school.
From there, everything moves fast.
We split up and fan out toward the groups waiting around the lot, each of us taking our own corner. A nod here, a handoff there, a quick exchange, a little laughter to keep things looking light. By first period, it's like nothing ever happened.
Diego and I keep a few loose pills on us in case anyone wants to pick up between classes. The day slips by in pieces after that. Hallways. Lockers. Teachers' voices. Faces passing too close and then disappearing again.
Then lunch hits.
My phone buzzes in my pocket.
Dad.
His name lights up the screen.
I answer. "Hello?"
"How's it going?" he asks, too casual, like he didn't vanish for months at a time.
"Good," I say flatly.
"Good." He pauses. "I want to talk tonight. But I have to run security for a local club."
"Security?"
"Yeah," he says, searching for the word like it's strange in his mouth. "I'm a freelancer, of sorts."
I almost laugh. It comes out as nothing.
"Okay?"
"Anyway," he says, like we're discussing weather instead of years of absence, "if you're up when I get home, I'd love to talk more."
"Sure."
I hang up.
For a second, I just stand there staring at the screen, my stomach souring with something that feels too much like betrayal to name. After all these years, after all the silence, he calls like we've just been apart for a weekend. Like he didn't leave me to rot in the dark.
Then a commotion breaks out near the cafeteria doors.
People move before I even understand why. I push through the crowd and find Diego.
He's pale. Not just pale — white. His jaw is hanging open, his eyes fixed on something across the way like he's forgotten how to breathe.
"Cuz," I say, grabbing his arm.
He doesn't even blink.
"Diego!" I shout, touching his face until he finally looks at me.
"He… h-he…" His voice catches in his throat. "Is he okay?"
"Who?"
I follow his stare.
An ambulance is pulling up outside. Kids are being shoved back, voices rising, everyone trying to see at once and pretending they're not. Then I spot the body on the ground, half-hidden in the chaos.
"I don't know," Diego says, eyes still locked in place. "One of the kids from this morning. I think he's just a freshman."
My blood goes cold.
"What happened?"
Diego swallows hard. "He h-had to have collapsed. I don't know. There was so much spit. Drool. And then he just… hit the ground."
His eyes finally drop to the concrete before meeting mine. "Raul, there was so much blood. I can't do this anymore."