Chapter 2
Efren
PAST
Freshman Year
Before Esteban’s Death
Moderation isn’t something I subscribe to. While other people strive for balance, I seek after and embrace the maladaptive behaviors that define me. I don’t question wrong or right. I just do what feels right to me in the moment.
This includes overindulging in my share of drugs, sex, and violence. Preferably mixed together. But nothing I’ve tried has satisfied me long-term. Every day is another search for a new high. And that has been my life.
Until I saw her.
Until she became the high I was chasing.
From the moment she enrolled in my school, I knew she’d be a fucking problem.
I’ve watched her from afar, trying to understand who she is and what group she’d fit into.
But the more I watch her, the more I’ve become intrigued with her.
Big brown eyes, long curly hair, and pouty lips.
Traits many women possess, but none carry them the way she does. There’s something different about her.
Her first day of school, she didn’t try to make friends. For weeks on end, she walked through the halls, oblivious to the world around her. Detached, like me. Like something was haunting her, and I wanted to know what.
One day, I followed her from school to the hospital.
Alma’s mother, Missy, had glioblastoma, a fast-acting brain cancer.
Or at least that’s what the intake paperwork I stole claimed.
In that paperwork, I recognized something strange.
Under “Next of Kin” Alma wasn’t listed, not even mentioned.
In fact, under “Pregnancies” Missy reported never having a child.
Was Alma a foster child or adopted like I’d been? Who was Missy? What was Alma’s story? The need to know and understand her continued to fester, but before I could find out, Missy died.
Alma took a whole week off from school before she was back, carrying on with the same facade. Showing up and going to her classes as if nothing had happened.
I wonder what she does to cope when she’s alone? Does she do the things I do to feel something? Does she seek adrenaline and pain like me? Is she as fucked up as me, trying to chase death just to see if it will look back and wink?
She was my little mystery I was eager to unravel. My muse. My fucking obsession. That was until she caught the eyes of another predator, my brother. The thought of the asshole reminds me of the text he’d sent me earlier.
Esteban
Where you at?
Tell my dad I’m spending the weekend with Alma.
Right. Alma. His scapegoat for his late-night debauchery. I know for a fact he isn’t with her because I’m watching her climb onto the bus. She’s always the last one on, but her seat is always left untouched. I make sure of it.
She slides in four rows ahead of me, right side, second window. Her spot. The one where she scratched “Foolz Die 4 Love” into the faded brown seat in front of her. She did that last week when Esteban started distancing himself from her.
Maybe I should put some distance between us too, but I don’t.
I do this every day, watch her get on and off the bus.
Alma Gutierrez is taking up too much of my time these days.
But I have so many questions about her that need answering.
Questions that make my skin itch. Not in a bad way.
In a way that makes me want to peel it off and figure out what’s underneath.
What goes on in her mind? How is she so quiet and self-contained?
At the top of my list of questions is what the hell she was doing with Esteban.
My brother is fucked up, and that’s coming from me.
The kid whose parents had him evaluated at ten years old for setting his older brother’s bed on fire.
In my defense, he’d cheated at Monopoly, and I hated losing, especially to my brother, who’d convinced everyone he was the perfect son while I was some charity case in the making.
Our entire fucking family dynamic is like the 90’s horror film, The Good Son, and Esteban is Macaulay Culkin.
Only unlike the movie, I didn’t try to be the good son when I was younger.
I let the doctors put whatever labels on me that would satisfy Bud and Angela, and continued to live in the shadow of their biological son.
But Alma is the one thing I won’t fuck around with.
Somewhere in my attempts to stalk her, I didn’t realize Esteban was watching me.
He must have caught on to my interest in her and pulled us both into his twisted game.
Letting me have anything would be a loss to him, but I’m not going to let him hurt her. She belongs to me.
My jaw clenches at the thought of them together. I hate it. Looking ahead, I watch as Alma wipes a tear from her face. She leans her head against the window and pops in her earbuds. She’s upset, and it’s my fault. I’d ripped her little note to Esteban into shreds and spread them across the hall.
Was it necessary for me to humiliate her?
No, but I don’t give a fuck. Sometimes God uses a demon to scream over angels when he needs to make a point.
And I don’t mind being a demon in her story if it means keeping her away from the real fucking threat.
Esteban is spiraling again, and it won’t be long before he turns on her.
There’s no more remorse for the way I feel about her.
Even as my attention is fixated on the tears running down her face, I wonder what her mouth would taste like after crying.
Or what her soft voice would sound like whispering my name.
I look away before she notices me. The bus stops outside her trailer park, and she’s the first one out.
Once everyone leaves, I follow behind her from a distance. My heart steadies when I watch her walk safely inside the trailer. I hate that I can’t stop this obsessive behavior. Even worse, that I don’t want to.