Trouble

“Did you tell him?” Alejo asked conversationally as we made our way down the street, our hands in our pockets, trying to focus on anything but what we were about to do.

“About what?” I questioned, knowing he was talking about Liam.

“About tonight.”

“Oh. No.” Filled with anxiety, I pulled a pack of cigarettes out of my jacket pocket and lit up before offering one to Alejo, who accepted without hesitation. My hands were surprisingly calm, even though all my organs seemed to be shaking.

“Did you tell him about something different?” The smoke exited his mouth as he spoke, swirling and curling underneath his chin in response to our movement.

“Yeah.”

“What?”

I shot him a look before taking another drag, and Alejo nodded. “Oh. That. I’m really sorry about that. I wish I had known.”

“I was good at hiding it. Plus, it was a long time ago.” I almost said, I’m over it, but I knew that was far from the truth. And I figured it would continue to be far from the truth for the rest of my life. I was too far gone to get help for it.

Alejo and I continued to walk in silence. He finished his cigarette before me, dropping it under his feet and crushing the butt with his toe. The cinders, once bright red, dimmed and settled for a dark gray, the light completely extinguished.

I knew that we were both scared, but neither of us was willing to admit it. People could be watching from anywhere, waiting for an admittance of cowardice, waiting to prey on us. And there was no way we could let that happen.

Soon enough, we arrived at the park where the deal was supposed to take place. Alejo had the drugs ready in his jacket pocket, his piece tucked into the back pocket of his jeans. His fingers were shaking a little, but he could always explain it off as being nervous about his first deal.

“Good luck,” I breathed, patting him on the shoulder, turning to take my position.

“Sol, wait,” Alejo interrupted, grabbing my arm. “I love you. You know that, right?”

“I know. And I love you, too. But don’t worry about it. You’re going to make it, no matter what. This might not even be a set-up.”

Although I said the words, I didn’t mean them in the slightest. Anyone with the least bit of brainpower would be able to figure out that the drug deal was a rouse to lure an unsuspecting member into a trap.

But just as Cristobal had done his entire life, he underestimated Alejo and his ability to pick up on small clues, solve puzzles, put things together. The boy was excruciatingly intelligent, even if his common sense didn’t always work out for him, and he was a little perverted.

Clearing out the area of all leaves, sticks, rocks, and anything that could possibly get in the way, I kneeled down in the dirt. Alejo and I had mapped out the area and decided that behind a small bush was where I could get the best angle of seeing the scene. Alejo’s cell phone felt heavy in my pocket, ready at any moment for me to whip it out and dial the all-important police line.

I knew what they’d call me: a traitor, a bitch, a whore, along with so many others that were far more insulting. They’d jump me whenever they saw me, beating me to the point of death. Maybe they’d kill me.

But somehow, that didn’t make me afraid. I’d made things right with the one person I’d wronged, and my sisters and mamá knew that I cared about them, that I wished them all the best.

I shook my head, trying my best to get rid of my thoughts. I sounded like I had already given up on my life, but in truth, I had no idea what the outcome was going to be. I had to keep some kind of hope alive, or I was never going to keep my focus.

I watched carefully as Alejo waited, his arms in his jacket pockets. From where I was, he looked so small and vulnerable. The two of us weren’t ready for something like that. No one was ready for the stress we had to face every day. For the first time in my life, I found myself regretting my jumping-in, since I’d insisted on being initiated like the boys if I was taking a boy’s job. I regretted getting involved in a tangled web of scheming, drama, and intensity that came with the job of a gang member. And I regretted ever loving my jobs on the streets, dealing with the countless horrifying people I came across.

It had never occurred to me before that I was not living the ideal life. I was living an ongoing nightmare that I’d never wake up from. Something that I could never take back, no matter how hard I tried.

The sound of a snapping twig caught my attention, and I snapped my head around, ready to draw my gun.

But there was no one there. Just darkness with the occasional break of light from the streetlamps.
I checked back over at Alejo, who was rocking back and forth impatiently. Whoever the other half of the drug deal was, he was late. A clear demonstration of wealth and power that he must have felt pressed to go through with.

Subtly, I saw Alejo turn around and glimpse at me, probably making sure that I was still there and in position. As if I would ever leave the boy, after everything he’d ever done for me. After all the sense he’d talked into me.

I almost found myself getting emotional as I watched my blood brother stand there, an innocent look on his face. Though I’d never noticed it before, his cheeks still had the slightest bit of roundness of them, a subtle reminder of just how youthful he was. He was seventeen. Seventeen years old, and Cristobal thought it was okay to set him up for murder because he was attracted to men instead of women.

All the times he’d hit on me seemed silly when I thought back on them. A couple of times during our adolescence, I’d actually been afraid that he had real feelings for me that he was too afraid to act on, just like something out of a teen drama. Once, I remember that we were sitting on his porch after his curfew, and I thought he was going to lean over and kiss me. I remembered being petrified because I wouldn’t know what to do, what to do with my mouth and my tongue, or if I even liked him back.

But it had all been an act, a calculated sum of parts to equal the hidden whole. Briefly, I wondered how Cristobal had found out about Alejo’s sexual orientation, since he’d only told me, and I’d never said a word to anyone that even hinted toward the truth.

“Hola, Alejo,” a familiar deep voice crooned, followed by the sounds of snapping branches and crunching leaves.

Again, I thought I heard a sound from behind me, but when I checked, this time even faster than the first, there was nothing. I was going crazy.

“Hola,” Alejo replied. He sounded confident, secure. Exactly as I’d hoped he’d be.

And then I glanced back at the scene and drew in a fast, silent breath. The man standing in front of Alejo was no throwaway minion, someone that could be gotten rid of under the radar.

It was Cristobal himself, dressed in his nicest suit, his hair slicked back perfectly, and a gun sticking out of the waistband of his pants.

Suddenly, everything Alejo and I planned got much more serious, much more critical, and all the more dangerous.