Nightcrawling(52)

“Damn, you not even gonna turn on a light for me?” She walks slowly, arms out, like she’s walking a tightrope, and I bet she thinks she’s clouded in dark, but for me she is just as clear as ever. Almost too easy to see. The paper bag is clutched tight in her hand and it’s wrinkled. “Can’t get your food if you don’t gimme some light.” She isn’t even turned toward me, facing Trevor across the room, and she’s real close to running straight into the counter. I turn on the closest lamp to me and a dim orange illuminates half of the apartment.

Alé straightens her body and turns to face me. This must be the first time she’s really seeing me because the lines in her face turn downward and her skin becomes this tender softness, rippled and babyish.

“Good to see you,” I say, still standing by the lamp in the corner. Corners are safer, I think. Two walls instead of one.

“Yeah.” Alé sighs. “Said you were hungry?”

I nod and she puts the bag on the counter and opens it, lets out this whirlwind of steam and the scent of fish and carnitas and food I’ve been dreaming of since the day “normal” suddenly faded to this. She lifts out three plastic boxes. “Snuck it past Mama like I was doing a delivery and she didn’t say shit.” She laughs, small bubbles of sound escaping.

“La Casa don’t even deliver.” I laugh with her.

Alé reaches into the bag again and takes out a purple spray paint can. “Happy birthday, by the way.”

I smile. “Thank you.”

“You coming?” She’s still standing in the kitchen, her eyebrows lifted.

“Maybe you could bring it here?” I stare at the cracks in the lampshade, slivers of sharp light that break the subtle warmth of it.

Alé sighs. “You scaring me now, Ki.” She piles the boxes and paint into her arms and walks over to me. “At least sit down.” The usual light in her voice—the witty note at the end of each of her words—is gone and she just sounds exhausted.

I sit on the floor and Alé follows my lead. I want to just snatch the food and begin gobbling, but she’s gripping tight and I know she won’t let me eat until I talk. Quietest girl I know wants to talk. I nod my head to Trevor, place my finger to my lips to tell her we gotta stay quiet so he don’t wake up. She nods.

“You gonna get right up and leave again if I tell you.” The only thing left for me to stare at is my hands. All the lines in my palm Alé used to read are cut; some of them bleeding, some of them scabbing, some of them too deep to decide how to heal. I’ve been clawing at them, after I finished gnawing on the nails.

Alé puts the boxes beside her and leans toward me, legs crossed, coming closer until her knees are touching mine. She angles her head so that it is directly in front of my hands, looking up into my face. Makes sure she has my eyes. She does.

“I shouldn’t have left in the first place. You tell me to stay and I stay. Say whatever you gotta say and I’ll stay. Siempre.” She doesn’t blink.

I cough. “You heard about the story? Cop who killed himself?”

Alé’s eyebrows do a quick wave and her eyes glaze a little. “Oh shit.”

I can tell she wants to look away from me, can see the way her eyelids flutter like the last thing she wants to do is stare into my eyes, and I can’t blame her because this is everything she ever told me not to do and I bet I’m splintering her bones like Mama splintered mine. If only some Sunday Shoes and a funeral could mourn all this shit, bandage us up.

“Didn’t mean for it to happen. They found me and it was prison or that and you know what Mama been through, I wasn’t about to get locked up.” Alé’s eyes close and I shut my mouth. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

“Why you sorry?” She’s still got her eyes closed.

“I know you didn’t want me in this mess and—”

“So you’re sorry ’cause you think you disappointed me?” There’s something scratching in her throat and I can’t tell if she’s angry or sad or if she thinks that’s the funniest thing she heard in a damn long time.

I fumble. “I guess.”

She looks at me and smiles, the brown in those eyes magnetic. “I just wanted to keep you safe, Kiara.” She shrugs, and I wonder if she’s thinking about Clara. “And the only reason I ever been disappointed is ’cause we never in the same place at the same time.” She coughs, maybe to get rid of the nakedness in her voice and maybe just to fill the room with sound. “Except maybe when we eating.”

Alé opens the lids, three tacos in each box, and slides them toward me. She scoots back so we aren’t touching anymore and I lift a shrimp taco from the box and consume it in three bites. I reach for the next one. She could be eating, but instead she watches me, sly smile. I look at the newest tattoo on her neck. It’s a beehive, except I don’t think it’s full of bees. I lean in, sauce dripping from the corner of my mouth. The swarm is actually a bunch of butterflies mid-flight. I want to touch them and see if the wings flutter because it looks like they would, but there’s food to be eating and it’s too dangerous to make contact with Alé’s skin when it’s this dark.

“Any for me?” My stomach leaps at the sound of Trevor’s voice. Both Alé and I whip our heads to look at him sitting up in bed. We must not have been quiet enough.