We Are the Ants(82)

“She’s the reason I came to live with Viv instead of going home when I got out of juvie.” He spoke so softly that I felt his words vibrate against my skin. I stroked Diego’s hair but didn’t move otherwise. “It was self-defense—even my lawyer said so—but my mom refused to testify against my dad. It was my word against his, and my father had a silver tongue when he wasn’t tweaking. I needed my mom to back me up, but she refused. He’s going to kill her one day, and she chose him over her own son.” His voice broke.

“You don’t have to talk about it.” I tried to imagine being betrayed by my own mother, but I couldn’t. Despite her flaws, my mom was always there for me.

Diego rested his forehead against mine. “I wanted you to know.” He pulled me to him and kissed me as if that might erase his memories of the past. He slid his hands under my shirt and pulled it over my head. I couldn’t unbutton his shirt fast enough. I lost track of time. We were arms and legs and lips, fearless and frenzied.

“Is this all right?” he asked as if I wasn’t the one who’d wrestled him out of his black dress pants. “You’ve had a lot to drink.”

“It’s good,” I murmured, tipsy but not drunk. “Is it okay for you?” I looked into Diego’s eyes, feeling self--conscious now. I’d been poked and prodded by aliens, wandered Calypso without a stitch, but standing in front of Diego was the most naked I’d ever felt.

“Better than okay.”

“Have you ever done it with a guy?” I asked. Diego shook his head. “Not even in juvie?”

“It’s not like that,” he said with a chuckle.

“I have . . . with Jesse. And Marcus.”

Diego laughed. “So much for just being friends.”

“We can stop.”

“I don’t want to. Unless you do.”

“I don’t.”

I led Diego to the bed, and we eased under my sheets, letting instinct and hormones take control. I thought it must’ve been midnight because I heard shouting, but I ignored it. Only Diego and I existed.

My bedroom door burst open. “Henry! Henry, you gotta come quick!”

I scrambled to cover Diego and myself with the sheets. “Jesus Christ, Charlie, we’re f*cking busy in here!”

Charlie was crying. I didn’t notice that at first because I was freaking out about my brother walking in while Diego and I were naked and about to have sex. But when I did, I knew something was wrong. “Henry, please. It’s Zooey.”





1 January 2016


I watched my brother chew his fingernails down to the quick, and then keep biting. He gnawed on the ends until they bled, and I finally had to pull his hands away from his mouth. He looked at his fingers and shook his head.

“How long are they going to be in there?” he asked.

“I’m sure someone will be out soon.” The hospital waiting room was far from comforting, and our coffee cups sat forgotten on the small plastic side tables. We’d been waiting for more than an hour, starving for even the smallest scrap of news. Diego had been the only one of us sober enough to drive, and we’d rushed Zooey—moaning in pain and clutching her belly—to the nearest hospital in Audrey’s car. I wanted to call an ambulance, but Charlie refused to wait.

“Do you think I should call her parents again?”

“You left them a message, right?”

Charlie nodded. “I don’t think they get reception on their boat.”

Diego held my hand and smiled when I glanced his way. It was difficult to think of anything other than what we’d been about to do when I looked at him, but Charlie needed me, so I tried to pretend Diego wasn’t there.

“Do you think she’s going to be all right?” Charlie asked.

Audrey’s eyes were half closed—she never could hold her liquor—but she said, “It was probably false labor. Sometimes it happens.”

Diego and I agreed, but I’d seen the blood on Zooey’s hands and between her legs. I didn’t know what it meant, but I doubted it was good.

“Well, she’d be the first Denton in history to be early to anything.” I tried to loan Charlie my smile, but he wasn’t in the mood.

“Zooey’s always early,” he said. “If she’s not at least fifteen minutes early to wherever she’s going, she starts to get physically sick.”

Audrey said, “I thought I was bad.”

“You are,” I said.

Charlie wasn’t listening to us so much as talking to fill the void where Zooey should have been. “She has this saying: ‘Early is on time, on time is late, and if you’re late, don’t bother showing up.’”

“I’d hate to work for her.” Diego couldn’t figure out which cup of coffee was his and so just took one at random. He grimaced. “This is worse than what they served in juvie.”

Audrey blinked to clear the sleep from her eyes, and tried to sit up straight. “What was it like?”

Diego’s back stiffened, and he bit the corner of his lip. He hadn’t talked about it, and I hadn’t asked. I was about to change the subject, when he said, “At first it’s scary. When you go inside, they strip you and search you in the most humiliating way imaginable. Guys’ll hide drugs and weapons anywhere they think they can get away with it, but I think the strip search is more about the guards showing you that your ass is theirs. No matter how tough you think you are, you’re their bitch.”