Maldeamores (Lovesick) (Heightsbound #0.5) (9 page)

“Stop, Luciano, stop!” is all I can say. But instead of bringing me back into the party he yanks me down a dark corridor which ends in a maid’s kitchen. He opens a door and I can feel the chill of the night. There’s a freight elevator in front of us and he pushes the down button. I pull up my bra straps and yank my dress back up over them.

“He’ll bleed to death,” I’m crying. “Where are we going?”

Lucky says nothing and just shakes his head and looks at the floor. It seems like he’s struggling so I try another angle.

“Call an ambulance,” I sob. The elevator door opens.

“He’s not going to fucking die, Belén. At the very worst he cracked the back of his head open. A couple stiches, some Neosporin. That faggot will be just fine.”

“Don’t say that! You’re not supposed to say that! How are they going to find him?”

“Maybe the, I don’t know,
sixteen squad cars
that busted the party?”

“What?”

The elevator doors close and Lucky hands me my underwear. His eyes catch mine and I’m terrified he’ll yell at me. It’s bright in the elevator and only one side is padded; the other two are mirrors. I take my panties from him and open them and gently step into them. I’ve never been so humiliated. I feel sweat gather on my upper lip and my brow. I’m almost nauseated with embarrassment.

Lucky won’t look away or give me an ounce of space. He stares me down ruthlessly, with unmasked enthusiasm. I lift my dress up over my bare ass and slide the underwear back on. I know he saw my privates and a roaring heat surges through my body with the thought. Lucky licks his lips. He bites the lower one. Our eyes connect. He just saw every single part of me and I know he could feel that my panties were sopping wet.

“Why did so many cops bust an underage drinking party?” I ask, trying to take the spotlight off of my nudity. He nods his head fast like he does when he’s either angry or messed up on drugs.

“Your little faggot friend Jeremy sells coke and tonight was his idea of a fun set-up.”

“What?” I say, shaking my head. “He likes books and he does well in school.”

“Yeah, so did fucking Ted Bundy. Lenny, don’t make me talk about this.”

“How did you get out? Do you have any drugs on you?”

“That’s the whole point, isn’t it? Fucking Jay called me and told me a set-up was going down. That’s why the order was so tall. I searched that whole goddamned place for you and then hid in the broom closet when they busted down the door.”

“Jaylee from the park?”

“Yeah. But where was little Lenny? She was hiding in the closet too, letting some fucking asshole pop her cherry!”

“That’s not fair!” I yell, turning my face away from him. “What about all the things you do with girls right in front of me? What about Yari? What about fucking my best friend so I have to hear every terrible little detail? How about ignoring me until you broke my heart? How about that, Lucky! You think you’re any better than me? You’re a coward and I hate you!”

The elevator opens into a dark garbage room that smells like rats and cat urine. I take my heels off and just fucking run away from him. It’s probably not safe, since I’m drunk and it’s late. But being with Lucky isn’t safe either. Lucky is probably the most dangerous mistake I could ever make.

Chapter 12

Lucky

I
stay inside all of the next day and the one after that. It probably looks like I’m lying low but it’s much, much more than that. Some people might think my relationship with Belén is fucked up. But this is how it is and I can’t fucking change myself.

Our moms are from the Dominican Republic—they grew up on a farmhouse in rural Santiago, then followed their uncle to New York. One by one they came over and tried to make something of their lives. Awilda, my ma, Beatríz, Belén’s mom, and Jimena, Tía Hemi, that’s the order of their ages and the same order they left the island. After Hemi was born, Grandma got real sick. She died from a fever that may have been caused by a mosquito. Then Gramps had three girls on his own and a whole farm to take care of, not to mention Hemi was still just a baby. Gramps started her on warm, frothy, unpasteurized cow’s milk. Straight from the barn into her baby bottle. My ma always said that’s why Hemi can’t help but eat like a barnyard animal.

But the shit’s that really our family’s dirtiest secret isn’t in the barn—it’s in the Bronx, right here in New York City.

Tía Betty was nineteen when she arrived in New York. She looked like a grown woman but was probably more like a kid. She’d lost her mom, didn’t speak the language and didn’t have any skills for success. She was also pretty lonely and scared half to death. She didn’t move in with her sister Awilda, because my ma was already living with my dad. That left Luis, their only other contact in the city.

She’d met her uncle once before, her mother’s only brother. Luis had come to the city young, set out for his fortune. When Betty arrived he was a thirty-seven-year-old man with his own livery cab medallion. He was lonely too. And I guess it’s not too hard to figure out what happened. Lonely, single man still longing for the homeland gets a ripe, young roommate, fresh off of the boat with no money, no help and not another soul to turn to.

So, needless to say, of course Belén looks like her mom’s side of the family, because Belén’s got one-sided DNA. But, whatever. Fuck what that means. She isn’t messed up.

Belén turned out perfect.

But Tía Betty fed her a story about being half-Puerto Rican with a made-up dad who took off back to his homeland when he couldn’t be bothered to settle down or to take care of babies. That was my story, so they gave it to Belén, too. We all believed it so well that when we were kids, she and I would talk about our dads coming back or running off to PR to search them down for a reunion. She never doubted it because there was really no need to.

Belén isn’t really the spitting image of Betty, so she just told herself that she looked like her dad and she had us all believing it. We believed in a lie that we ourselves had made up. And Belén was so perfect, none of us wanted to jinx it and mess it up. So my little cousin thinks she’s half Boricua like I am, when really she’s one hundred percent Dominican. She’s twice related to the same damn family.

So her parents’ sin complicates our own story. Belén and I aren’t just one-half related—it’s worse than that. We are a full three-quarters. I don’t even know what the fuck we are. What do you even call it? We are more related than just first cousins. And Belén doesn’t even know it.

Belén

My mom always said that every family has a black sheep. Hemi must be my mom’s generation’s and I must be mine. Even though Hemi’s kids get detention and kicked out of school and even though Lucky is out on the streets doing God knows what. I’m the dirty, shameless girl who would do anything to have her cousin love her. No, even uglier than that. Who would do anything just to have her cousin want to fuck her.

I call Jeremy, although it takes me a full day to work up the nerve. I meet him for coffee and apologize profusely about the stitches in his head and the slight new angle to his nose. He takes it all in stride and brushes off the police bust like they were the regular chaperones for the party.

He holds my hand while he talks to me and circles the pad of his thumb over my nail.

“I’m sorry he hit you, Jeremy.”

“Belén, I told you, quit apologizing for your cousin. I know how Hispanic men get!”

It leaves a bad taste in my mouth but I nod in agreement. I think I’m so desperate for a boyfriend that playing house with Jeremy is fulfilling some stupid fantasy. He buys us fancy coffee and chocolate croissants. We sit by the window and he takes my hand in his lap.

“Have you decided what schools to apply to?” he asks, trailing his fingers up my arm. That’s a normal question. This is a normal relationship, I keep telling myself.

“I’m getting as far away as possible,” I say as I sip white foam off of the top of my steaming mug.

“I can’t believe how close we were when he busted in the door!”

Apparently, our minds are traveling in different places. I can’t stop thinking he seems gay. Is it just because he’s a rich white guy that I’m getting these vibes? What eighteen-year-old straight male likes to look at
Vogue
magazine? And I’m suspicious because he seems to like me. No boy besides Lucky has ever taken an interest in me.

We pick at our croissants and he leans in and kisses me.

“Are we a thing, Jeremy?” I ask, not sure if I want us to be.

“I think if we got as far as we did the other night, then maybe we should be. Don’t you think?”

I nod my head and think about how he suckled at my breasts and how it made me wet. How he took my panties off and how I let him without feeling guilty. Finally, something sexual without all the horrible shame mounting and building.

But what scares me the most is when I think back on that night. It’s not the scene in the bathroom that makes me flush with heat and fan my face. It’s not Jeremy’s wet kiss or his hard dick in his hands with the intention to enter me.

No.

It’s Lucky. Grabbing me by the arm when my dress was hanging off my body. Dragging me down the hall as he pocketed my panties. Gazing at my breasts with longing, his chest heaving as we waited for the elevator. Handing me my wet underwear and staring me down, humiliating me—while I, completely exposed, pulled up my dress and slid them back on, trying to hide my arousal.

I’ve never experienced anything so sexy.

What makes my body flush with heat isn’t Jeremy. It’s seeing Lucky’s face again when he stared at my nakedness. See him lick his lips and sneer as I covered my body back up.

I’m wet again just imagining it. What I wouldn’t have given for it to be Lucky in the bathroom wanting to take me. For him to use my body for pleasure, even if only to discard me.

That’s why I’m the black sheep. Because Lucky just getting himself off on me is better than someone, maybe Jeremy, actually wanting me.

Lucky

I’m sick. Sick on drugs. Sick on loss. Fucking lovesick. I can’t stop playing over and over what would have happened if I hadn’t walked in on her. I want to kill that piece of shit for putting his hands on her. I want to tear apart any man who thinks he’s even good enough to look at her. My friends, the guys on the corner, that asshole Jeremy, Mr. Sanchez, even Jaylee fucking Inoa. I want to take them all out for even imagining fucking her. I’m physically sick. I can’t leave the apartment. I call Yaritza to come over.

I shower. Get dressed. Sit on the couch and stare. I wonder if she’s upstairs. If she’s at the library studying or if she’s going crazy like I am.

I’d give anything to have her—anything to be her man. But I won’t ruin her life. I refuse to be the reason Belén doesn’t get everything she deserves. I just didn’t figure on it killing me this much to see her with someone else. I honestly thought it’s what I wanted.

I turn up the television to drown out the neighbors’ cheery-ass
merengue
.

But I can’t sit around and watch it happen, it’ll fucking destroy me. I’d kill him first and that’s why I have to get the fuck out of here and into the marines. So Belén has a chance at a normal life. A normal life with a normal guy.

Yari arrives and hangs up her jacket. She stands with her hands in her pockets and surveys the state I’m in.

“Oh boy, Luciano. You’re a ball of fun today,” she says, hips thrust out sassily out to the side. “Thanks for inviting me over!”

That’s why I like Yari. She’s tough. She can take whatever I give her and more.

“Take your clothes off and get into my bed. I’ll be there in a second.”

Yari shrugs and yanks her shirt off in front of me. She leans her head down and lifts her tit from her bra. She pulls her own nipple into her mouth and then sticks her tongue out, licking all over it.

“Can the show. I’ll be there in a minute,” I say.

Yari shrugs again and heads toward my room.

I stand slowly, feeling like an invalid. I yank open a giant dictionary and two little packets of coke fall out. Pouring one out onto the page, I cut it, then lean down and snort it. I should lay off but right now it’s too much to be sober. It’s beyond wanting to fuck her, I think I’m in love with her.

I’m in love with my own fucking cousin.

“Luciano!” Yari yells from the bedroom and I shuffle across the floor, shaking my dick through my pants, trying to get it hard before I stick it in her mouth.

I gotta get out of here and give Belén a chance. Happiness, her own family, rosy cheeks to go with her rosebud mouth. A goddamned, picture-perfect, rosy life. She deserves a real life—not a fucking freak show with me, her own flesh and blood. I never realized it would kill me like this to try to stay away from her. Didn’t realize that saving Belén’s happiness might cost me my own sanity.

Belén

June comes before I’m ready.

I do really well on finals.

I think Jeremy is my boyfriend and this will be the very first summer ever that I’m dating someone, even if he’s going away to college in the fall.

Lucky has been distant and positively withdrawn. He sees Yari every day after school. He’s having more sex with her in the last few months than he did in the five or so years since he’s been seeing her.

How do I know?

Yari comes to my place afterward and lists off all of the details. I wish she were more sensitive. I wish I could tell her. I wish Lucky would have chosen me instead to release whatever he’s got all pent up inside and needs to get rid of.

Lucky passed the ASVAB, the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, the first basic test for becoming a Marine. He’s been training hard every day. At the school gym, on the playground, even with weights in the basement. There’s no way they won’t let him in. Unless it’s the drugs. If he stays clean, I know he can do it.

June means Lucky’s graduation. It means we’re planning a party. We party big in my family. A DJ, rented tables and chairs, catering, booze, Dominican cake—the works. Mami already made hair appointments; Yari bought new clothes. Titi has been sick with worry. She thinks if Lucky doesn’t pass we’re all out a shit-ton of money. But I know Lucky will get through his finals. He’s got his eye on the prize and he will get it done. I just wish I could stand by his side as he conquers. I wish it would be my mouth he kisses after he makes his toast at his party.

I’m in the audience when he walks across the stage. We hoot and holler and clap even though they told all the families to withhold their applause till the very end. Try telling Hemi and her crew to shut up. Good luck with that. They’re the loudest bunch in here and not one of them is graduating.

Lucky’s smile is genuine and proud. Titi can’t stop crying and then cries more because she’ll look puffy in all the pictures.

There are blue and yellow balloons all the way down the block. They’re tied to the trees, to the sign post, they’ve even got them on the garbage can. The music is already blasting from the basement of our building. No one is sleeping tonight—least of all the building’s super, whose living quarters we’ve overtaken.

“How about a picture of the cousins?” Hemi shrieks. Raymond and Ramón crowd around Lucky throwing up gang signs and I hold the new baby, Jovani. His diaper smells dirty. I smile big anyway and hold his little hand up.

“Move in closer to Lucky, Bey!” Hemi shouts. I scootch over until I’m flush with my cousin and resume my pose for the picture. We smile until our faces hurt and Jovani starts to cry. Raymond and Ramón wander inside to get started on booze and I help Titi unload more drinks from the car.

The super shows up with a hand truck to help us. Titi smiles at me and pulls me into a hug. Lucky bursts out the front door and onto the sidewalk. He’s changed into jeans and a button-down shirt. His hair is freshly buzzed, he wears small hoops in each ear and he’s vibrating with energy.

“Lenny, how about a pic of me and you? For old time’s sake?”

I smile and squint up at him. He’s haloed by the sun. Sometimes life turns out different than we thought it would, but that doesn’t mean it still can’t be good. I’m happy for Lucky. So happy for him that I’m almost happy for Yari, too. They’re kind of like a real couple now. I should probably get over it.

I hop up the steps and throw my arm around Lucky. His wraps his around my waist and pulls me in tight. A little too tight for comfort. We both smile down at our moms while they get a few shots.

“You’re killing me, Len, with that white dress and that smile. The way your hair smells. Fuckin’ killin’ me dead.”

“Sorry?” I say as I spot Jeremy walking up the block.

“I’d eat you alive and slit his throat while he watched if there were no rules, Bey. If it were just me and you. Just wanted you to know that. Have fun at the party.” Lucky grabs my ass through my new spring dress. He plants a kiss on my cheek and pinches the flesh at my waist. “You’ll be the end of me, I swear. My dick just got hard from having your hair brush across my face.”

So much for normal. So much for a good night. There are tears in my eyes when Lucky finally pulls away and jogs down the stairs to the party.

“Hi Belén!”

“Hey Jeremy.”