Chapter 9 - Smaller Wood-nymph
August 31 - What am I doing?

“Gina.”

“I’m sorry, Mari. I have to go to class. All I have to say is thanks for keeping your end of the bargain.”

Ay, güey

“Our deal is still on, sort of.”

“Really? Cause I don’t see my bag in your hands.” The faintest hint of anger lies below the surface of her words. My bet is that Gina has never had to express her irritation ever, and this is the first time.

She walks quickly down the halls while students, teachers, and staff zoom past us. Her pace reminds me of all the exercising abuelitas near my home park, down to the small-raised fists and determined gazes.

“I didn’t mean to show up late. But I did show up, and your bag is in my van. I wanted to give them to you two days ago, but you didn’t show up for class.” My lecture is in the other direction, yet I keep my steps behind hers.

“I was sick. I went to the doctor’s.”

“Sick. Right.”

“Yes, sick”

“What did they say?”

She stops below an empty stairwell, turning.

“Why do you care?”

“You puked on my backpack. I might as well know the verdict.”

It’s a lazy reason, an untrue reason, but I don’t know what else to tell her. There are little movements in my chest, like wood-nymphs knocking around my lungs, every time she spares me a word or a glance. Don’t ask me why. I’m trying to kill the feeling with every nonchalant answer I give.

Gina grabs the red rails of the stairs leading to the second floor. “I’m not, so there.”

“Oh yeah?”

“They said I’m fine.”

“You’re really bad at lying.”

She pauses her assent to look back at me abruptly, killing whatever selfish satisfaction I gained from taking up her time and having her acknowledge me. Her nose gets red, then her neck, then her ears, and then finally her cheeks.

“I know,” she says in a stuffy, struggling murmur. Her tears fall.

In the second that it takes her to cover her eyes with her arms, the tips of my fingers touch the place on my chest where Trinidad had flung a box at me. The next thing we know, and before the sensible part of my brain kicks in, I climb up the four steps she took and cautiously pull her head into me.

What am I doin’? I know I'm the last person she'd want to hug.

In a movie, I would be the quintessential bad boy, with equally bad pull out-game, who's secretly endeared by a tiny average-looking girl. It would be her dream. I’d have all the answers for her, and she’d cling onto every stupid word I say.

In reality, I’m an eighteen-year-old high-schooler with no wisdom and no money, but you know what, maybe that’s a good thing. By simply looking at her sky blue backpack and the little unicorn plush figures that are hanging off the straps, the type of girl Gina is, from what I see, becomes apparent. Sweet and gullible.

And I’m exactly the kind of person who couldn’t lure her into believing anything other than the plain reality. I’m not here to take advantage of her.

“C’mon, girl. No crying on the stairs.”

“How old are you?” I ask twenty minutes later. Our feet dangle from a cafeteria table located in the courtyard of our school. Other students are lingering here too, waiting for the next bell to ring.

“Seventeen.”

“You look younger.”

“I always get that.” She bites into a peanut butter sandwich, her puffy eyes blinking away the irritating sting caused by her previous tears. “I’m four-eleven. Five feet on a heel day.”

“Mn.”

“How tall are you?”

“Five-five. Average.” I say. Half of her lunch was given to me, and I bite into it, grateful, and not concealing the fact that I inhale my food rather than swallow it. My hunger’s a burden. Chips and park fountain water can only sustain you for so long.

Gina crosses her legs on the table. “I’ve never skipped before.”

“I can tell.”

Her foot keeps shaking, stopping whenever someone walks by.

“Won’t the officers come out here and ask us why we’re not in class.”

“They don’t crack down until the second week,” I say through bites. “And you’re not skipping the whole day.”

“Yeah, okay. I can do that.”

She doesn’t sound confident at all. I give a small snort before biting on half a string cheese stick. 

“My parents will get angry.”

“It’s one class. You can say you were late helping a freshman get to their class on the other side of the school.”

“No. I don’t mean that.”

She messes with the ends of the hem of her shirt.

“Oh.” I chew and swallow. The latter turns out to be a bit of a struggle. “Are they hard on you?”

She scrunches her nose at the question. “No, not at all. They’ve always been good to me. Angry wasn’t the right word. Sorry.”

“Disappointed?”

“Yes, it’s terrible when they’re disappointed.”

“Not that bad. You get used to it.” I place an empty cracker bag down, then I admit something to her without thinking. “Here I was, worried you’d get your ass beat.” The tiny familiarity I had for her situation vanishes. It’s a loss that doesn’t bother me. After all, Gina’s not at fault for having levelheaded guardians, and to like her solely for her struggles, real or imagined, would be fucked.

“Thank you for worrying.” She says after a brief silence.

I wipe the area around my septum ring with a napkin, a powerless attempt at getting rid of the little goosebumps her simple sentence leaves me. Also, I have peanut butter on my upper lip.

“I’m not. I’m just curious.”

“Worry has to start somewhere.” She says, then jumps to a different topic. “Are you going to class after this?”

“Maybe.”

“You should. We only get two unexcused absences for our entire senior year. Any more and they won't let you graduate.” She pushes the remaining contents of her Greek yogurt cup towards me. “This is the last time I skip.”

“That’s what I said too.” I let air pass through my nose. My version of a chuckle.

“I’m not really the skipping type.”

“You don’t look like the pregnant type either, but your baby daddy proved us wrong, huh?” 

The mood dampens with that one sentence, and her eyelids lower. It’s always been a necessary habit of mine, to keep my words unfiltered for the sake of meanness. Although unintended, my comment is a dig into the smooth but frail foundation of whatever the hell is forming between us.

But Gina isn’t trying to build a rapport with me, and I was the one to seek her out. In other words, my jabs are misdirected. “I have a bad temper. If I say something you don’t like, you should call me out on it, and I’ll cut the crap.”

“Oh...I don’t know. Doyle Spencer said your boot left an imprint on his crotch.”

“Who?”

“Doyle Spe - nevermind. I’m not confrontational.”

“Not everything is a confrontation. Look, it’s been a while since I’ve talked to someone that wasn’t a coworker or a police officer. I can get mean. Don’t let it slide. Not from me, or anybody.” It’s been years to be exact, but I don’t tell her that. Kind of dumb of me to even give her this advice, since we’re not even friends. Right?

I dust off my hands and slide from the table. Gina uncrosses her legs and watches me like I’m about to fly away, a straw sticking out from her partially open mouth.

She says. “Easy for you to say. You have anger issues.”

“It is easy for me to say, and I do have anger issues.”

She shakes her head. “My mom’s therapist says that self-awareness isn’t enough. You have to do something about it.”

“What makes you think I’m not?”

“Reina.”

I scoff. “One fight last year, and everyone thinks I’m out to kill them. No one even bothers to ask who started it.”

She rolls her eyes and asks, “Who started it?”

“Physically speaking, I did. Verbally speaking, she did.”

“That’s not what Reina said.”

“You gonna believe her?”

“You broke her nose.”

I stretch, working a kink on my neck and the thoughts in my head. “I know damn well that violence isn’t the answer if that’s what you’re getting at. But I didn’t start picking on her, and she sure as shit didn’t hold her punches.”

She places her juice box down. Her tongue peaks out from the corner of her mouth to check for food and indicates that she's thinking. “You did look pretty bad that day in the office.”

Her words joggle my memory, just not enough for me to recall ever meeting her.

My throat rough, I struggle to say, “Alright, your choice. Third floor. Room three-o-five.”

“What?”

“Craig’s Creativity Corner needs new members. You should come if you wanna.”

After a brief pause, I start preparing to walk away without saying goodbye, fists shoved into my hoodie.

“I’ll think about it.” She replies, and then noting that I’m moving away from the table, she says, “you should go to class.”

“Aight.”

I nod and start walking away, getting as far as the courtyard doors until I hear:

“See ya later!”

The bell rings minutes after.

Lectures for six-plus hours straight eventually bleed into one another. Paying attention gets harder towards the end when all I can think about is how heavenly that peanut butter sandwich I ate in the morning was, and how cafeteria food really doesn’t look as healthy as it's supposed to be. Focusing is a skill that I’ve never been able to master - a good portion of the reason being Trinidad. But part of me has always been a little slow to process things. With effort, I survive.

One of my teachers has caught on to the fact that I don’t have a notebook. She gave me a look, the kind that Gina would be afraid of from her parents, and let me out of class with a note ordering me to purchase school supplies for her English course. Now, I walk through the halls reading the words journal and pens, mandatory for my class over and over.

Mierda. I need some dough.

Maybe I can trick some freshman into believing my piercings are authentic silver rather than cheap plastic that Mattel ripoffs use to make dolls.

Suddenly, I stop walking.

Again, the feeling that someone’s watching me needles the back of my head. The end of school fills the hallways with students. It’s nearly impossible to tell who. Maybe I should find Officer Castillo when I can.

In the meantime, my first club meeting begins today. Relief and a tiny bit of excitement drown the apprehension that had briefly snuck into my chest. Playlist Locos isn’t here to keep me away from home, but Craig’s Creative Crackhouse might be.

I climb up the stairs to the third floor, taking two steps at a time despite the discomfort it causes, and when I get to the hallway with the single open door, I note someone’s waiting outside. She’s peeking her head in and out. The boys are probably back to their positions near the T.A desk and can’t see her.

“Gina,” I say.

“Oh my god!” She slams a hand to her chest. “You scared me.”

“Why aren’t you going in?”

“I, I was waiting for you. There are only guys in there.”

“Yeah. Sausage fest. C’mon, let’s go inside.”

“Wait - wait,” she says.

I give her a little shove and follow right after. She’s not half-way in when she stops, mouth slightly open. My head moves from her to the center of the class.

Ortega Vallejo, Buzzcut twin, sits on top of a desk, grabbing onto his twin brothers head and murmuring in words I don’t think he understands. His eyes are closed, and finally, I catch sight of the calaveras, skulls, he has tattooed on each eyelid.

Miller and Tigo are disguising the fact that they’re cracking up under their hands, but when Ortega suddenly hollers, causing his brother to smack his hands away from his hair, both guys stop laughing.

Ortega points at us ominously.

“The ritual worked. We have a new member.”

Gina's lips remain slightly parted. If an owl butterfly were to land near her open eyes, I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

She stares at me with a face that reads; pero que pendejada es esta? And I honestly have no clue, so I say.

“Welcome to the club.”