Noise at the front door brought me out of my thoughts. It sounded like the twins. One of them was groaning and complaining. They were speaking in Spanish, but I picked up the ‘Simpsons’ and ‘fight’. I had actually forgotten the two gangs had a fight organised tonight. Miguel was in the middle of grumbling about the ‘clones’ in particular when the two of them walked into the kitchen and saw me.

“Oh,” Miguel blinked a few times, switching to English. “I didn’t know you were here.”

“You making arepas?” Manuel asked through gritted teeth, gripping his shoulder.

“Yep,” I replied. “What happened to your arm?”

“Football,” Manuel grunted and sat down carefully at the dining room table.

“Can you shred the chicken?” Ario asked me, glancing at his brother in concern.

“Sure,” I replied and started tearing apart the cooked chicken with a knife and fork.

“Thanks,” he murmured before walking over to Manuel. “Take your top off.”

“It’s not that easy,” Manuel said in a pain filled voice.

“Did you get tackled?” Paulo asked.

“Yeah,” Manuel replied and then looked at his twin flatly. “By him.”

Miguel smirked a little, “I got a bit competitive. They don’t put us on the same team because it’s hard for them to tell us apart.”

Although the twins were wearing different coloured football shirts, they still were identical looking, especially if they were running around a pitch.

Ario chuckled, “Well I’m guessing if it were anyone else who tackled you that bad, you’d be suspended from the club after fighting them.”

Manuel rolled his eyes, “True.”

“But they’re too scared to tackle us properly,” Miguel added with another smirk.

Ario half smiled as he helped Manuel slowly take off his blue football shirt. He had a look at Manuel’s shoulder whilst Paulo and I finished off the meal. We cut the arepas in half and put in shredded chicken, cooked vegetables and a bit of cheese. It was delicious.

I had just finished my first one when Diego entered the house. He greeted me politely when he saw me and I sent him a small smile. Since I’d first met him, I could say that he had changed. He wasn’t the rowdy, disrespectful and degrading man that he had shown himself to be, over a year ago. Diego was quiet around me now, still keeping his distance and never allowing the two of us to be left alone in a room together. I appreciated his thoughtfulness. I’m sure Carlos had told him how our father had been like with me when I was young, and that too had made Diego even more careful when I was around. It seemed it wasn’t just me that he had changed towards. Hearing Ario’s words earlier today, about the guy they’d seen harassing a girl and had then beaten up, made me think that Diego had seen his past self. And that had made him angry. Hopefully he no longer treated any girl the way he had initially treated me.

“What happened to you?” Diego asked Manuel in English, who was alternating between rubbing his shoulder and eating his arepa.

“Miguel messed my shoulder up in football,” Manuel looked at his brother who smiled innocently back at him.

“Are you gonna be able to fight with that tonight?” Diego frowned.

“That’s what I was saying,” Ario spoke. “I don’t think he should, but we need him or we’ll be two people less than the Snakes. They already have seven and we’re just six.”

One thing about hanging out with the enemies of the gang that I belonged to, was that they didn’t entirely hold back on expressing their dislike for the Simpsons. They didn’t discuss anything about their own gang either and I didn’t mind that they might have not completely trusted me. What I’d done in the past warranted that cautiousness. Besides, I’d honestly rather know as little as possible just for my own sanity rather than safety.

“Hola Coral,” Carlos’ voice came from the doorway.

“Buenos noches,” I replied, knowing that he wasn’t going to speak any English until he absolutely had to.

Carlos had had a long rest, I could tell by how messy his hair was and how it was actually quite close to Diego’s own unkempt hair. Carlos took one of the arepas on the table and started eating. He murmured praise in Spanish, and Ario and Paulo only passed it onto me. Carlos sat opposite me at the table and started speaking to me in his deep voice. I simply sat and stared blankly at him, having absolutely no idea what he was saying. He clearly thought I was a pro, but his accent was so authentic and he spoke too fast for me to comprehend. I just looked at his clean cut cheekbones, wondering why I hadn’t inherited such traits. Although, I figured his cheekbones definitely came from his mother, because he looked nothing like Pedro at all. Diego, a little bit, but not Carlos. His mouth was still moving and he occasionally shifted his thick brows, maybe expecting me to say something in return.

“Oh I got that last part,” I suddenly replied brightly, straightening up in my seat in excitement.

“Yeah, that’s because I was speaking English,” Carlos said in a dry voice.

“Oh,” I bit my bottom lip and the others literally cracked up laughing, even Diego.

“You’ve got a long way to go,” Carlos gave me a tired smile.

“I know,” I grinned back. “Why are you so sleepy?”

“Been working a lot,” he replied vaguely. “But I’m okay. How have you been, hermana?”

“Good,” I replied and then proceeded to tell him how things were, whilst avoiding all talk about Walter and his brothers, which afterwards, wasn’t that much. Mainly just art school and work, you couldn’t mention the name of a Simpson in the Santiagos house. Not unless you were insulting them.

“Yo Paulo, you wanna fix us up another batch of arepas? That was good but there wasn’t enough,” Diego said lazily with a hand up his shirt, scratching his stomach.

“It was only meant for me, Ario and Coral,” Paulo replied. “That’s just too bad.”

“So is that a no?” Diego arched a brow.

“Si puto,” Paulo smiled widely, calling his cousin a male prostitute.

Diego stood up quickly and Paulo made a swift escape out of the kitchen. Diego chased after him, daring him to curse at him some more and I had to laugh. The Simpsons wouldn’t believe how similar they and the Santiagos really were.