Not gonna lie—that’s a gut check I’m not expecting. The clinician in me knows how veryin-the-wrongI’ve been, not just with that but with all of this. The ex-convict setting the clear boundary is embarrassing but necessary.
“You are right,” I nearly choke out.
He laughs. “Man, that must’ve hurt for you to say.”
“You have no idea. And I very much want anusoutside of our dynamic.”
“That’s good to hear,” he says, looking relieved. I feel like an ass for not making that clearer sooner.
“It’s just…”—his words drift off, and I wait as he finds them again—“something about you makes me want to spill my guts. Tell you everything about me. But some of my history doesn’t have a statute of limitations. I’d be a real fucking idiot to tell you those things when I’m not even sure you’re all in.”
“So when I pull away, it makes you worry.”
“Of course it does,” he says with a gesture, keeping the truck steady even now. “This isn’t casual for me.”
“I don’t want you to worry, Nacho. This isn’t casual for me either. You can say whatever you need to say. In your own time.”
He grips the steering wheel like he wants to say something but can’t quite get there.
“You’ve said that you have things that don’t have a statute of limitations. Maybe if you knew some of my history, you’d know you could talk to me.”
He looks over at me. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. I don’t know if I ever told you, but Levy and I grew up in a tough neighborhood.”
He shakes his head.
“It was…I dunno. Rough, but everybody kinda took care of everybody else. Our parents owned a little convenience store that, you know, did okay. But we got robbed a lot, so we took classes at the community center and learned to defend ourselves. Fight back if necessary.”
Humming to himself, he responds, “Can’t let them think you’re an easy target.”
“Nope. We were pretty rough around the edges when we were younger. Disciplined enough to stay out of any real trouble, but nobody fucked with us.”
I take a deep breath. Only Levy knows this next part about me.
“Anyway, we had a friend, Ria. We’d gone to school together since kindergarten, and she was one of the first people I ever told I was gay. She had shitty parents, but she was always cool to be around.” The memories come thick and fast, and I give myself a chance to catch my breath. “But there was this one week where she left school on Friday, chatty and happy, but came back on Monday morning like a ghost of the girl we knew. It didn’t take much digging to find out that her stepbrother had moved in over the weekend, and things had gone to hell. Fast.”
Nacho, hanging on to every word, curses under his breath.
“Exactly. He’d dropped out of college, moved into the apartment over his dad’s garage, and he just…you could tell he was bad news from looking at him. Ria never told anyone else what he did to her, and she made us swear we wouldn’t say anything. I kept my promise, but she didn’t say we couldn’t go after him.”
“Oh shit.”
“He came into the corner store the same night she told us what was happening. I was on shift and told him I had some expired beer in the back if he wanted.”
“Let me guess: no beer.”
“Not a drop. At least not for him. Got him in the alley, and he thought he was so badass, but he didn’t know a thing about putting up a fight. It took less than a minute. Broke a lot of the bones in his face with a few quick palm strikes. Kicked his knee so hard it went the wrong way.”
Nacho’s eyes widen as he looks over at me. I shrug.
“Fuck, Bram. You could’ve done some serious time for that.”
“Nah.” I rub my thighs, remembering that night so clearly. “Didn’t have a scratch on me. Didn’t use a fist, so my knuckles were fine. It would’ve been his word against mine. Also, I always carried a knife on me, so I held it up to his throat and told him everything I’d do to him if he ever laid another hand on Ria. Called him an ambulance, and he swore up and down he couldn’t identify his attacker. Left town as soon as he healed.”
Nacho drums his thumbs on the steering wheel, nodding along. We share a few silent moments, and then he begins to speak.
“I…I tried to be the good kid, you know? I didn’t want to be in a gang like my cousins. But, you know, shit happens. My mother only took the hard stuff if she needed help making it through a triple shift. Dad died of an accidental overdose when I was fifteen. Mom did the best she could. I still was okay-ish though. You know?”
