Rosita reaches forward and puts her hand on Tito’s wrist. He still doesn’t look up.
Rosita:If I say anything that makes you uncomfortable, just let me know, and I’ll pull back. And afterward, if you change your mind, tell your brother, and I’ll erase it all. I don’t want you to think I’m bullying you into this.
Tito just shrugs. He keeps his head hung low. He’s refusing to make eye contact.
Rosita:Okay, if youcantalk, why don’t you? I know it’s not because you’re dumb. In school, you were ahead of all of us in math, and I’m two years older than you. So why don’t you?
The camera pulls back. Axel looks at Tito, who nods.
Axel:Are you sure?
Tito makes another hand gesture.
Axel (sighs):When we were eight, our grandpa had an accident. We didn’t like being separated. Tito used to have these dreams, nightmares that someone would come and take us away from one another, and our grandpa thought it would be good to start easing me and him away from one another a couple times a week. So we’d have these days where we’d go back and forth, and I’d spend the day with my grandmother, and one of us would go out into the fields with Grandpa. Grandpa had an accident, and he died.
Axel holds up his wrist, showing his bracelet.
Axel:Tito was supposed to always wear his bracelet, but he didn’t like the way it felt, and he wasn’t wearing it that day. Grandpa’s bracelet got ruined by the thresher. My brother ran to get help, but it was dark, and he tripped and broke his leg. Grandpa died.
Tito keeps his head low.
Axel:It wasn’t my brother’s fault. But ever since that night, he’s stopped talking.
Rosita:Do you think you’ll talk again someday?
Tito shrugs.
Axel:I bet you’ll talk if Ariceli asks you to.
Rosita:What’s this? You have a thing forAriceli? Ariceli Perez?
Rosita laughs.
Rosita:Didn’t she used to date Sam?
Axel is also laughing. Tito is not.
Axel:He has it for her bad.
Tito does not outwardly react.
Rosita:What about you, Axel? How come you don’t have a girlfriend? Who do you like?
Axel’s laughter fades, and Tito finally looks up, smiling.
Axel looks over his shoulder at the woman in the back. His grandmother presumably.
Axel:I wish I had more time to think about stuff like that. You know Guadalupe Hernandez? Her family works the north fields of Jaspar orchards. Her uncle was the band teacher. I was going to ask her out a while back, but because I have always been so busy, I never did.
Rosita:Guadalupe Hernandez is pregnant with José Gwin’s baby.
Tito grunts with amusement.
Axel sighs.
Axel:I know. That’s what happens when you wait too long. I never got to ask her out, and now Guadalupe is going to have a baby with the galaxy’s thinnest lips.
He turns to his brother.
