In my panic about asking Mami if I can go to the dance, I’d completely forgotten that today wasn’t supposed to be like other days. I’d let the monotony get to me—convince me that this wasn’t a day worth celebrating. And who could blame my family for forgetting? Losing a son, then a father a few months later? But Mikey didn’t forget.
I don’t ask him where he got the cupcake or the candle. The same way I didn’t ask him what happened when he came home from school with a split lip last week. I’ve heard enough through the grapevine to know that he’s picked up the wrong kind of habits. Last month the manager at the convenience store down the block told me to tell Mikey he’d call the cops if he came within ten feet of the store again. If Mami looked up long enough to see what’s happening, she’d hold him so tighthe’d burst. Become even stricter that she already was—which feels impossible. As worried as I am about the path he’s going down, I don’t have it in me to tell on him. It would just make everything—him—worse.
Instead of dwelling on the why and how of the cupcake, I pick it up and hold it beneath my nose. We need to move fast—Mami will come looking for us any minute—so I wrench my eyes shut and think of a wish that feels worthwhile.
I could wish for things to go back to normal, but that won’t bring back Joel. Or Papi. And it’s not like life then was perfect either. We’ve always had our flaws. If we didn’t, maybe Joel would still be here. It’s too late to wish for normal now.
So, I wish for something new. As I blow out the candle, visions of Kai—his smile, his laugh, the way he looks at me—blossom behind my closed eyes. A dream I wish to become reality. A chance to break free. A chance to be myself. A chance to find out who I am outside the four walls of my house, outside of being the daughter of a killer.
As I blow out the candle, I let myself hold on to something foolish: hope.
3
For the first time, I dread seeing Kai. I linger in the doorway of our AP Spanish class, considering faking a stomach bug and camping out in the nurse’s office. But then there will be tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, for two years until we graduate. I can’t avoid him forever. While the thought of turning him down hurts, I tell myself that the invitation didn’t mean as much to him as it did to me. That it was just a gesture of politeness, not something more.
I wasted enough time walking to class that Kai’s already at his desk, bent over his notebook with his tongue stuck out in concentration as he sketches a superhero midflight. One of his original characters, he explained to me after I peeked over his shoulder at Sunny Hills this summer.
“I’ll start my own MCU someday,” he’d said as he flipped through the notebook, enough sketches of heroes in latex and masks fighting monsters among skyscrapers to fill at least three comic books. “The Kai Thompson Universe,” he’d added with a flourish as he waved his hand through the air.
Nothing usually breaks Kai’s focus when he’s working on a sketch. I could be standing next to him banging pots and pans together and he wouldn’t look up until he got the final detail exactly how he wants it. It’s earned him a couple of goodwhacks from his grandma. I breathe a sigh of relief as I take my usual seat behind him. With the sketch only half done, he’ll probably be working on it until the bell rings and I can put off facing him until tomorrow.
But, of course, I’m not that lucky.
“Hey,” he says, breaking out into a wide grin that would normally make the butterflies in my stomach take flight.
“H-hey,” I mumble back, gripping my backpack strap so tightly my knuckles go as pale as the notebook page Kai was working on. “The scene’s really coming together.” I gesture to his sketchpad, still open to the panel he’s been working on for the past two weeks. A climatic battle between his still untitled hero and Dr. Osmosis, the big-bad with the ability to conjure typhoons that could destroy entire cities in seconds.
Thankfully, that does the trick. Kai perks as he shifts back around to look at the sketch while I settle down at my desk. “I think the blocking was what was tripping me up. Dr. Osmosis should’ve entered from the right side of the panel instead of the left, or else that throws off the entire flow of the battle.”
He continues on about the physics of their respective powers, and while normally I’d hang on to his every word, I’m trapped in my own spiraling thoughts. Too focused on trying to figure out a way to let him down gently—or avoid the topic of the dance at all—instead of giving him my full attention.
I’m not able to avoid the topic for as long as I’d hoped, though.
“So, you coming to the dance next week?” he asks suddenly, whipping around in his seat and picking up exactly where we left off yesterday.
Staring into his wide, eager eyes hurts more than I thought it would. There’s something so soft and earnest about him.Sincere in a way I didn’t think was possible outside of the romance books I used to sneak from the library. With his smooth brown skin, full curved lips, and the glimmering sword earring dangling from his left ear, he’s the spitting image of the perfect leading man.
And I’m about to turn him down.
“I… can’t.” Saying it hurts almost as much as watching him process it. His grin slowly melts into a frown, the rosy tint in his cheeks fading as his eyes break away from mine to face the ground.
“Oh. That’s cool,” he says with a nonchalant shrug and a new, hollow smile.
“I really want to,” I add before he can turn back around. “I just have to help my mom with a work thing that night,” I explain, the excuse I’d prepared last night.
The lie hits me hard, even though it rolls off my tongue easily. But I can’t sit here and let him think that turning him down doesn’t feel like plunging a knife straight through my heart.
“Dang, that sucks,” he replies with a genuine frown.
“Maybe next time?” I offer, cursing my foolish heart for making more promises I can’t keep. There won’t be a next time, and based on the look on Kai’s face, he knows it.
“Actually…” he begins hesitantly, and I brace myself for him to let me down easy. To tell me he’s not interested anymore, or that the invitation was a one time thing.
He looks over both shoulders before turning back to me. When he speaks again his voice is a whisper, a secret just between us.
“My parents have this cabin in the woods up by the river. Me, Kiki, and some of our friends are headed up there afterthe dance. Just for the weekend. Not to, like, drink or party or anything like that,” he says quickly, holding up his hands and shaking his head as if to bat that assumption away. “It’ll be chill. Scary movies and s’mores type of vibe.”
Somehow, he shifts his entire body closer, the edge of his palm brushing against mine so lightly I’m not sure if it was real or if I imagined it. “You could come, if you want? After you finish the thing with your mom?”