Camp Gorebury

Chapter Five

Beckham

"Beckham? There is a boy outside asking for you. He says his name is Santana?"

I take a careful sip of my tea, but It is too hot, and it burns my tongue. I make a face.

"Tell him to go away," I shout down the stairs.  

"Mija. He says he won't leave until he speaks with you."  

"Then tell him to prepare to be disappointed."  

"Beckham! He won't stop knocking on the door and It is interrupting my nap. Please, at least come down and try to make him go away. Maybe he'll listen to you."

Even from a different floor, I can hear abuela huff in annoyance.

"He is definitely not listening to me."

I set my tea down on the night table. Then, as an afterthought, I pick up my pocketknife and stuff it down my jeans pocket. I hurry down the stairs, skipping every other step. Abuela lays across the sofa and glares at the closed door; Santana's still knocking on it. A look of disapproval is written clearly across her face. She gives me a stern look and demands,

"Another suitor?"  Her tone is pure acid.

I shake my head and say,

"No. Nothing like that."  She lets out a loud harrumph.

"Does he know that?"

After last night, definitely.

"I'll go make sure."  

Santana's knocks echo throughout the house, the rhythmic thumps sound almost like a heartbeat.

Tha-thump. Tha-thump.

The noise makes my gut twist into a knot. I stride towards the door and yank it open mid-knock; Santana's fist hovers with tension in mid-air, poised to swing. His face hardens into a scowl when he sees me.  

"Beckham," he says, and spits on the ground near my feet.

I know he is thinking of a dozen other words to call me instead, but because my abuela is only a few feet away, he keeps his mouth shut.

"Took you long enough."

He is wearing the same clothes he wore last night- a sweat-stained grey tank and ill-fitting cargo pants with blood flecks on the ankles, paired with scuffed, once-white Nikes. Matted blonde hair sticks to his forehead. He looks... underwhelming. 

Abuela calls out at me from the couch.

"Todo bien?" Everything okay?  

"Sí, estoy bien," I reply.

The weight of the pocketknife hangs heavy in my pocket. Slowly, I pull the door shut behind me, so It is just me, Santana, and the empty street.

"Why are you here?" I ask him.

He lets out a hoarse laugh.

"Why do you think?"  

I shift my weight from my right foot to my left.

"Don’t you have better things to do than knock on my door all day?" I say.

"Just leave. You are disturbing my grandmother's rest."

"I am not leaving until I get what I am owed."  

"A black eye?"

"You know what I am here for. Money."

He spits on the ground again. A fleck of it lands on my bare foot- I forgot to put on shoes before I left the house. It is too hot outside for shoes, anyways, but I am used to the heat. In Arizona, It is always hot.

"You owe me ten grand, Chica. And once Nathan gets out of the hospital, you can pay for his bills, too."  

A trickle of sweat dribbles down the bridge of my nose.

"You know I do not have ten grand."

"Then find it."  

"Where?" I ask.

I laugh at him, and the sound of it is flat and hollow.

"Under my mattress? In between the sofa cushions? I do not have a free ten grand, Santana, so I recommend that you f*ck off and beg someone else for money."  

Santana's hand moves towards his belt, and I am already reaching into my pocket- until I realize that It is not a weapon he is holding, but... a lighter, and a box of cigarettes.  

"Want one?" Santana asks casually, gesturing his chin towards the box of cigarettes. 

I shake my head.  

"You going to shiv me, Fisher?" I raise an eyebrow in mock surprise, but he is not stupid, and he saw my hand flinch.

He exhales smoke.

"Go ahead. I know you want to."

"I asked you to leave," I remind him. 

A bead of sweat makes its way down Santana's forehead.

He wipes it away.

"And I asked for my money."

 He takes a long drag on his cigarette and leans forward, blowing the smoke towards my face. My fingers itch towards my pocket. I can feel heat in my bones, heat and anger.

"You think a little pocketknife is going to protect you, Chica? No. Today is only a warning. Tomorrow, when I come around for real-"

"What? You'll smoke a cigarette in my face?"

I shake my head at him. "

You shouldn't be threatening me, Santana. You know what I did to your friend."

He scowls at me.

"Oh, f*ck that. You think you are so clever, do not you? You think just because you got Nathan caught you can outsmart all of us? You girls are all the same. Just wait, and you'll end up exactly like your friend Summer one day, I promise you."

I stare at him impassively.

"Do you remember last year, at homecoming, when you promised to bring a bouquet of roses?"

He doesn't reply, but I can see his eyebrows furrowed together and I know he remembers.

"I was so excited. And then the night of the dance, when you came to pick me up, you were empty handed. You said you didn't have the money. You said that next time, you'd give me a hundred roses instead."

He looks at me. Waiting.

"Where are my roses, Santana?" I ask quietly. 

He breathes out. Breathes in. Growls out a curse.

"I do not break my promises," he tells me.  

"I do not believe you," I reply. 

He growls and hurls a few more curses, but he knows I have got him beat. I watch as he flicks his cigarette at the steps and then stalks down the driveway with his hands stuffed angrily in his pockets, Nikes banging against the sunbaked white pavement. I watch him go. And then, once he turns the corner of the corner of the street, I grind the cigarette butt into ashes with my heel and walk back inside, locking the door behind me. 

Abuela gazes knowingly at me from the sofa.

"Did you tell him to go away?"  

"Sí, abuela."

I begin to ascend the stairs to the second floor, but my grandmother isn't done with me yet.

 "Is he going to come back?"  

"No," I lie.

"Good," she says, sniffing to herself. 

I have got one hand on the banister when she speaks again.

Spanish, this time.  

"Es esto sobre Summer?"

 I pause.  

"Is this about Summer."

But I do not actually say this. What I really say is

"No, abuela. Esto es solamente una pelea entre mi ex novio y yo."

Just a fight between me and my ex-boyfriend.  

"De todos modos, nunca me gustó ese chico." I never liked him anyways. 

This makes me feel a little better.  Once I am upstairs, I shut the door to my room and situate the pocketknife strategically on the night table; then I pick up my cup of tea and sit back down on my bed, the blanket still warm in the place where I was sitting earlier. 

I take a sip of my tea. It is gone lukewarm. 

As I sit there, sipping my tea and rubbing at my arm, I think of Summer.  I think of Summer, lying alone in her hospital bed, the sound of her voice as she whispered a single name into my ear: Nathan Charlie. I think of Summer, and how frail she looked then, how feeble, like life was clinging to her by only a thread, and how it was all his fault, their fault.

And mine

 My fault, too. 

 And I think of Santana, and how all of his words were roses: roses, and broken promises. Nathan was the same. I remember the words Nathan flung at me, words coated with desperation, I didn't sell to her, I promise, I promise, and how hollow they were, nothing but hollow lies. If he didn't sell to her, then who did? Who put her into the hospital bed?

Who stole the color from her cheeks, the beat from her heart? 

I drink until the cup is empty, and then I peer out the window closest to my bed.

A dented red car rumbles down the street. A few minutes later, the same red car circles the block again. I try to squint and see who's driving, but the windows are heavily tinted and too dark to tell.  It doesn't scare me. Because, unfortunately for Santana, I do not make promises of roses. 

I make promises to keep.