I feel like my whole body is on fire. As if my skin is being rubbed off. I toss and turn. Everything runs together. My whole body is hot. I must have a fever. My thoughts about Hector jumble together. I see us at Coney Island, Rockaway Beach and Great Adventures. He loved rollercoasters. I put my arms up in the air in this dark room. I see his smile when he looked at my designs and how he would go over to the wastebasket and look at the crumpled sketches I threw away in frustration. He would say, “They’re good, mami. Stop being so mean with yourself.”
How could he be dead?
My thoughts turn evil and dark. Why couldn’t it have been my brother or my father?
I will have to face Hector’s mother and sister who never really liked me. They thought going to FIT was dumb and that I would wash out. They thought he gave me “too much freedom.”
Pearlie keeps coming in and giving me drinks.
How am I going to get up from this bed and move again?
What is there to go back to?
I am lost.