“Today’s the fucking day.”
Jesse stuffed his completed poem into his hoodie pocket as he punched the crosswalk button with his free hand. He did this both hurriedly and nonchalantly as Xotchitl approached him down the sidewalk. Jesse did his best to avoid staring at her dimples. Her eyes shone just as brightly as her smile.
“’Eyyy, what it do?” she greeted with an open hand that waited for Jesse’s to meet hers.
Jesse quickly brought his hand out of his hoodie and greeted Xotchitl. “What’s up, Loca?”
“’Ey, fuck you!” Xotchitl socked him in the arm and quickly followed up by lightly shoving the side of her body into his. “I’m no loca.” She made sure that her hip bounced off him. “Ohmygod, did you see that post from Chayne Sauze? That fool is gonna straight up bop ON$l0tt if he see him on the street.” The crosswalk light switched on and they began crossing.
“Did you see the video of that terrorist? The one that blew himself up in Iraq? That shit was nasty.”
“What? When?”
“It happened yesterday. In Baghdad, I think.”
She giggled. “Where?”
“In Iraq. You know, that country we’ve been fighting for decades? There’s like, another civil war there or some shit.”
Xotchitl stared at Jesse with a suspicious look. “So you didn’t see the post?”
Jesse sighed. “Nah.” They reached the other side of the street and started walking onto campus in an awkward silence. Then someone yelled out from across the street behind them. “Who that?” He turned to see a girl with bronze-tan skin and long curly hair on crutches awkwardly waving an arm, and someone else waiting at the light behind her.
“Heeyyy!” Xotchitl yelled while jumping and waving an arm in the air. She turned around but kept walking forward, turning her body toward Jesse in the process and shoving her breasts into his bicep. Jesse forced an uncomfortable grin with just his chin, not even bothering to smile with his lips. “Huh,” Xotchitl said as she turned back forward. “Cervantes was excited to see me this morning.”
“Who is she again?”
Xotchitl whipped out her phone. “Oh! Did you see this meme?”
The conversation -- if that was what Jesse could call it -- dragged on through campus until they reached the entrance of the cafeteria in the quad area. He barely paid attention to Xotchitl’s rambling about various memes, the Knights in the playoffs, and whatever else she talked about excitedly in order to spill her hands and body onto Jesse. He worried Maria would see them and get the wrong idea. “‘Ey. I gotta go turn in some shit.”
“Oh, yeah? I’ll go with you. Breakfast here is gross, anyway.”
“Uh. I think my teacher wants to like, talk to me,” Jesse lied. The first bell rang obnoxiously. But also conveniently.
“That sucks.”
“Yeah. I’ll see you later.”
Xotchitl said something back to him, but Jesse had already turned away and walked quickly to Spanish class. He began planning what he would say to Maria and how he would say it.
“Nyeeeeee!”
“Fuck me,” Jesse said to himself.
The raucous roll of Racha’s board rumbled from behind. “Newwwwwbieeee!”
“Fuck off, Racha. Not today.”
They were at the front of the electives building now. “Aw, you’re such a fucking schoolie now. What a bitch.”
Jesse pulled the door open and then stopped to stare down Racha. “Say it again to my face.”
“Jesse!” Xotchitl yelled from far behind.
“Goddamnit.” He pretended not to hear her and continued into the Humanities building.
“‘Eyyy. You slapping that shit or what?” Racha asked sleazily.
“Not today, Racha!” Jesse warned again with a stern finger.
The door closed slowly behind Jesse as he hurriedly entered the building. “If you don’t hit that shit I will!” Racha blurted as the heavy door shut between them.
“I’d be impressed,” Jesse said to himself. There was another distant yell from Xotchitl in the distance, this time more desperate sounding, just before the heavy door shut closed.
He went back to fantasizing about the moment he would read Maria his poem, right after class. He would call her to the side of the hallway. She would probably be too surprised to say anything at first. He would play it off coolly and say something like, I didn’t have words when I first saw you. Now I have too many. He would smile wide while looking down like he couldn’t help it, but was also too tough for it.
As he neared the door to Padilla’s room, Maria Fonseca veered around the corner of the hallway. To Jesse it was life in slow motion. The warning bell pierced his ears and he tried desperately to think clearly. He continued moving normally but felt frozen inside. He knew he was seeing her right in front of him but he couldn’t react, even though he knew the time to do so -- to take action and finally drop the charade of ignoring her -- was about to happen at this very moment. It was now or never. He might not have another chance like this alone with her without distractions, her friends, or Moises around. Or Raymond. It was actually kind of perfect.
“Maria,” Jesse said. Even he was surprised he actually called her attention. He went past the classroom door to meet her.
Her eyes were focused on her phone. “Huh?”
This was it. The moment that would change his life -- everything -- forever. He reached for fate into his hoodie pocket. Then he felt nothing.
“Are you okay?” Maria asked. Her phone was still held right below her face.
“Uhhhhh...” Jesse patted down, then went into each and every pocket on him in search of the poem he had so carefully constructed that morning. It was a product of his entire first semester filled with change, growth, struggle, progress.
Maria was now giving Jesse her full attention, and her face frowned in awkward disgust. “I don’t want any.” Then she trudged past him to the classroom.
“What the fuck!” he uttered to himself. More classmates began to arrive. Continuing to grope and search every possible place, Jesse failed to find his life-changing poem. Panic overtook him before he could realize where it was.
Where the fuck did I drop it? he asked himself. Jesse replayed every move from the morning, trudging to the classroom as if in a trance. His classmates continued to arrive and push past him impatiently. He contemplated ditching first period so he could retrace his steps and find the poem. The tardy bell toned annoyingly. “Fuck me,” he said and walked back down the hall toward the exit.
As he reached the doors and began to pull them open, he heard then saw Racha racing toward him on his skateboard from the quad. “Nyyeeeee!”
“Fuck me!” Jesse waved his arm in the air.
“’Eyyy, Schoolie. Where’s your Nightingale? Did you hear her song already?” Racha picked up his board and started embracing it, as if it was a woman he was dancing with and getting ready to kiss.
Jesse’s heart plummeted and his knees nearly buckled. “The fuck did you just say?”
“Nyeeeee!” Racha screamed. “I don’t fucking know. It’s just what I saw posted.”
“What!”
“I guess you don’t follow Cervantes.”
“Who?”
“Roger!” A large school security employee yelled from a distant golf cart.
“Fuck. Po-po. Gotta dip.” His skateboard slammed the cement.
“Racha! Get the fuck back here!” Jesse yelled out louder and more frantically than he had intended. The beaten-up golf cart sailed between the Humanities buildings and gave chase to Racha. The security employee and one of the assistant principals held onto the golf cart grips with intensity.
Jesse sighed and turned back around toward his first period class. He accepted that it was gone and in someone else’s hands, spreading around as he walked. But he still searched his pockets desperately, as if finding it would wake him from a terrible dream.
When the principal’s serious voice came through the speakers and instructed teachers to read their prepared statements to their students, Jesse was sitting in his seat in the back corner of room 811 with his head down. Mr. Padilla greeted the class with “Escuchen, estudiantes. ¡Escuchen! This will be the only time I won’t speak in Spanish because of the significance of this news. The House of Representatives has voted in favor of the Tilson Plan. As of now, it is not law. The Senate will reconvene after the holiday recess to vote on it, where it is also likely to pass. Just so you know, since I am paid partially with federal funds, according to the Tilson Plan I am considered a federal employee. Therefore, if and when this law passes I will be mandated by the federal government to report anyone who is living here in the United States without proof of citizenship or legal residency. If I fail to report potential illegal residents then I am under the jurisdiction of the federal government to be prosecuted for treason and will face high fines and prison time.”
The classroom became quiet in one of those moments where the silence was so obvious it was distracting. People wanted to break it, but no one dared to do so, to challenge this new order that was forming -- and power that was being established by the highest officials in the country.
One of these days, Lita could be gone forever before Jesse got home, and he wouldn’t be able to say “sorry” or “thank you” or “I love you.”
He would have to find a way to pay the rent and feed his siblings. His entire life could change in an instant.
Finally, Maria looked back at Jesse for a moment. She held her phone just below her face, as if she was just reading something closely. She looked bewildered and as soon as she saw Jesse staring at her, her face flushed red and then she looked away quickly. There was a flash of annoyance in her face before it went out of view.
Nothing would ever be the same from now on.