Ryan
I left Pablo’s and came back home a few days ago. My head is pounding and my body still feels completely broken, but that doesn’t matter to Paul. He barged into my room this morning and is standing over my bed, wearing his ever-present Loveland sheriff uniform.
“I’ve left you alone for the past couple of days, but I’m not about to let this go. What happened to you in Mexico, Ryan?” he asks, scrutinizing the mass of bruises and cuts on my body. Not because he’s concerned for my welfare, but because he needs to pry.
“I was beat up.”
“Obviously.”
My mom peeks her head in the room. “Were you involved in drug deals, Ryan?”
“Of course it was because of drugs, Susan,” Paul answers like he’s some psychic and knows exactly what I’ve been up to. He puts his hands on his hips, his finger brushing against the butt of his gun. “I told you this would happen.”
“Paul, drug test me. I’m not doin’ drugs. I got beat up by some thugs, that’s all.”
He’s watching me with a critical squint. “Where’s your car?”
“I totaled it.” That’s not exactly true. Rico totaled my car, but the less Paul knows the better.
“If you would’ve taken the job at the farm, this wouldn’t have happened,” he says in an exasperated voice. “If you keep makin’ the wrong choices in life, you’ll go nowhere.”
“You’re right.”
He leans forward. “What’d you say? Speak up, boy, I couldn’t hear you.”
“I said you were right.” If I spent all summer shoveling shit I wouldn’t have been beat up. And I’d still have a car with windows and tires without holes in them. And I wouldn’t have ruined Dalila’s life. Everything I did was a lost cause.
Mom walks farther into my room. “I can’t bail you out every time you get in trouble, Ryan. At some point you’re going to have to learn from your mistakes. Paul is here to help you.”
I’m gonna play it their way just until I can figure out a plan. “I’ll go talk to Mr. Johnson tomorrow,” I say just to appease them.
Paul nods, then leaves my room. “You better get your shit together, Ryan. This is your last chance,” he calls out from the hallway.
I look over at my mom. “I’m sorry, Ma.”
She leans her head against the doorjamb. “Me too. Listen, I know Paul isn’t easy on you, but he’s the only person I can rely on. He’s the only thing I got.”
I don’t remind her that she’s got me, but I never mattered to her.
“Maybe try a little harder, you know,” she says. “The grass needs mowing. Show him that you appreciate him taking care of us.”
The last thing I want to do is show Paul any gratitude, but causing waves isn’t going to get me anywhere. “I’ll mow the lawn,” I tell her. “For you.”
She leaves the house to go run errands and I head out to the garage.
“The loser’s back,” PJ says as I pass him in the living room. “From those bruises, I can tell you had the best time in Mexico. You definitely came back here with your tail between your legs, loser. Ha ha!”
Man, would I like to punch him in the teeth so hard they all fall out.
In the garage, I pull out the lawn mower.
I’m trying to start the rusty thing when Allen peeks his head into the garage. “Yo, Cinderella!” he calls out. “How about you wash my car after you mow the lawn.”
“How about you go suck your brother’s dick,” I say.
He sucks in a fake horrified breath, as if my words were too harsh for his sensitive ears. “I’m telling my father you said that.”
“Go ahead.”
I push the lawn mower out of the garage, ignoring the pain the movement causes me. The thing is so old it takes me forever to get it to work. I gather the clippings and toss them in the huge paper bags I found in the garage, the entire time wondering how Dalila is holding up. Is she thinking about me? Is her father making sure she’s safe from danger?
Telling myself not to think about her just makes me think about her more. The bossy way she talks, the way strands of her long, curly hair fall into her face, the way she’d roam her fingers over my body as if she wanted to memorize every ripple.
The sun is beating down on me. When I go in the kitchen for a water break, I hear PJ changing channels. He stops on the news.
“Revenge is the name of the game when it comes to the warring cartels on the Mexican border with the US,” the reporter on the TV is saying. “Revenge kidnappings have been a problem here, where families of cartel members have been held for ransom or killed in retaliation. Has the conflict boiled over into the US? If it has, what can authorities here do to stop it? Would they even want to? More on this story at ten.”
Hearing about the kidnappings makes me wonder if Dalila is safe.
Frustrated, I go back outside to finish mowing the lawn. I’m on my last bag, dumping all the clippings into the trash bag, when the entire thing falls over.
Damn.
I kick the lawn mower and it goes flying to the back wall of the garage. It bashes part of the wood structure and an entire panel of wood comes dislodged from the frame. Oh, great, one more thing to go wrong today.
I’m attempting to move the panel back in place when I realize something’s not right. It’s a fake wall. I dislodge it even more and see there’s an entire space between this fake wall and the back of the garage. I’m thinking the construction on this thing was done by a bunch of idiots. But when I peer inside the empty space, I notice piles of cash. They’re stacked up like soldiers.
Bribe money.
So Paul has been working with the cartels. He boasts about his reputation as the savior sheriff who’ll rid Loveland of the gangs and drugs streaming across the border from Mexico but it’s all bullshit. This entire time he’s been lecturing me about making the right choices while he’s been bought off by the cartels he says he’s determined to take down.
I’m done playing his game.
It’s time he plays mine.