Page 40 of The Burning
I thanked her, Kael thanked her, and she hugged him. He truly did know everyone here, and I never even knew this place existed.
“Come around to this side more,” Ms. Rosa said. “I know Mendoza can’t come or sell here anymore, and I’m sorry for what happened . . . but we miss you on this side. How are you doing? I heard you got hurt.”
She looked at him from toe to forehead and back to his leg, which made me really look at him. I realized he looked tired and a little dirty, as if he’d just done some sort of manual labor, a sweat ring on the back of his sky-blue T-shirt. He was so unfairly hot. Something about the casual confidence he exuded made me unable to look away from him. Ms. Rosa seemed to feel the same way I did. And she knew him and his friends better than I did.
Mendoza?So, Mendoza used to come here more often than I thought with Kael? Or sold something here, and now can’t? I tried to make sense of it all, and what she said about his injured leg, while wondering how I managed to feel so close to him, but actually didn’t know him at all. As far as I knew, Kael’s leg was a little tender and ached sometimes here and there, but he was healing normally. At least, that’s what he’d told me. I didn’t know which of us had the real scoop, but I assumed it wasn’t me.
“It’s nothing.” Kael bent a little to look down at his legs. “Just some soreness here and there. Who told you that, anyway?”
I noticed how sweet his voice was with her. And it sort of surprised me, no lie. I wondered how he knew her so well; Was it just from coming here on the weekends and visiting with Mendoza? So many questions, none of which made me feel particularly good.
Damn this stunning chair for being here today and damn me for not having any self-control and letting Kael help me.
“Your momma. She’s been calling me. Well, she calls me here and there, but just the other day, she called by accident, but we ended up talking for a few.” She gave him a knowing smile. She seemed like a woman who loved to gossip, but still had a pure heart and good intentions.
At the mention of Kael’s mom, I perked up. He rarely talked about her, and I wanted to know if Ms. Rosa would give any clues as to why that was.
I knew he was a private person, but I wanted to know everything about him, while telling everyone, including myself, that I didn’t. And I knew it wouldn’t be coming from him, so it was one of my last chances to crack him open before he left my life for good.
The irrational, more curious side of me hoped he wouldn’t just end the conversation or smile and sweetly nudge the topic away from himself, like he did with me most of the time.
“And you two just gossiped about me?” He was teasing her, and the smile he gave her was one I had never seen from him. “Nothing better to do?”
He looked like a carefree teenage boy for a second, like how I imagined him before the Army. It made me sad for him. I wondered how his mom saw him. And how she was. A tiny, little, small—very small, so small that I could easily see how stupid it was—part of me wished I could have been able to meet her. I wanted to see the woman who worked her fingers to the bone to raise such a morally sound man. Well, when it came to his views, not as a boyfriend, or whatever he’d been.
“That’s what mommas do. I miss her sweet face coming in here with you. It’s been so long,” she said, looking at me with an expression that assumed I knew his mom and what she’d been up to. Ms. Rosa was sweet, but didn’t have a clue.
A little sadness hit me again, and I missed a woman whom I didn’t even know.
I really, really needed to get out of there. It must’ve been something in the lemon water from the Airstream that made me lose my good judgment.
“Well, I’ll tell her you said hi when I talk to her next,” Kael replied.
He looked down at his phone for a moment, then back up.
“It was nice seeing you, Ms. Rosa. I won’t stay gone so long next time, but I do have to get going.”
Immediately, I wondered where he was going. Home? The cookout? Somewhere else secretive people like him went to hang out and conspire how to confuse the rest of us?
Ms. Rosa hugged both of us. People here must really love to hug strangers. Giving me one more look over, she left me wondering if she approved of me or not. Not that it mattered, but I still couldn’t tell by the time she left us standing by my pretty new chair.
“I’ll go to the ATM now and grab the money I owe you,” I said. “I have to figure out how to get this home.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, shrugging.
His T-shirt was loose around his neck, exposing his collarbone and the full length of his shoulders to his fingertips. A hot chill ran over my entire body. His skin was gleaming with the warm kiss of the sun.
“What? Of course, I’m giving you the money back.”
“It’s what, sixty bucks?” he asked, shrugging.
“Fifty-five. I don’t like to owe people anything, especially given our . . . circumstances.” I metaphorically dug my flip-flops into the dirt.
He laughed lightly, kicking his boot against the loose dust at our feet. “Oh, I know you don’t. I don’t need the money back, even though you’re going to force me to take it.”
He looked up at me, so I rolled my eyes. “Are you ever going to stop acting like you know me when you don’t?”
He cocked his head to the side. A little smile played on his lips like whatever he was going to say hung the stars. “I do know you, though.”
