If You Go | h.s.|

Nine

// Hello lovely, please play song when you see the asterisk (*) // 

No Perspective

"If you go, I go."

His voice trembled with urgency but she didn't know what to say. She didn't even know who he was, how could she answer such a loaded question to a stranger she'd never met?

The young boy stood in front of her, both lost in a scenic white void but he was no taller than she was. She looked up at him with her large brown eyes as they welled up with tears.

'How did I get here?',  she thought to herself. Her last memory was being cupped in her mom's warm embrace, seconds before a bullet went through her own shoulder. 

But when she looked down, there was nothing there.

"Will you go with me?" He asked again with his hands on her shoulders. He was as grief-stricken as she was.

"I..." She couldn't speak. She was too disoriented, existing in a separate reality from her own. 

They were both in the void between life and death.

Through all her muddled thoughts, she knew one thing for sure. She yearned for her mother knowing she'd never have her again.

Everything happened so quickly that only now, in this void, did she realize she'd never again hold her mother's hand. She'd never anticipate her arrival home after being without her for so long.

"If you go, I go." He repeated. He held her small hands in his, his eyes riddled with urgency. She gently nodded as tears drew down her face.

She repeated after him.

"If you go, I go."

Mayari Flores

"Abuela made arroz con pollo. I'll have to send you the recipe, it's incredible." Ramona was on the other line of the video call, sweat glistened on her forehead as strands of her hair blew away from her face by the wind of the cool fan. In the background was Tala, who was lost in laughter while chopping vegetables with her grandmother.

"That would be great, actually. I need some new recipes to try." My pinky supported the bottom of my phone as I attempted to keep straight on the sidewalk. 

"Where are you guys going next?", I prompted. It had been a few weeks since I last spoke to either of them. The last time we'd seen each other was when I had a poorly timed orgasm in their bathroom -- courtesy of Harry.

"We're going to the countryside to see some of Tal's family in Herrera." Tala was born and raised in Panama. She lived in a small village before moving to the main city, until eventually deciding she wanted to study abroad in Toronto.

"But enough about us, how have you been?" Ramona fanned herself with a few loose papers, her hair sticking to her face.

Ramona and Tala weren't meant to know anything about the Viperae.

I was worried that I'd slip up and accidentally tell them about the mystery of my mother's murder, being "initiated" into a Mafia, and that Iara and her dad were a part of it.

And I certainly couldn't tell them about Harry.

"I've been good," I lied.

"Mostly training for my new position at my mom's work." I fabricated a story that I was working as an intern there, learning the ins-and-outs of everything so that I'd be ready to assume a more stable position in the next year.