Remember This Part

10. The Night Continues

Alex.

It's about eight o'clock when Antonio announces that he and Ruby are leaving. He gives me a look, his gaze bouncing between Manuel and myself. I know he's hesitant to leave me here with our youngest brother. For the past few years, Antonio has played the mediator between us. He's the reason Manuel even knows about this party. I definitely hadn't bothered to invite him.

It's hard for me to make sense of the Manuel I knew as a child when I place him next to the Manuel in front of me now. Maybe that's why this whole thing is pissing me off. As kids, it was always easy to pinpoint the troublemakers in our family. Antonio and I had a knack for starting fights, ruining things, getting yelled at. Manuel was never like us. He was quiet and good-natured. There's a reason he has a biblical name and we don't. He was my grandmother's angel and my mom's crowning joy. He proved to all the teachers in our school that not every Velasco boy was destined for juvie.

But now here he is. I can almost see his ribs through his t-shirt. He's wearing long sleeves that hide the red dots on his arms from where he injects. He refuses help from anyone, unless it's cash. Past experience tells me that's exactly why he's here. He knows Abuela would do almost anything for him, and he's not above taking advantage of that.

I'm absolutely pissed that he's here today of all days, on her seventy-fifth birthday. Manuel isn't here to celebrate her, to give her the closeness she has long desired from him. He's here to use her for her money—which she doesn't have—and maybe a place to stay the night. Then he'll leave again, and my grandmother will be back to wondering if she did anything wrong to drive him away.

I push the thoughts from my head and put the last of Abuela's clean dishes away. I don't want to leave Manuel here with her. I'm about to go have a talk with him when Thea appears at my side, holding her leaf in one hand and her bag in the other.

"Hey, do you want any help in here?" she asks, her eyes sweeping over the room.

"I'm basically done," I tell her, drying my hands on a dish towel. She looks back over her shoulder at the living room, which is almost empty, except for Abuela, Manuel, and Felisa. On a normal night, my grandmother would be getting in bed around now, but at the moment, she's too excited to think about sleep.

Thea seems to hesitate for a moment, and then finally says, "Hey, I can catch a bus back to campus, okay?" I look over at her, already shaking my head.

"I'll take you home," I tell her.

"Really, I'm fine with it," she urges, but there's no way she's changing my mind on that.

"I'm not about to leave you at the mercy of public transport on a Saturday night," I continue.

"Hey, I've done it before," she says, a small smile playing about her lips.

I bite back a laugh and repeat, "I'll take you. Just let me talk to my grandmother real quick, and then we can go."

I don't let her argue with me and just head into the living room. Manuel eyes me warily as I near them, but I pretend he's not even there. He must take the hint, because he scoots out of his chair to go wander around elsewhere.

"I'm going to bring Thea to her dorm, Abuelita," I inform her. "And then I'll be back."

"You don't need to come all the way back, Alex," she tells me. "I'm just going to go to bed. You can head home."

"Abuelita, I'm not going to leave you—"

"—Alex, we have had this discussion before," she reminds me, her voice lowering. "I don't need you to protect me from my own grandson." I let out an exasperated sigh.