Hermosa Asesina

two

I lay in my bed letting my body rest. My head pounds against my earlobes blocking any other sound from entering my ears. I try and imagine how Tatum's life will be with the insulin monthly. how he could succeed without me and how he will be better off.

"Maddie," he calls my name quietly. The pounding in my ears barely allowed me to hear his voice. "Nathaniel is here, he says he brought me stuff for your cuts." As I was about to say to not let him in, Nathaniel walked in from behind him and told Tatum to leave, politely.

"Get out. I don't want you here." I huff. I get up from lying down causing my head to spin.

"Lay down Madeline, you need this." I shake my head, I put my arms next to me to give myself enough strength to get up but my legs fall weak. My body forces me to lie down as the pounding in my head gets louder and stronger.

"God Madeline." He rushes over to me with a bag of what I could guess was medical stuff.

"I- I don-" My breath fell short as my mouth could already taste the blood that was about to come up.

He lifts my head and pushes it facing the bad. Blood lunges out of my mouth, my stomach growls in pain causing me to grunt.

Nathaniel grabs a water bottle and pills out of the bag and drops it down my throat. I give up trying to resist realizing that I don't even have enough strength to stop him.

He lifts my shirt assessing the bruises. He pulls out a vial and needle and puts it to my stomach. I move my hand to him to tell him to stop. But he moves it.

"Breath Madeline, I'm just giving you something to help with the pain." His voice is solemn, it eases me into the bed ready for the needle to be injected. He puts his hand under my back and puts the needle in my stomach. I close my eyes as my head slowly stops beating against my ears and I can hear more clearly, the pain surrounding my abdomen calms, and my heart relaxes. My eyes widen as a cold cream is places along the bruises on my body. He gets to my legs and looks up to see if he can pull down my shorts, I reluctantly agree. He gets on top of the bed and applies the cream between my legs.

It's a position we've been in before, just a little less clothes, and pain.

He finishes with the cream on my legs and gets off the bed to reach for my face.

"Open." He says asking to look in my mouth. I oblige and he put cream on a cut on my cheek. My body feels relieved and my head finally finishes its pounding.

"Why are you helping me." I croak. He helped me go through all this pain, why is he trying to fix it? I can tell he feels guilty but as he said, I got myself into this situation.

"Because you're my best friend, I can't let my best friend die." He says emotionally. I scoff at his reply. I lift my body against my headboard and grunt.

"Maddi- Madeline listen." I roll my head back and close my eyes. "I know you're mad at me for joining in but you need to understand." He leans in and puts his hand on my thigh. "I have no choice but to join in, for anyone, it's a way to show your loyalty to the family, to show you're willing to hurt the ones you love, to show respect for them." My eyes stare into his, I don't want to believe him but it's not something I'd put past the Marquez's.

"Hey," he says putting his hand behind my neck to make me look at him. "I cannot express how bad I feel and how sorry I am. If I had a better way to say sorry I would have done it by now, but this is all I can think of right now. I'm sorry Madeline." He sounds sincere and as much as I want to be angry I know I cannot, I signed up for this.

"How do you feel." He combs his hands through his hair and places it under his chin.

"Sick, I feel sick." He goes to my nightstand and hands me a bottle of water. I sip the liquid allowing my body to get a flash of coldness. A silence fills the room as I stare into the ceiling. My body feels at ease and my eyes want to close.

"Maddie," he says laying his hand on mine. I flinch and jolt it away but groan as he grabs it. "You know I love you." Tears start to welt in my eyes, I remember he gave me morphine making me realize I can't blame the tears on pain.

"Maddie, I know that what we have-"

"Had." I intercept.

"Whatever we had," He paused. "It- it can't just go away, not because of what happened."

"Nathaniel, that is exactly why it's done. It's gone and you need to accept that." I grunt, my voice irritated.

"So there." he scoffs "It's all gonna end over something I had nothing to do with? Something that I tried to help you with, something I did help you with?"

"Leave, Nathanial."

"No. No, not till you tell me what I did wrong for you to leave what we had. I did everything I could to help you and Tatum after you resigned and your parents died. I understand you may have needed time after everything but Maddie, I love you. Why'd you give up? I- I was helping you why'd you push me away?" I tear fell from my eye and his.

I didn't want to push him out. It was never my intention. I only wished the best for him. I couldn't let him keep dragging himself down to help me. He was talking about resigning but I couldn't let him. I couldn't let him throw away everything we worked so hard to build for him just tumble that quickly. Of course, he resigned anyway.

"Why'd you resign." I ask blatantly wiping away the tear that fell from my face.

'What?"

"Tell me why you resigned and I'll tell you why I left you."

"I resigned because you weren't there with me. I couldn't take your place Maddie." Our eyes meet and I squeeze onto his hand tighter.

"I left you because you had so many options with me gone. You could have been almost as good as me but you left. You abandoned that all for what huh? To be wanted from the police and serve two years in jail. Two years Nathaniel. All for some gang that doesn't give two shits about you."

"Then why'd you join." He says, his voice seems angered and offended.

"You know why I'd-"

"No I don't Maddie. Tell me. If this gang doesn't give two shits about me, why are you in it." He stared daggers into me. Feeling anger pierce me for every second our eyes met. "Madeline, you don't get to dictate who cares about me when you left me at the worst possible time." He stood up and scoffed.

"Bye Madeline."