The Fuentes Family: Yasmin

5

"What's wrong, mija?"

Snapping out of my daydream, I look up at Mom who stops cleaning up the living room to look at me with concern. "Nada. Just thinking."

"About anything in particular?"

"Just... homework," I lie.

"Mom!" Val yells and starts running downstairs. "Ray keeps stealing my twenty dollar socks!"

"Why the fuck would I want your stupid socks?"

"Language, Ray!" Mom yells.

"English, mother!"

"Can you believe that disrespect?" Val scoffs. "He owes me twenty bucks."

"I don't owe you shit."

"Ray, stop shouting from upstairs," Mom scolds, getting back to cleaning the coffee table.

"Fine." He comes down and gets in Val's face. "I don't owe you shit."

"Stop acting like a hardass," I say before Mom can go off her head at him.

"He actually believes he's a big scary dude," Val laughs but stops abruptly when Ray puts his hands on his chest and pushes him.

"Try not to cry," Ray teases as Val tries to recover.

"You are such an asshole," I say, disgusted by him. How could he do that to his own brother, knowing that he has a serous fear of being touched especially on his chest.

"You're grounded, Raymundo," Mom also looks at him with disgust.

"Whatever." He goes back upstairs and Val stands still, his hands gripping his shirt. It's moments like there where I can see he's distressed that I want to reach out and comfort him, but I can't because touching him would only make it worse.

"Did you take your medication?" Mom asks him.

"Not yet," Val mumbles before going upstairs also.

I sigh. "Ray needs a serous attitude adjustment."

"If you have homework, you better go do it."

Ugh. Great. Now I need to go upstairs to pretend i'm doing homework.

Max's bedroom door is open and as I'm walking past I slow to a stop when I see Wesley there, showing Marco something on his phone while they laugh. He glances up, meeting my eyes and I quickly walk out of sight. I can't believe how freaking awkward and weird and wrong our friendship is now. Any other day I would have went in there and hung out with him, but nope. That's not happening anymore.

Santiago, Alex, Diego and Carlos aren't here, and Val's door is closed which means he wants to be alone and I don't feel like talking to Ray right now, so I sit alone in my room bored out of my mind.

I might as well just do actual homework. Ugh. That's probably a good idea; my english teacher is getting sick of me handing in assignments and shit late. I'm scared if I do it one more time she might actually have a heart attack.

I'm only onto the second paragraph when I can't take it anymore and reach under my bed for my beautiful bottle of vodka. It's half done and I need to save some for tomorrow just in case, so Enrico's gonna be gettin' a call later.

The first shot is always the worst and it burns my throat, the painful sensation lingering for a few minutes. Just after the second, my door opens and Wes comes in.

"You really shouldn't drink that straight."

"What are you? An alcohol safety officer?" I close the lid on the bottle and get onto my knees. "What do you want?"