As Leo Alvarez's grades begin to slip, so does his facade as the school's golden boy. Much to his surprise, he ends up finding solace in the last place he'd expect, in his tutor― Maya Chopra.
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"YOU KNOW WHAT I love most about April hijo?"
Leo sat by the bed– he had grabbed a flimsy stool from the closet and perched it as near as he could. He could feel it shift underneath his weight, whenever he moved slightly, the legs teetering from one side to the other. He raised his eyes from the withered lines in the floorboards of the room and began to trace over the wrinkles of time on his Abuela's face.
She wasn't looking at him. Her hands were placed in her lap and they encased one another, the small, gold band on her ring finger was still there, even after all these years. Leo sometimes wondered why his abuela still wore it, but, he also knew that it was because it was a love that was beyond his comprehension.
Something, that one day he hoped, he could have.
"Las flores," she murmured to herself.
They had just released her a few days ago and Leo had spent most of his time taking care of her. As Mateo, Rafael and his Ma went to work, Leo would be the first one to rush home. He could hear Maria and the rest calling his name, as he dashed down the hallways the second the bell rang, maneuvering around the mass of students, hoping that he could catch the bus before it left the stop.
And every day, for the past week, he would find her here.
She would be sitting on her bed, the glass of water that he had left for her in the morning, untouched on her side table, watching out the window to the garden that she had planted down below.
The chest pains were diagnosed as a false alarm. The doctor had stood at the end of the bed, his eyes peering down at the clipboard as he read off what had really happened. However, the results of her tests had shown that she did have abnormally high cholesterol levels and the pains were due to an increase in blood pressure. He had prescribed his abuela a few medications, gave her a diet and released her instantly.
But in the car ride home, it was silent.
It was as if the truth was finally dawning on Leo, and his Ma as they drove down the winding roads, his abuela in the front seat. That, as much as he panicked when he was in the waiting room, as much as he had wished and as much as he had walked back in forth through the sterile hallways, that the inevitable would happen one day.
One day, his abuela wouldn't come home with him.
And, if that day came, Leo knew, he wouldn't be able to survive it.
"Are you still seeing that chica feroz?" she absentmindedly asked, her eyes not even sparing a single glance.
Leo felt his breath hitch in his throat at the abrupt question, and his eyes faltered away until they fell onto an old picture that his abuela had framed on her wall of when they were kids. The fiery brunette flashed through his mind and Leo felt a strange pang in his heart as if someone was holding onto it and squeezing it as hard as they could.
