SATIVA ✞ ON MY BLOCK [OSCAR DIAZ]

TWENTY SIX

"What's wrong?" Oscar questioned, seeing Ximena's teary eyes. She wiped away her tears, not caring about her smudged makeup. Oscar put a hand on her back, rubbing up and down softly.

"I just spoke to my parents," she laughed, "told them I'm gonna go to college." She put her head in Oscar's chest, hugging tightly.

Surprised at first by the action, he eventually relaxed, holding her as she cried. "I miss them so much," she sniffled.

Ximena backed away, pulling herself together. Oscar watched her clean up under her eyes as she pulled out her phone, "You know who else I miss? Jamal, he was supposed to be here."

"Why isn't he?" Oscar leaned against the side of the wall, staring as Ximena typed on her phone.

"Looking for that stupid RollerWorld money."

"RollerWorld?" Oscar questioned, smiling.

Ximena looked up at him, raising an eyebrow, "Yeah?"

"I remember my pops used to play Lil' Ricky's stupid songs around the crib all the time. He was always messin' with those nursery rhymes." Ximena suddenly thought about the piece of paper Jamal always walked around with. It was something of Ricky's, a nursery rhyme that had the combination to all the lock boxes on it.

She began singing the song in her head. "We all fall down," she said out loud, earning a look from Oscar.

"What?"

"We all fall down, it's this football tradition at the high school. They do it after every win, even the playoff game," she shook her head, dialing Jamal's number, pressing the speaker button"the picture of Ricky, Benito and Jamal showed me, we all fall down."

"Hello?" Jamal answered.

"We all fall down!" Ximena yelled into the phone, waving her hands.

"What?"

"The nursery rhyme the combination was on, you said the map led to nowhere. That's because the map wasn't a map to the money. It was the nursery rhyme all along. 'We all fall down,' the money's at the football field!"

"You're a fucking genius, if I was there I'd kiss you right now!"

"You're on speaker, vato," Oscar reminded.