New on the block

Third Street

Cesar's POV:
"Baby, if you don't want to go we don't have to." Monse squeezes my hand. "It'll be fun, we're in high school we need to go to some parties." I point out. "And Santos parties don't count!" I add quickly. "Well, I don't need to go to parties to have fun." She shrugs. "The crew's gonna be there and if you wanna leave trust me I'll be next to you the whole time." We get closer to third street and I'm starting to panic. "Maybe hide the cross." I tell her quickly. "What?" "I'm just saying maybe it's a good idea to keep the cross under you're shirt or something." I shrug. "Mmm because the Prophets have this street?" She stops walking and stands in front of me. "Why didn't you tell me?" She asks. "Because I didn't want to stop you from having a good time again." I tell her. "Cesar I want you to live so what if our high school experiences are a little different." She shrugs and starts walking back to our houses. "No, I figured it out. I'm just gonna stay low key and blend in at the party. She said no Prophets and I believe her." I tell Monse before I drag her to the party. "I'm pretty sure Olivia's quinceañera was 'no prophets' and look what happened to me." Why is she bringing that up? My biggest regret was not being able to protect her and that's never gonna happen again. "How many friends could Mariana even have?" She shrugs we get to her house and we both stand their wide eyed. "So I guess she has a lot of friends." I laugh a little. "There's like ten people on her roof." Monse stares with narrow eyes. "Looks fun." Ruby says from behind us. "Jesus Ruby! You can't-" Ruby cuts me off. "Shut up Cesar, let's party!" Ruby runs towards the house. "So he was pregaming pretty hard I guess." Monse laughs. "I think we need to catch up." I nudge Monse until she smiles. Monse walks towards the house. "One more thing." I pull her back to me. "Hide the cross." I whisper and I tuck it back in her shirt. "Fine, if it's that big of a deal to you." She smiles and then gives me a kiss. "Can we go and try to be normal now?" She asks. "Yeah that's never gonna happen." I laugh as we walk into the house. We walk in and Mariana's making out with Jamal on the couch. "That's something I never needed to see." Monse says with a disgusted face. "You guys made it!" Mariana laughs as she stumbles over to us. "My parents are out of town so basically do whatever you want." She says. "Did you know there's a bunch of people on your roof?" Monse ask. "Oh yeah, those are my brother's friends. Ignore them." She walks back over to Jamal. "I didn't even know she had a brother." Monse shrugs. "Yeah, she never talks about him. You want a beer?" I ask and she nods. "I'll be outside I think the cult orgy is going on in here." Monse laughs.

Monse's POV:
I walk outside and Ruby's doing a keg stand. I turn around and I run into someone. "I'm so sorry. I'm Mariana's aunt I just got back, I'll get out of the way." The lady says awkwardly. "What's your name?" I ask nervously. "Julia." She smiles. "No it's not." I say bluntly. "Excuse me?" She fumbles over her words a little and I know I'm right. "Your name's Selena and you used to be crackhead. You hated your kid but love the pipe I guess that's why she grew up without you." I scream and people stare at us. "I don't know what you're talking about." She starts to walk away but I stop her. "You bitch. You can't come back here and expect everything to be normal. If you ever cared about me you would've stayed the hell away from me." I scream. "What the hell is going on?" Mariana comes outside followed by Ruby. I guess he went in to get her. "It's nothing just go back inside the house Mari." Selena... or Julia... I don't know what to call her but that lady says. "She's my mom." I tell Mariana. "What are you talking about? Is this why you came into town? You know what, I don't care. Inside the house!" She grabs our arms drags us is. She leads us into and empty room and throws us in. "I'm gonna go get my brother." She sighs. They walk back in the room but I can't look up from my shoes. This wasn't supposed to happen, not like this at least. "Tía Julia, what the fuck is going on?" Mariana hisses. "Ok, Monse is my daughter... your cousin. Also my name used to be Selena." She says honestly. "Monse's my cousin!" My head shoots straight up when I realize who said it. "Yeah, your parents don't know. They actually never met her." She tells Mariana and Latrelle. "He hit on me! Like multiple times!" I throw up a little in my mouth. "You hit on our cousin?!" Mariana screams. "I didn't know she was our cousin!" Latrelle tries to defend himself. "Can you all just shut up!" I scream. Cesar barges in the room and the first thing he sees is Latrelle. "What the fuck did you do?" He pushes Latrelle against a wall and then stands in front of me. "He didn't do anything!" Mariana closes the door and checked on her brother. "He's my cousin." I mumble. "He's your cousin? Who is she? Is that your mom?" He asks and I nod. "I can explain. When I got out of jail I went to rehab. I became a writer." Julia says with a sad smile. "I don't care!" I tell her. "Please just talk to me Monse." She begs. "Why wouldn't you tell us about this?" Mariana asks. "I was. I promise, I was going to tell you. I wanted to see Monse first but Monty told me to stay away." She defends herself. "I'm gonna go home." I mumble. "It'd mean a lot to me if you could give me a chance to explain myself." She begs. "Ok, I'll give you five minutes on Sunday. You find away to make what you did not sound horrible and I'll have to give you a chance. It's too bad I've hated you for as long as I can remember and no one can change my mind." I shrug and I leave as quickly as I can. I don't even check if Cesar followed me until I get to the house. "Are you ok?" Cesar asks and I start to cry. It feels like I might never stop. "She texted me. We need to talk about what really happened the day you almost died." My dad says as he walks up towards us. "There's nothing to talk about, she tried to kill me." I fumble with the door but I'm shaking too much to unlock it. "That's not the whole story." He says.