I'm sitting in the study room working on Harold's paper for government. I have both my headphones in my ears and let the music soothe my ears. The peacefulness of Lana Del Rey's voice calms me down. It's been such a rough 24 hours. I called in sick yesterday to help Estrella for the night but it was a spiral of emotions and hiding from mom. It's not long when I see the door open and Zamari walks into the room. He places his backpack in the empty seat and the scent of his cologne rushes to my face and I scrunch my nose. I force my body to repel the smell, but it always hits me unexpectedly.
He sits down and looks at me confused as to why I'm paying attention to my work and not him.
"Hi?" He finally asks, raising an eyebrow.
"Hey," I say, but don't look up. I close my laptop and remove my headphones. I take out my binder with all of his work and look at the schedule and my notes. It says we should continue reviewing for his trig test.
"Thanks for hanging up on me last night. Totally appreciated it," he starts.
"I was dealing with some stuff," I answer, bluntly.
"What could be going on in Ms. Flores' life? Did she forget to put a negative sign on a problem and ended up only getting a 99.7% on her math test?" I shoot him a glance.
"What were you dealing with yesterday? Huh? Did you get sad watching a Keeping Up With The Kardashian episodes and cuz their families have money and don't have to worry about school? Maybe you should go find someone just like them and drink a margarita on the porch instead of coming to see me," I roll my eyes.
"Hey, you know nothing about my family," he growls and leans forward.
"And you know nothing about mine," I snap.
"I don't need to. Whatever you're dealing with is probably not as bad as mine,"
"Wanna bet?"
"Don't even try, kid. You don't have to deal with the shit I deal with every day,"
"And you probably don't have to deal with a pregnant little sister," it slips from my mouth. Oh, shit.
He stares at me with wide eyes. He leans back and tilts his head to the side.
"Well, damn. How old is she?"
"Fifteen. Sixteen in January,"
"Sophomore?" He asks and I nod.
We sit in silence for a while. I back away from him and cross my arms on the table. This is the first time I admit to someone that I have a knocked up sister and it's making me realize that this is actually happening. That it's not a dream. Blood flows to my cheeks and my vision starts to blur. I move my fingers to my eyes and catch the tear before it falls.
"Just ask your parents to help with the bills," he says, and I let out a weak laugh.
"Well, we obviously don't know anything about each other," I respond, looking at him.
"My mom is an immigrant and my dad died when I was 11. I'm the oldest of my siblings. It's me, then my sister, Estrella, and my six-year-old brother, Julian. My mom and I work, and Estrella sometimes on the weekend, and that pays most of our bills. We don't even have money for me to go to college, let alone another baby," I explain. Zamari pays attention to what I say and takes a moment to find a response.
"Ana, I'm sorry. I didn't know,"
"Neither one of us made the initiation to get to know the other. So it's not entirely your fault," I shrug.
YOU ARE READING
Salted Wound
Teen FictionAnastacia Flores doesn't live a perfect life, but she pushes herself into her education to have a bright future and become a teacher. She is loved and supported by her family, her boyfriend, Luis, and her best friends. Zamari Sabian is a deviant wh...
