I Remember

Gone Gone Gone

I never really saw Leo after that. We would occasionally greet each other from our front yards, but he never came over to play. It wasn't until my seventh birthday party when he showed up.

"Dad! Do you have the balloons?" I shout down the hall.

"Right here." he emerges with at least twenty of them.

I run up and grab several to tie them around the house.

"Marina." my dad says. I pause and turn around. "Your friends aren't going to be here soon. Oh, and you don't have to tie up the balloons inside, they have nowhere to go." to prove his point, he lets his balloons go, but they simply bump against the ceiling with their strings dangling down. I let mine go too.

"Papa, they could be here any second. How do you know when thy will arrive?" he opens his mouth, but then the doorbell rings. He sighs as I squeal and run over to greet my guests. I yank open the door, and as it swings back I gasp in surprise.

Leo stands at the door, twitching slightly (probably from standing still too long), with his usual curly brown hair and dark mischievous eyes. Behind him, stands the woman I guess to be his mother. She has the same skin tone, and a wedge of short, black hair. She looks kind, but also really tough, and her hands are calloused.

"Welcome!" my dad says behind me. "Marina, is this how you treat your guests?"

I smile sheepishly, my cheeks growing warm. Leo hands me a small card from the depths of his pockets. I take it and lead him on "the grand tour of my house."

"Be good mijo!" his mom calls, in a thick Latino accent. Then my dad starts to converse with her. I sigh, grownups.

At least Leo seems exited to look at all my stuff. I show him my MASSIVE collection of books that literally take up one wall. His eyes stretch so wide, I fear they may pop out of his head. As I lead him down the hallway, he points to my sister's room. I shake my head.

"Never go in there, unless you want a death wish." I tell him.

"I can hear that!" My sister shouts. We jump and scurry off.

I'm glad Leo is here. When my other guests arrived, he shrank back into the corners. Eventually I had to convince him to walk around with me, so I could introduce him. He lightened up a ton.

Suddenly, the lights dim. Everybody stops talking immediately, but I know what's coming. My dad enters the room, holding th cake. My friend, Leyla, starts singing. The whole time, I'm grinning from ear to ear. Then I notice Leo. He looks sad, almost scared. My smile vanishes momentarily, but then everyone starts clapping, so I blow out the candles.

Afterwards, I find Leo at the back of the line for cake.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

He lowers his eyes to the ground. "I was just sad 'cause I only know how to sing in español."

I smile, a weird kind of giddiness overcoming me. I can tell he is keeping something from me, but I don't push him.

"I wouldn't have cared." I whisper.

Later that night I wake in cold sweat. My blankets are stifling me, but at the same time I'm shivering. I am about to lay back down when a wave of nausea rolls over me. I slide out of my covers and curl up on the cold floor. A cold prickling sensation tickles the back of my neck and I decide that I'm probably going to puke. I stumble into the bathroom and hunch over the sink. My breathe rattles inside my lungs with each inhale. My brain starts to panic and I become so dizzy that I fall to the floor yet again. A faint siren sounds in the distance but I am too sleepy to pay any attention.