Después | Oscar Diaz

quemada

In the days that follow, Oscar makes himself at home. Once, while Oscar cooks them both dinner like old times, she asks, "Hey. How's Cesar?"

He gives her a funny look. "Fine. You ain't seen him?"

She opens her mouth. Closes it. Finally says, "No. Not since...since we broke up, actually."

"What?"

She shrugs a shoulder, cuts her eyes to the side. "Adrian didn't think it was a good idea."

"The  fuck," Oscar says, and when she looks at him his eyebrows are furrowed.  Whatever her expression is, he doesn't seem too comforted. "Hey. I  never told him you couldn't stop by."

"Yeah," she says, "but. He didn't let me, anyway."

The  silence stretches between them for too long, but then the food is ready  and Oscar's distracted plating everything. Claudia props her head up on  her hand, watches him move around her kitchen—"This is small as hell,  how much you paying for it?"—with more ease than she expected. It  doesn't feel like a shared space, can't after only four days, but  there's something comfortable about it already. Oscar's always been good  at fitting himself into her world. She's more than a little surprised  it's still true.

They haven't talked about what happened, the last  time she visited him at Corcoran. Oscar telling her to leave and her  saying that maybe he was where he belonged. Or at the very least  thinking it. Part of her still aches at the memory, the tears she shed  on the drive home, feeling all alone for the first time in what felt  like forever. She lets herself wonder how Oscar felt in the aftermath, a  first for her. He's here, after all, cooking for her, touching her,  eyes tracking her every move like he's afraid she'll disappear the  second he looks away.

How badly did he miss her, in the aftermath?  Claudia went back to the distraction of school and work; he was stuck  in a cell. How long did it linger at the forefront of his thoughts? It  took Claudia months to work through—she had a date on Valentine's Day  with some dude she met through her roommate and went home alone anyway,  crying once she was back in bed and missing Oscar more fiercely than she  had since their breakup.

Wasn't 'til it was nearly the end of the  semester that she started dating someone, some boy who half-reminded her of Oscar and who her friends thought was a wildcard. His name was Nico, devilishly good-looking, used to sell designer drugs to white folks and take her dancing, used to try to convince her to head to Colombia with him to see his country. That lasted a few months, until the end of fall semester her junior year. That spring, though, was the beginning of Maite.

She realizes, Oscar handing her  a plate, that he doesn't know she's gone out with girls. Maite Figuera  was the best thing about undergrad, if she's being honest. They had met  through her sophomore- and junior-year roommate; a self-described shorty from the Bay,  Claudia wasn't prepared for her. Curly-haired with a chain-smoker's  voice, she was the only other person that Claudia could say she really  truly loved. They dated for a year and a half, only broke up because  Claudia was heading back to LA and Maite was moving up to Sacramento.  Neither wanted to risk a dragged out breakup, ended things amicably  enough and stay talking to each other regularly, even now.

They keep meaning to visit each other. Claudia's not sure when that's going to happen.

"You good?" Oscar asks her, and she comes back to herself, blinks.

"Yeah," she says, reaching for her silverware, "I'm good. Sorry."

"Sure,"  Oscar says, watching her curiously. He helps her wash the dishes and  then kisses her goodbye, promises to be back tomorrow. He asks, the two  of them lingering near the front door, unwilling to separate quite so  soon like he hasn't been over for hours already, "You ain't busy,  right?"

He even looks a little worried. Claudia shouldn't feel so—good, about that.

"No," she says, "I'll be around. Just text me, if you wanna make sure."

"Alright,"  he says, and kisses her goodbye again. A third time just to be sure.  The fourth kiss is definitely because they're both distracted. Finally  he makes it out the door, and she leans against it afterwards, cool  against her forehead.

"I'm an idiot," she says to no one in particular, and then goes to change her sheets.

He shows up the next day like promised, picks her up when she answers the door.

"Oh," she says, and he laughs at her a little, dimpled like her fondest memories.

"Hey,"  he says, gaze sweeping over her face before dropping to her mouth, and  she doesn't bother returning the greeting before kissing him hello. She  doesn't remember him picking her up like this before—remembers throwing  herself at him, sometimes, her legs around his waist while they stumbled  to bed. He's stronger now, twenty-four in just a few months, than he  was at nineteen. Makes sense.

"Hey," she says, afterwards, and he  puts her back down. Keeps his arms around her, though, and she leans  against him. "How was your day?"

"Good," he says, and reaches out  to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. He rubs his thumb over her  eyebrow afterwards, asks, "Y el tuyo?"

She shrugs. They can't even keep their eyes off each other. "Same as always. What's the move today?"

Oscar laughs. "You tell me."

She  tilts her head, looks away for a split second, and when she looks back  at him he has the same expression he had on his face the day before,  when she zoned out thinking about those years she spent trying to get  over him. She doesn't know how to feel about them ultimately failing;  almost as soon as he kissed her, in the parking lot just a few days ago,  all those feelings came rushing back. Has her calling him querido like they didn't go near four years without speaking at all.

It  seems mutual, is the thing. They always ran hot for each other—she  knows that the sex doesn't necessarily mean he still loves her, the way  he did before all the bullshit got to them. It's the way he looks at her  that makes her think he still does, though. Not just the clear hunger  in his gaze; there's something underneath that. Something like relief to  have her in his reach again. Even the way he touches her is tinged with  something besides raw desire. He brushes her hair back before kissing  her, holds her close before and during and after getting her into bed.  It reminds her of chilling at the crib when they were younger, his arm  around her shoulder, her waist under his palm. Just wanting to be close.  He still feels like home.

"I was thinking of going to see my  mom," she says, meeting his gaze. Her fingers curl over his t-shirt, and  she feels his hand sweep up over her shoulder.

"Yeah?" he says.  The sympathy on his face stings, just a little bit. She used to spend a  lot of time wondering what her mom would have to say about Oscar. If  she'd scold her or if she'd get it. The tattoos on him, the way he  looked at her. She likes to imagine that she would have liked him. She'd  give almost anything to know. "You want me to come with?"

She bites her lip. Says, "Yeah, I do," and he cups the back of her neck, presses a kiss to her forehead.

"C'mon, nena," he says, "'s been a minute since I last seen her, too."

"Mhm," she says, tries to smile. "You miss her like I do, huh."

He  says, rubbing at her eyebrow again, "I got a lotta love for her for  making you, you know?" and when she hugs him tight he lets her take her  time.

The summer before this one, she finally got her a nice  headstone, not the flat little one that just had her mother's name on  it, her life condensed down into the years she was alive. It's nice  enough, carved flowers around the edge and the epitaph—Y cuando llega el novilunio / soy nueva en la violeta / y en la rosa / y crece más tu amor—from  a poem Claudia thought she'd like, Matilda Elena López a fellow  Salvadoran. She thought about bringing Maite last August but by then  things were fizzling between them and it didn't seem worth it. She's  almost glad.

Oscar tells her he likes it, and she thanks him. They  stand hand-in-hand for a long time, and neither breaks the silence  until Claudia says, "I miss you." She's not sure which of them needs to  hear it most.