Butterflies on the Block

Chapter eight

The next morning I met Jamal at the hospital to see Chivo. Mostly to see if he was okay, but also to figure out how the key could help us find the Rollerworld money. We stood outside of Chivo's room, just watching the peaceful man sleep. We walked through the threshold of the sterile room and walked closer to Chivo. Jamal sat down and held Chivo's hand as I stood watching.

"Hey, visitor hours haven't started yet." A nurse told us.

"It's okay, they can stay." Another nurse told her. "Someday, I'm hoping I'm lucky enough to have someone like you guys by my side." The second nurse told us. We smiled at her and she walked away.

"Alright asshole, spill it. Tell us what this key opens." Jamal told the unconscious Chivo.

"Jamal." I warned him. As much as I wanted those answers I felt like we had tortured this man enough.

"You know, Julio's been talking to me from the grave. And it ain't pretty." Jamal added while slapping the mans forehead, completely ignoring me. He grabbed Chivo's ear and yelled at him again. "Now wake up and get to talking bitch!" When Chivo didn't respond, Jamal started to slap his forehead again.

"Jamal! Come on, we're gonna be late for school." I tell him. We weren't gonna get anything outta him, while he was unconscious that is.

"Let's come back later, he'll probably be awake by then." I said.

I knew how important getting this money was. It was no longer a silly treasure hunt, it was our friends ticket to safety. Chivo has played us the last couple of days, and although snaking his head while uncertain wasn't the way to going about getting information something had to budge.

                                     ***
When we got to school we went our separate ways, but decided to meet up at lunch to plan further on what to do about the key.

My first period class went by slowly as people we're mostly goofing around and talking instead of doing the assignment. I wasn't gonna lie, I wasn't doing much better then them. Currently I was scrolling through instagram and Twitter. Latrell's roll up on Cesar was all over ig. I didn't understand why no one was taking this as seriously as it was. Cesar wasn't here at school today, and I didn't think he would be back for a couple more days. Not until Spooky figures out what to do about the situation.

"How is Cesar doing?" Ana asked from beside me. We hadn't talked as much as we had been, I guess we were both busy with other stuff.

"He's okay, obviously shaken up but his brother will take care of him." I told her. She just nodded as she continued to scroll through her social media.

"And your "friendship" with Alonzo? How is that progressing?" She asked me with a ghost smile. I rolled my eyes and groaned.

"It's fine, it's a nice normal friendship like ours." I told her. I hadn't even hung out with Alonzo since Spooky saw us at the park. Not because I was trying to prove anything to Spooky. But because of Olivias quince and the Rollerworld project. And I had told him that. Not about Rollerworld but about the party planning. I trusted Alonzo, but Rollerworld wasn't my secret to share. And now it was much more important.

"How could you not want anything more with that boy?" She asked me for the millionth time since I became friends with "that boy".

"Because, I like him as a friend. And besides he's going back home to Florida. I don't want my first relationship to be a long distance one." I told her truthfully. Well, mostly truthful. Somewhere in the deepest part of my head, I was also hung up on a certain Santos. No mater how bad, or frustrating he was. I had a hard time denying I was attracted to him. Maybe because he had protected his younger brother, and his friends and I. Or maybe it was because he had driven me home so many times, instead of letting me walk home alone. I didn't know, maybe I was the cliché girl, attracted to the bad boy. Only in this story, Spooky wasn't just a bad boy.