He started toward me. My eyes were so clouded with tears I could barely see. Before he reached me, I heard him cry out and looked up to see Ignacio spinning him around. Both boys were about the same height. Bradley looked broader in the shoulders, but Ignacio had strength more subtle and deep, because when Bradley pushed back on him, Ignacio seized his wrist and turned his arm so easily and hard, Bradley fell to one knee.
“Stop, or I’ll break your arm,” Ignacio told him, and pulled him toward his car before releasing him.
Bradley looked up at him and then at me. “You’ll be sorry, you bitch!” he cried, pointing at me.
Ignacio stepped toward him, and Bradley practically leaped into his car. He cursed at Ignacio and then drove off, nearly running me down.
As soon as he was gone, Ignacio came to me. “Are you all right? What did he do to you?” he asked. “Who is he?”
I shook my head and started to cry again. Ignacio put his arm around my shoulders and led me back to the sidewalk. Some other drivers looked our way
as they passed, and some of the students heading toward the bus station who had seen everything stood watching us.
Ignacio led me to a bench in a small park and sat me down. He stood waiting for me to catch my breath and stop crying.
“So, who is he?” he asked.
“He is my cousin Sophia’s boyfriend,” I told him. “His name is Bradley Whitfield.”
“If he is your cousin’s boyfriend, why is he after you? What did he say to make you get into his car, and why were you running away from him?”
“He wanted me to get into another car with other boys.”
“What?”
“He wanted me to go for a ride with them.”
Ignacio gazed off in the direction Bradley had fled. He looked as if he would tear off after them in a rage.
“Just because you are Mexican, he thinks he can take advantage of you.”
I looked away. I was far too ashamed and embarrassed to tell him the rest of it.
“Yes,” I said. “I think you are right.”
“Such things have happened to other Mexican girls I know, some much younger than you, but because their parents might not be here legally, they don’t do much about it,” he told me.
“He’s very angry, I’m sure. I’m afraid of what will happen now if he goes and tells my aunt stories.”
“You must tell your aunt everything first. Tell her how he offered you to his friends.”
“She won’t believe me,” I said.
“Why not?”
“It’s complicated…my family history. She doesn’t want to believe me,” I added.
“What do you mean by your family history?” he asked, suspicious.
“No one brought shame on our family name.”
“Then what do you mean by family history?”
“She and my grandparents never got along. My grandfather disowned her when she married Señor Dallas. He was much older. She ran off and married him. My parents, my grandmother, none have had much to do with her or she with us until now.”
“Then why does she want you here? Why did she send for you and pay for you to come?”
“I don’t know,” I said.