“I’ll find a way. You wait for me. I’ll be there,” I said.
“If you don’t come, I’ll understand. I would like you to come. I would like you to be with me, Delia, but the good part of me wishes you would not,” he said.
He leaned forward to kiss me, and then he slipped back into the shadows. Like a shadow, he disappeared in the thicker darkness.
Maybe I’m still in a dream, I thought, but if I am, I do not want to wake up until I am standing in my family’s front door and looking at my wonderful Grandmother Anabela.
21
Dangerous Journey
I did not come to be a thief in the night, I told myself as I walked over the grounds and back to the main house, planning to steal back the bracelet Sophia had given me and taken away. I did not come to cause my cousin to become blind in one eye or another young man to die. The trouble I had found was begun years ago in Mexico, when my aunt sought revenge and defied her father. My father had dared to choose my mother over her, and she would hate every part of her past, hate as far back as she could go, rejecting her heritage, her language, and her people. I was running away not only to return to the only family I had left, but I was running away from her words, her terrible words comparing me to her. If I remained here, I was afraid I would become as spoiled as Sophia and maybe more like my aunt than I had ever dreamed I could be.
Everyone was busy with his or her own things when I returned. I went up to my room to see if there was anything I should take along with me tomorrow. When I looked at my old clothes, I decided tomorrow I would wear the dress I was wearing when I had first arrived. I chose the best shoes for walking on the desert floor, and then I listened carefully at my doorway, waiting to hear Sophia leave her room. She often went downstairs to get a soda or some cookies before she went to sleep. This night, however, she wasn’t coming out.
Without the bracelet, I would not be able to get back to Mexico, I thought. What would I do? It was getting later and later. She could go to sleep, and I might not be able to get to the bracelet in the morning. An idea came to me, and I looked at myself in the vanity mirror. Was I capable of being the person Tía Isabela accused me of being? Did I have enough of her in me after all? Could I do unto them as they had done unto me?
I sucked in my breath and tightened myself like a gladiator going to battle. You can do this, Delia Yebarra, I told myself. You can do this. Then I stared at myself until I was able to bring tears to my eyes, turned, and walked out of my room. I crossed the hallway and knocked softly on Sophia’s door.
“What?” she shouted.
I opened the door slowly, my head down, and entered.
“What do you want?” she snapped.
I lifted my head, wiped a tear from my cheek, and made my lips tremble.
“What is it now?” she asked, annoyed. She was on her bed, her phone receiver in her hand. “I was about to call someone, so make it quick,” she ordered. “Well?”
“I am sorry, Sophia,” I said.
“Sorry? About what?” she asked suspiciously.
“About not being your friend when you were being a friend to me. I am sorry I did not tell the story as you wanted it to be told,” I said.
She stared at me. I lowered my head, and she hung up the receiver.
“I’m glad you realize it. I told you it would be better for all of us,” she said.
I nodded. “Yes, I see. I am in so much trouble.”
“Oh, you’re not in so much trouble,” she said, waving her hand. “You heard Web, our lawyer.”
“No, I will go to school tomorrow, and my classmates will know everything, and they will think I am no longer wanted in this house. More rumors will spread, and everything will get very, very bad.”
“That’s nuts,” she said. She sat up.
“I will do anything to be your friend again,” I said. “Please.”
“I should be angry at you forever,” she replied. She looked at me and thought a moment. Then she nodded and smiled. “Maybe it would be better if we took you with us this weekend. I’d like you to tell some people what Bradley did to you.”
“Yes,” I said. “We should tell.”
“I’m glad you finally realize that, too. All right. I’ll let you hang out with us again.”
“Thank you, Sophia.”
“Just remember not to say anything stupid.”