Before You

Before You by Amber Hart Page A

Book: Before You by Amber Hart Read Free Book Online
Authors: Amber Hart
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things like I did earlier, when I admitted that Diego is hot. It’s not that she loves the shock value; it’s that she loves me. She wants me to be happy.
    I wonder if such a thing exists.

10
diego
    M y face is jacked.
    I realize the next morning that there’s no way I can hide what happened. Mi padre is going to flip. Maybe if he hadn’t hidden my gun, none of this would have happened.
    Maybe if I didn’t own a gun, life would be different.
    Even after a shower, I still have dried blood on my lip, like a stain after eating cherries. I wet a washcloth with warm water and dab. It stings but I’ve had worse. The white washcloth comes away russet. Old blood. Soon it will be another old scar.
    My bottom lip is split on the right side. Not bad enough for stitches, though. My left cheekbone is swollen and my right eye is turning purple, like a shadow hovers over it.
    As if people don’t stare enough already.
    Time for school. People will notice. The suspicions they already have about me, confirmed. Screw it. I don’t care.
    As I leave the house, mi padre stops me.
    â€œ Ay, ay, ay, Diego. What happened?” he asks.
    â€œNothin’,” I say, brushing him off.
    â€œ No me mientas ,” he replies.
    â€œFine,” I say. “I got in a fight. There, happy?”
    I’m being sarcastic, obviously. But mi padre already knows what happened. What he’s really asking is not what, but why. And by whom.
    He stares at me with hard eyes, eyes that have seen unspeakable misery.
    â€œ ¿Por qué? ”
    â€œBecause some jerk thought he could push me around. No big deal.”
    â€œ No más peleas. ”
    He wants me to stop fighting. Even though mi padre insists on speaking English in America, he slips up when he’s angry.
    â€œFine,” I say.
    I hoist my bag on my shoulder and walk the back way to school. Javier told me about a new route last night when I filled him in on my fight with the MS-13 members. With any luck, they won’t be prowling these streets, as well—and Wink got the message that I don’t want to be a recruit.
    I pull a cigarette from my pocket and light it. Relaxation washes over me like hot oil, all of my worries slipping away. It’s a relief. I’m too wound up these days. Always watching my back. But that’s to be expected. I take another drag and watch the smoke float lazily into the sky.
    Won’t you take me with you?
    Cigarettes are my only addiction. Most people assume that I do drugs. Wrong. Even though I saw a lot in the business, I never touched the drugs. Literally. No dealing. No ingesting. No interest. I know a lot of people who got way too messed up. I’ve seen the damage drugs can do. That’s why I stick to cigarettes. Everybody has a poison, a vice. For some, it’s caffeine. For others, the hard kind, cocaine, heroin. For me, nicotine.
    In the cartel, it was my job to make sure people stayed in line. Which basically meant that I made sure no one was pinching more than their share, that cartel members had extra protection for drop-offs, that debts were collected. I roughed up a lot of people. Came with the territory. I never hurt anybody too bad, though. I was one of the boss’s best fighters.
    Some people are good with money, others with drugs. I’m good with my fists.
    I am a weapon.
    I am a monster.
    It was hard at times. But I had to survive. On my street back home, the top killers weren’t heart attacks and cancer, like you hear about in America, but starvation and violence. There are always people who will say that joining a gang or a cartel isn’t the answer, but until they’re lying on a street corner starving or dying of a bullet wound, how can they know?
    Joining a cartel was my only option, if I wanted to live and have my family taken care of. I would’ve done anything for mi familia . The cartel offered protection and food in my stomach. Two things I would

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