A Fabrication of the Truth (13 page)

“He’s a diva.”

“Caroline,” I said.

“The Dalton I know is the complete opposite of a diva. He would much prefer to be ignored,” Charlie said, leaning on the table with crossed arms.

“Okay, you guys, he played this party and refused to go on if anybody smoked. Not just cigarettes, pot too. I mean come on, it’s a party. And he walks in here like it’s under him. Everything is full of germs and the food, he refuses to eat.”

I stared at Caroline in dismay. I opened my mouth to defend him, but Kyle jumped in. “You don’t even know him. How can you say that stuff?” he asked.

“What is your guys’ problem?” Caroline said, looking annoyed. She glanced over at Rico, who looked about as torn as I felt.

“Hey, anybody up for some pizza?” I asked, hoping to steer the conversation toward eating.

“Lexie, stop. I want to know what their deal is. Dalton’s hot and all, but he seems a little high maintenance.”

“Yeah, if he’s not, he’ll right back in the hospital,” Charlie said, standing up straight. Dalton hadn’t mentioned him, but from Charlie’s demeanor, I could tell they were good friends.

“Wait, what?” Caroline scrunched up her face.

“She doesn’t know you guys. No one does,” I said.

“Oh…oh!” Kyle said.

“A fresh start, that’s what he said,” Charlie said.

“Somebody needs to fill me in here.” Caroline crossed her arms.

Charlie bit his lip and sighed. “I’m going to tell you this, but nobody better stare at him if he comes back in here.”

“What?” Caroline looked thoroughly confused.

“Dalton had a heart transplant,” Charlie said.

“Oh, shit.” Caroline pretty much summed it up perfectly.

“Yeah, which was a great thing because he didn’t die, but it hasn’t been exactly easy for him. He and his new heart aren’t the best of friends.”

“So that means he can be a diva?” Caroline asked.

“No, he’s trying to keep himself alive,” Charlie said through gritted teeth. He looked like he wanted to hurt Caroline. “So many things can trigger a rejection episode, smoke being one of them. He has a compromised immune system, so he has to be extra careful with germs and shit – always washing his hands, hand sanitizer. He can get sick so easily, and when he’s sick, it’s usually big time. Shit, like he had bronchitis last year and everybody seriously thought he would die. He used to tell me that his heart and body were at war.”

“He said sometimes, nothing huge,” I said.

“No matter how big or small, a war is still a war.”

“I knew none of this,” Caroline said softly. Rico put his hand on her shoulder and she reached up and held it.

Some of it was pretty new to me, too.

“So when he transferred schools…,” Caroline started.

“It’s pretty morbid, but some people just assumed he died,” Kyle said, looking around at everyone hanging onto his and Charlie’s every word. Rico, with his hand still on Caroline’s shoulder, nodded along. Kyle being his cousin, he more than likely already knew the whole story. Caroline was bugged eyed and wanting to know more. Luiz and James stood side by side, still in their coats – what Charlie and Kyle were saying seemed to take precedent to taking off cold weather gear.

“How long did he have bronchitis?” Caroline asked.

“They didn’t think he died because of that. If you have a heart transplant, it buys you some time. Some people are very lucky, but like I said, Dalton not as much,” Charlie said, shoving his hands in his pockets.

“Is he going to die?”

“Eventually. Everyone does, but his life expectancy is much shorter than ours. He made it past that first year or two, so that alone was awesome.” He pulled his hands out of his pockets and crossed his arms.

“Oh my god, this is so horrible. I mean, just awful. Why wouldn’t he have made it past that first year?”

“By the time he got his new heart, he was so sick, and when you’re in that bad of shape, I guess there’s only a fifty percent chance you’ll make it past the first year or two.”

“What do you mean bad shape?”

Charlie then told Caroline pretty much what Dalton told me about getting an infection and so on.

“He would have gotten a heart earlier, but the first time one came around he had some viral thing or something, so they couldn’t do it and he had to wait for another while his condition deteriorated. Machines kept him alive.” Charlie uncrossed his arms and rubbed the back of his neck, looking at the ground.

Oh, Dalton. Again a detail he left out. It seemed he gave me the light version of everything.

“Fuck,” Caroline said loudly, causing almost everyone in the bowling alley to turn and look at her.

“I think this is why he was avoiding telling anyone at his new school,” Charlie said. “I think he just wanted to seem like anyone else for once.” I wanted to say that Dalton was like anyone else, that Charlie had it wrong, but Kyle spoke before I could.

“Somebody who gets shot twice in the chest during a botched drug raid when they’re eleven doesn’t have a chance at ever at being like anyone else again.”

“What the hell!” Caroline slapped her hands on the small table.

“Yeah, and there’s that,” Charlie said with a shrug.

“But that doesn’t have to do with his probation,” Kyle pointed out.

Luiz and James both looked at me. I guess they assumed I would help explain.

“Stop the train and clarify,” Caroline said.

“We can just stop this conversation,” I said. “It’s not nice to talk behind somebody’s back.”

“We’re just telling them what happened. We’re not saying anything bad about him,” Kyle said.

As if he was suddenly summoned, Dalton came back to the table. “I think I’m going to head home.” Dalton tapped the edge of the table and turned to go.

“You’re not going anywhere. I need to know the whole story,” Caroline said, going over to Dalton and grabbing his sleeve.

“Is this the day you were talking about when you were eleven, Lexie?” she asked.

“Oh!” Kyle said, his eyes bugging out of his head. “You’re the other minor from the house – Max Stein’s daughter.”

“She’s Lexie Stein,” Caroline said.

“This just got bizarre,” Kyle said, staring at me.

“Please don’t say it,” I said. “Please no.” I felt like I was going to pass out.

“What in the hell were you guys talking about while I was gone?” Dalton asked.

“I’m sorry I called you a diva,” Caroline said. She threw her arms around his waist and lay her head on his chest.

“What?” Dalton asked, scrunching up his nose. “Why are you hugging me?”

“Okay, maybe never to your face, but they told me some things about you.”

“Why were you guys talking about me?”

“I was prodding, okay, don’t get mad at them,” Caroline said.

Dalton looked around at everybody with his mouth partially hanging open. “Um…”

“Can somebody explain how Lexie’s presence is bizarre?” Caroline asked, still hugging Dalton.

I shook my head.

“You guys are upsetting her,” Dalton said.

“Lexie, tell me,” Caroline said, finally releasing Dalton from her grip.

I couldn’t say anything. I just shook my head.

“Five years ago, Dalton went over to this girl’s house. He told me all about her – her long silky hair and her smile, how her front teeth were just a bit too large but it was cute because they would catch her bottom lip. Anyway, he went over there to hang out and ended up getting shot twice in the chest. Caught in the middle of a drug raid on the notorious Max Stein. So it’s bizarre because Dalton is hanging out with the girl where all of his problems started,” Kyle said.

I went with my gut instinct and fled.

“Lexie, wait,” Dalton yelled after me as I ran out of the bowling alley.

The words “the girl where all of his problems started” were on repeat in my mind. Oh god, everybody knew, or at least they would know, but that wasn’t the worst of it. Kyle was right. Dalton caught up to me as I stood on the curb with my face in my hands.

“Lexie,” he said, coming up from behind and wrapping his arms around me. “I’m sorry that all happened.”

“Dalton, please don’t apologize. You have nothing to do with the mess that is me. And now everybody knows about you, too.”

“That doesn’t matter about me. I still wish that didn’t happen,” he said quietly, his warm body enveloping me, protecting me from the cold night air.

“I guess everybody was bound to find out eventually, but I hoped it would be on my terms. At least now I know how everybody sees me. I know I’m being selfish – your problems are way larger than mine.”

“That is not how anybody sees you. And you have a right to your own problems, no matter what mine might be,” Dalton said as a car drove up and the door opened. A couple of tweens climbed out.

“I’m where everything went wrong with your life.”

“No, you’re where everything goes right. You’re a big, fricking awesome thing in my life, and I am so eternally grateful for that.”

“Lexie,” I heard Caroline call.

“Oh god, I just want to go home. I don’t want to hear from her right now.”

“I’ll walk you,” Dalton said, handing me my coat.

“What about your lolo?”

“I’ll call and say somebody gave me a ride home,” he said, pulling his jacket on and taking his gloves and hat out of his pocket.

We started walking away before Caroline could find me. We walked hand in hand on the way home. It felt like there was so much weight between us. The load that Caroline talked about might have been trying to make a comeback, but I had to ignore it. I could handle it. At least I thought I could, but I might have just been kidding myself.

I let us in the front door—I knew my grandma was still at bingo—and led us down to the basement. I didn’t want to rehash the night. I needed to get Kyle’s words out of my head, so I needed a major distraction. The foldout bed was still out, so after we shed our coats, I pulled Dalton down on it with me. Our lips met with a hungry passion. I think both of us wanted to forget the evening.

His hands slid up my side and he pulled at the bottom of my shirt, hooking it in his thumbs and slowly pulling it up, kissing my tummy up to the bottom of my ribs. I lifted my arms above my head so he would know it was okay to take it off. He slid my top off, tossed it over his shoulder and leaned in, his lips lightly brushing over my neck. He started to kiss me all over, and I pulled on the bottom of his t-shirt. He sat up.

“Are we taking this too far?” I asked. He’d never taken his shirt off in front of me, and I was just so caught up in the moment, I didn’t think when I grabbed his top.

“No!” he said. Dalton sighed and ran his fingers up and down my stomach.

“You don’t have to take your shirt off.”

“It’s only fair.”

“It’s okay, Dalton.”

He sucked on his bottom lip and took a deep breath. He closed his eyes for a moment. “Nobody has seen it, ever – besides my family.”

“You don’t have to show me.”

“I think I do.”

I nodded and he slowly began to pull his shirt up. He started to tremble as I helped pull it over his head. I didn’t look at first. I just held him. We sat there, embracing each other so tight and just breathing. He still shook. “It’s okay, Dalton,” I said, guiding him down to the bed with me. We lay side by side, our noses almost touching. He had his eyes closed. I placed my hand on his chest and he took in a quick inhale. I knew he had a scar, but I never imagined how large it would be. It looked like some big beast clawed him right down the middle. He had other small scars too, places where tubes and things had to be inserted and then the ones from the bullets. I rested my head on his chest and he rested his chin on top of my head, squeezing his arms around me. I took in a couple of slow, deep breaths. I witnessed it and it gave me nightmares – I couldn’t even imagine going through something like that.

“Do you think it’s gross?” Dalton asked after a while.

“No, I just didn’t think it would be so large.”

“After I got shot, there was no time for worrying about the aesthetics and outcome of my scarring, I guess. They had to open me up fast, and it turned out I had internal bleeding elsewhere besides my lungs and heart. Bone fragments from my ribs pierced my stomach and intestines, so they just ripped me right down the middle. Time saver.”

We just held each other more. He kept taking in deep breaths and slowly letting them out. There was no kissing, only light touching – my palm on his chest – yet it was one of our most intimate moments together.

“I learned some new things about you,” I said after a while.

Dalton didn’t say anything. He took in a deep breath and let it out. “I was just…I wanted to…”

“Dalton, it’s all right.”

He nodded and grabbed my hand from his chest.

“Are you mad about tonight?” I asked. “Everybody will know now.”

“At first, I was, just hearing everybody talking about it. But not really,” he said, running his hand through my hair. “I guess I can’t hide forever, especially from you.”

“You never have to hide anything from me, Dalton. You should be proud of all that you have made it through, everything you are.”

“Yeah, but sometimes it feels like that’s all I am. I wanted to be a nobody, as short as it lasted.”

“Dalton, you will never be a nobody.”

We fell asleep in each other’s arms – our bodies close, his leg over my hip.

We didn’t mean to fall asleep, and I only realized we did because I heard voices, but it didn’t dawn on me until it was too late.

My grandma said, “Let me go get her. She sees him around at school. Maybe she knows where he is.”

Footsteps came down the stairs – more than one pair. Oh crap. “Dalton,” I said softly. I called his name again, and grabbed for my t-shirt. Luckily, I didn’t take off my bra that evening.

“Hey, Lexie,” my grandma said.

Dalton shot up to sitting. This did not look good. We both looked at each other with wide eyes, then at my grandma, who stood in the basement with Dalton’s lola and his sister. Oh, shit.

“Dalton Fernando Reyes.” His lola spoke softly, but with palpable venom in her voice.

His mouth hung open and he kept looking back and forth between his lola and me. He hadn’t the slightest idea what to do.

“Um,” I said, glancing at him and his chest—bare, scarred, and muscular—then down at myself. I still held my shirt in my hand. “This is not what it looks like,” I said, pulling on my shirt. I found Dalton’s and threw it at him. He caught it and climbed to his feet, holding it in his hand, his arms hanging at his sides. For a moment, the room lacked all air. We all paused before everybody started screaming and yelling. Then I wanted to curl back up in Dalton’s arms and never come out.

“What do you think you’re doing, Lexie?” yelled my grandma.

“I knew staying at Lola’s was a bad idea!” said Hailey. The last time I was around Hailey, I never got a good look at her, but now that I stared at her with my eyes wide in dismay, I saw that she looked so much like Dalton. Same dark eyes – hers held a lot of anger, though – same cheekbones and straight black hair. She was about five inches shorter.

“Dalton Fernando, you put your clothes on this instant,” screamed his lola. In all fairness, he was only missing his shirt. He still wore his jeans.

Dalton just stood there holding his shirt.

In the shrillest voice, his sister screamed, “Dalton!”

He put on his shirt.

“You’re coming with us now, young man,” his lola said, her upper lip snarling up a bit. For a woman who wasn’t very large and had a bob haircut, she was pretty darn intimidating.

He finally found his voice. “Wait, Lola, we weren’t doing anything.”

“You know you’re not supposed to be with her.”

“Why? It’s not fair.”

“Think of everything she represents, this house.”

“Hey, lady, my granddaughter represents greatness,” my grandma interjected.

“You let this little hussy run around and corrupt Dalton. He’s confused enough as it is. He doesn’t need the distraction of all that,” Dalton’s lola said, waving her hand up and down in my direction.

“Okay, listen,” said my grandma. “They shouldn’t have done what they did, but they’re just kids.”

“Just kids, coming from the woman whose son was a drug lord.”

“You need to leave my house, Gloria.” My grandma looked like she was ready to punch out Dalton’s lola.

“Let’s go, Dalton. You’re to never come back here and never to see her again.” Dalton’s lola pointed a finger directly at me.

“No,” he said defiantly.

“Jesus, Dalton, let’s help paint the picture for your little friend here, why none of this is healthy,” Hailey said, focusing all of her attention on me. “My brother nearly died upstairs, in this house. On the way to the hospital he did die, and they had to resuscitate him. And while he was in the hospital, his lung collapsed again and he got an infection, and almost died – again. He has so many health issues, because of what happened here with you people. If he wasn’t all googly-eyed about you, he never would have come over here in the first place. For years, every time he heard a loud noise he’d have a panic attack. You frickin sneezed around the kid, he’d freak. He’s so angry at everything in the whole goddamn world. I bet he hasn’t told you any of that, has he? He still has nightmares sometimes, wakes up screaming.”

“Hailey, stop,” Dalton said.

“What? You don’t want her to know the truth? You’re still a scared little boy, Dalton. Whether you’d like to admit it or not, all your acting out is because of fear. You’re so damn scared.”

“I’m not acting out. I’m just trying to live my life.”

“By being with a girl who is nothing but trouble,” Hailey said. “You know why we came over here?” She didn’t give anyone a chance to answer. She pulled out her phone and showed us a picture. “I got tagged in a photo with a caption that read, ‘Your brother looks pretty hot these days.’ He’s leaning up against a wall talking to you at a party. I went up to your room to ask about it, but then realized that this pic was from weeks ago. Then surprise, surprise…you weren’t in your room. You say you’re trying to live your life with this girl, coming back to the place that almost killed you?”

“Everybody, let’s go upstairs,” my grandma said. “You two, march.” She pointed at me, Dalton, and then the stairs.

With our heads bowed, we obliged.

“I see you all have some family issues to sort out,” my grandma said, once we were all in the front room.

“Family issues?” Hailey said. She was on a bit of a rampage. “They’re just as much your family issues as they are ours. How about a reminder? I heard you guys couldn’t afford to refinish the floors.” Hailey bent down and grabbed the edge of the throw rug in the center of the room. She pulled it back, yanking it up and tipping over the coffee table.

“Look at that, Dalton. Look. That’s your blood. Do you need a better reminder? The stipulations you’re breaking?”

Dalton’s eyes were red and wet. He pushed passed all of us and ran out the front door.

“You’re just cruel,” I said.

“He needs to be shown. It’s the only way to get through to him. He’s still not okay, and he’s messing up his life because of it. I can’t believe he would take such risks, all because of you.”

“He’s not messing up his life,” I said, trying not to let the sting of her last words sink in.

“I don’t know what getting arrested in your book counts as, but to me, it’s messing up your life.”

Dalton’s lola nodded her head. She agreed with everything Hailey said.

“He didn’t mess up his life because of that.”

“He can’t leave the state, let alone the county, and he can’t be left alone. We are to know where he is at all times and him being here goes against his probation. God, I can’t believe he’d act so stupid.”

“Don’t say that about him.”

“And what do you know about him?”

“Everything I need to.”

Hailey stared at me with unblinking eyes.

I didn’t say anything.

“You are to never step foot near him again,” Hailey said with her eyebrows drawn and teeth gritted. She looked ready to pounce.

They both left without another word, and I stood in the front room with my grandma staring at the large, horrible stain on the hardwood floor. Dalton’s stain – his blood, from his body, forever on our floor.

“Maybe we just need to burn down this house,” my grandma said.

“It will still haunt us.”

“But seriously, this is a major ‘I told you so’ moment, cookie,” my grandma said, hugging me.

“I know.”

“You have to stay away.”

“What if I can’t?”

“They’ll hide away that child forever, lock him up, and he’ll never feel joy again.”

I started crying. “They can’t take him away from me again. They just can’t.” My heart couldn’t take it. Everybody always left me. I had to do something about it, but I hadn’t the slightest idea what.

“They’ll try their damndest.”

I didn’t want it to be the end of me and Dalton, but what if they were right? Maybe I needed to stay away.