The Book of Broken Hearts (29 page)

“Jude . . .”

“Please go,” I whispered. I couldn’t face him anymore, couldn’t breath through the impossibly thick air, couldn’t carry
the weight of so much sorrow on my shoulders, and he left without another word, another touch.

I sat on the bench where he’d stumbled and covered my ears like a kid, trying unsuccessfully to ignore the rumble of his bike, ragged and low as it ferried him away.

The battered orange Jeep bounced up our driveway two days later. Emilio was a no-show, and as I watched Samuel climb out of his truck, I knew he was here as a favor to his friend, to finish up the work Emilio had started.

“Hey,
mamí
,” he said when I met him outside. “E sent me to—”

“
Unbelievable.
He can’t finish the job himself?” I asked. “Sent you to do his dirty work? Where is he?”

Samuel put his hand up, shielding his eyes from the sun. Or maybe from me. “I look like his secretary or some shit?”

“When did you last see him?”

“We hung out last night.”

“Did he say anything?” I asked.

“He said lots of things, Jude:
Hey, Samuel. Pass me the remote. You got any Doritos? I hate this show
.”

“Samuel.” I rolled my eyes to the sky. If all boys insisted on being this dumb, I’d have to start my own book—
The Book of
Broken Skulls
. Because that’s exactly what I was about to do to every last one of them. “I don’t care about Doritos! What did he say about
me
?”

“What is going
on
here, girl?” Samuel laughed. “We at a slumber party? You wanna talk about boys and paint my nails?” He wriggled his fingers in my face.

Why do they all have such contagious smiles?

“Stop.” I swiped his hands away. “I’m trying to be mad at boys right now. You’re seriously messing up the flow.”

“Sorry. How’s this. Damn,
mamí
, that shirt makes you look kinda fat. Shorts ain’t doin’ you any favors either.”

I flashed him a death stare. “They’re my sister’s clothes. They aren’t even my regular size.”

“Just trying to help.”

“No more helping,” I said. But he
had
helped, in his own sick little way, and I decided I kind of liked him, as far as boys went, but he was obviously here for the bike, and fangirl hour was over. I led him into the barn, back to Emilio’s space.

“Valentina,
ooh
.” He gave an impressed whistle. “This girl is
hot
. No wonder E loves working on her.”

“Yep. Loves it
sooo
much that he bailed in the homestretch.”

“What?” Samuel shook his head. “Has that boy ever bailed on you before?”

“No. But—”

“He didn’t bail, you drama llama. He’s in Santa Fe with his mom for that school thing. I’m just here for the lift.”

“Santa Fe . . . the cookie project thing?” My face went hot.
I’d forgotten about their field trip once I’d polished off the last of the cookies, like, ages ago.

“Look at your face,” Samuel said. “Jesus, I seen him mopin’ around all night, and now you. . . . Oh, you two got it bad. It’s kinda sick. Cute, but sick.”

“I don’t . . . wait. He was moping? Like, all night? How long was he moping? What was he doing exactly?”

Samuel held up his hands. “Sorry, I have to get to work. I’m sure you can find a shrink in the phone book, happy to listen to all your problems.”

“You okay,
queridita
?” Papi strolled into the barn with Pancake and another Celi mug from the stash I’d found, this one with pink and silver hearts raining out of blue clouds. He was all happy-go-lucky-good-mornin’ casual, and when he saw Samuel, he smiled. “You’re from Duchess, right? You work with Emilio?”

My eyes stung at the mention of Emilio’s name again, but I blinked it away and introduced them.

“¿Quieres un café?”
Papi asked Samuel.

“No, gracias,”
he said. “I need to get this lift back to Duchess. We got two hogs comin’ in today and we’re short.”

Papi set down his mug to help Samuel with the lift, and after they’d loaded it into the Jeep and Samuel took off, Papi found me right where he’d left me: sitting on the workbench in a puddle of sulk like the big fat drama llama I was.

Papi sat next to me and wrapped his arm around my shoulder. I leaned into him, soaked up the familiar strength, and my
heart ached as I recalled a hundred scraped knees, all the forgotten lines onstage, the unexpected tumbles, monsters under the bed. Papi had chased them all away, comforted me after every pain, and now I closed my eyes and let myself pretend—just for a minute—that he’d get strong again. That he’d be there to dry my tears, to hang the moon and the stars when they fell down. That he’d always be the smart one, the one with all the right words and promises. That we’d never have to switch places on this bench.

But we would. In so many ways we already had. And no matter how close the inevitable got, I could never be ready for it, not in a year or five or ten or a hundred. So when he squeezed my arm and asked me what happened, why I looked so sad, I confessed as if it would always be this way between us. Old helping young. Wisdom guiding inexperience. Father loving daughter.

“Emilio and I got into a fight the other day,” I said.

“Another one?” Papi said, an octave higher than normal. Even Pancake lifted his head at that one, like,
Jude, can’t you keep your crazy shit together for five minutes? You have the attention span of a—look! Ohmigod! BUNNIES!

Pancake shuffled off toward the yard, and I nodded. “Emilio’s never talking to me again.”

“
Que?
I doubt that. Why do you think?”

“I kind of flipped out on him. And then I told him to get out.”

“Ah.” Papi reached for his coffee and took a sip, his other
arm still strong over my shoulder. “That happens sometimes,
querida
. Especially with Hernandez women. Believe me, I know.”

“Not helping,
viejito.
”

“No?” Papi smiled. “I’m sorry, Juju. Tell me exactly what happened.”

I took a shaky breath, trying to ignore the flashes of Papi lying on the road, Emilio’s face after I’d pushed him away. “Basically, he said I should listen to Mari about not letting you ride, because it’s dangerous and he’s worried, and he doesn’t want me to feel guilty if something happened . . . not that it would, but . . . he’s wrong, Papi.”

“He’s not wrong about the risks. Motorcycles
are
dangerous,
querida
. But it’s not his call—I made my decision. Emilio will finish the bike soon. Then I ride.” Papi’s sigh was heavy, but then he smiled again and tugged on my hair. “So you defended this
viejito
, eh?”

“I told him to get out. I mean, he kept going on and on . . . Forget it. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

I closed my mouth, suddenly feeling like I’d betrayed Emilio, ratted him out. But Papi just sipped his coffee like he wasn’t surprised or mad or anything at all. I waited for him to dismiss it with a wave, to tell me I was being silly and promise it would all blow over. Instead, he rose from the bench, set down the mug, and held out his hand.

“Let’s walk,” he said. “I told Mari I’d make at least two trips to the river this week.”

Mari had ducked out at dawn this morning, first to Denver, then on to meet her author in New York. She’d left a note under my door with strict orders, underlined three times, not to let Papi ride.

“How well do you know Emilio?” Papi asked as we made our way to the river, trailed as always by Pancake. He’d never miss out on a chance to spook those fish.

“Not
super
well or anything. We’re . . . friends.” My cheeks burned, but Papi was asking about history, not about how I’d been spending my summer, my forbidden dreams, the truth in my heart that remained, despite our argument. “He was ahead of me at BHS, and then he left early, so . . . just from this summer. Not a lot.” The memories from that night in the woods by the Bowl, the motorcycle ride, the taste of his lips, the hurt in his eyes yesterday . . . all of them rose and fell.

“Did he tell you why he dropped out of Blackfeather High?” Papi asked.

“No. I asked him once, but I got a weird vibe. Like, he didn’t want to talk about it. It’s funny with him, Papi. When he’s not cracking jokes or talking about motorcycles, he doesn’t say too much. He’s like that about his family, too. It’s like deep down, he really doesn’t want to talk.”

But you don’t ask me stuff that matters. Who I am or where I been. What I see when I look at you. What I want . . .

Echoes. Words from that night in my driveway after
Alice in Wonderland
. They lingered like smoke, and I yanked them
from the sky and shoved them down deep with memories of all the good things.

We followed the path though the trees—ponderosa pines, I now knew—that led down to the Animas. The water was slow and lazy today, the opposite of everything inside me that churned and roiled, and we found a dry spot on the bank and took off our shoes and dipped our toes.

Papi kicked the water, watched the ripples float away. “A couple years ago, a boy got into a motorcycle accident on Phantom Canyon Road. There was fog on the mountain that night, low visibility. They figured he lost sight of the pavement and hit the shoulder, then lost control trying to swing back onto the road.”

I shivered. People wrecked on bikes, I knew that, but hearing about it now, I couldn’t help but picture Emilio. It hit me sharp and fast, cut even deeper than when I’d pictured Papi the other day because Emilio still rode his bike. All the time, everywhere.

Did he go out on Phantom Canyon Road at night? Had he heard this story? My heart sped up, and I held my breath as Papi continued.

“He hit a tree, got tangled in the wreckage . . . nineteen years old, like Emilio.”

Pancake paced the shore, sniffing out flowers and bugs and other living things, stepping over Papi’s feet when he needed to.

“I read about it when it happened.” Papi leaned forward to
scoop some rocks from the bank. “Obviously we knew of the family because of your sister . . .
ay, Dios
.” He poured his rocks from one hand to the other, back and forth, and when he finally looked at me, his eyes were glassy. “It was his cousin,
querida
. They were very, very close. He told me about him, a little.”

Another shiver, cold and icy, ran from my skull to my toes. Papi didn’t have to say whose cousin. I knew in my bones he was talking about Danny, and my heart sank as some of the pieces clicked into place. The picture in Emilio’s bedroom, two boys splattered with mud. Susana’s toys-and-candle shrine. All the time Emilio and Papi had spent alone in the barn, the bond they shared.

Papi tossed the rocks into the water and turned to face me. His eyes were wet with tears, but he didn’t blink them away or cough like it was a tickle in his throat, a sneeze that didn’t escape.

“Juju, Emilio was there. This Danny . . . he was ahead of him on the road about a half mile. Emilio didn’t see the accident happen, but he heard it. When he got around the bend, he saw the wreck. He skidded to a stop and basically dropped his bike. . . .” Papi pinched the bridge of his nose, and when he spoke again the words were muffled by his hand.

“He dove at the tree, trying to haul the bike off Danny, but it was too heavy and mangled. All that twisted metal . . . Everything was sharp and hot. . . .
Ay
, what a mess. He hurt himself pretty bad trying to pull Danny out. But there wasn’t . . . It was too late.”

I buried my face against my knees as the rest of the pieces clicked together, the horrifying puzzle complete.

They were always wild, those boys. . . . dragged Danny around everywhere he went . . .

Ain’t seen him in two years. I miss him. Hell yeah, I miss him.

His mother basically hates me. . . .

Emilio had said Danny was in Puerto Rico, but he wasn’t. He was gone. Was his death the tragedy that tore apart Emilio’s family? Or was it because Emilio chose to keep riding, to keep building the machines that killed his cousin? Did they blame him for that Phantom Canyon Road ride? Did they wish it were Emilio instead? Did they blame him for not being able to save—

“The scars.” The words were so soft I wasn’t sure if I’d spoken or thought them. I closed my eyes, remembering again the thin lines on Emilio’s arms, the bone-white evidence of some long ago hurt seared across his abdomen. Though I’d finally touched them, I hadn’t worked up the nerve to ask. I knew there had to be a dark story, maybe a bike-related thing.

But not like this.

Pancake lumbered over with some treasure he’d unearthed, a bundle of sticks and stones caked in river mud. He dropped it on the ground and buried his head in my lap as if he knew that’s exactly what I needed.

“Emilio Vargas is a good kid.” Papi’s voice was thick with emotion. “He’s not his brothers any more than you’re Araceli or Mariposa or Lourdes. He’s been through a lot. He’s still a
boy and he’s already had his heart broken more than we can even imagine.”

I sucked in a sharp breath as the final realization dawned. “You knew he was a Vargas?”

Papi’s forehead was wrinkled with sadness, but he smiled at my question. “You girls think I’m already senile. I’m telling you, you can’t sneak anything past me.”

“The
whole
time?”

“No, no. Only since that day your sister met him. I kept thinking, what the hell got Mari so worked up? Every time I got close, this junker conked out.” He knocked on his head. “But then I woke up in the middle of the night and it finally clicked. Emilio Vargas! Yes! Ah, what can you do?”

“Does Mom know?”

“Sure, she knows. I told her as soon as I figured it out.
Querida
, you’re making a big deal for nothing.”

“But . . . you guys weren’t mad about the wedding and stuff?”

He shrugged. “That has nothing to do with Emilio, and nothing to do with you.”