Chapter 49

She’d been all lit up, laughing with that bright white smile, but then the happiness drained from her face like someone had flipped off the lights. The glow vanished, her expression dropping somewhere between awkward and disbelieving.

“Huh…” she murmured, reaching out and taking the phone from my hand.

I, dumber than ever, asked:

“What is it, Diana?”

She took a few seconds — long enough to kill me inside — and then opened her mouth:

“Whoa… that’s hot…” she said, lying straight to my face, trying to hide the truth I already knew.

I laughed in disbelief.

“Damn, looks like you didn’t like it. That dykey or what?”

The jab came out half-mocking, half-nervous. I just wanted to poke at her, see if she’d crack, spill the beans.

“No, it’s just… I feel like I’ve seen that dick somewhere before, it looks familiar…” her voice came out shaky, like she was thinking out loud.

I forced a mocking laugh.
”What kinda talk is that? Diana, dicks are all the same, right? They don’t vary much… maybe that’s it.”

And I shut up. Left her there in silence, with her brain gears grinding away in her head. I knew. She knew. But I wanted to see how far she’d go. I wanted to watch the realization hit. Look, I’m not mean, and I didn’t have much right to complain either — in that mess, everyone was in the wrong. But fuck it: I was pissed that she was banging my guy, same as anyone.

“Where’d you meet him, Jujube?” she asked, with a calm that sounded practiced.

“On the bus. He was heading to pick up his damn car from the shop, we swapped numbers and started dating.”

She sighed, heavy, almost like a choked sob.
”Can I see a photo of him?”

Inside, I laughed. I knew: it’d hit her like a punch to the gut if I showed her. I’m such a bitch, holy shit.

I scrolled through the phone in her hand, and of course, a bunch of indecent photos popped up in the gallery — pussy, cock, even a fucking pic of my stepdad jumped out to scare me. But Diana didn’t blink; her eyes were just hunting for a face.

“Here. That’s him…” I showed her, my voice almost flat.

Boom. The mask dropped. No more smile, no more glow. Just a pair of red, swollen eyes, welling up. Her expression was a mix of anger, disappointment, and hurt.

For a second, I got scared. Real fear that my phone might go flying out the window, smash against the wall, who knows. I reached out, trying to grab it back before she lost it.

“You guys are going to the motel tomorrow… what time?” she asked, and her voice was now a thin thread.

“Afternoon, around three… why?” I replied, almost choking.

The tear slid down her face without fanfare. It hit the sheet and sat there, a wet smear between us. Then she set the phone between us, like returning evidence, and flopped back, stretching her arm to reach the nightstand on the other side of the bed.

From the second drawer, she pulled something out.

The picture frame.

Right then, the hell already burning in my chest burst into full flames. That’s what I wanted. She handed me the frame, and I, playing innocent, pretended I’d never seen it before, stared at it hard without saying a word, like it was brand new.

“Jujube… my boyfriend is your boyfriend. We’re both getting played.” Her voice came out broken, but steady.

I laughed crookedly, not finding it funny at all. I could’ve thrown it in her face that she was the only one played, that he’d never made anything official with me, that I had no room to complain since I was always hooking up with my “cousins.” But the truth hit me with sadness. I wanted him to claim me. I really did. I’d even hatched a dumb plan to introduce him to my mom, like it was official.

And that’s what slipped out of my mouth, raw and real:

“Fuck… I introduced him to my mom as my boyfriend! This is fucked, man! Now she’s gonna hound me!”

Right then, another rotten thought sprouted in my head: should I still go to the motel with him? Even thinking it was wrong, he’d been the one lying, not me. If he didn’t catch me, then he was the only one wrong, right? Deep down I figured: only the one who gets caught is wrong. I could totally fuck him tomorrow and decide later if I’d tell or not. But then the doubt crept in: what if Diana spilled that I already knew beforehand? Then I’d look like the biggest fool in the story.

“Fuck, I’m so pissed!” I said out loud, feeling the blood really boil.

“Me too, Jujube. Me too.” Diana replied, wiping the tears still leaking out.

But inside me, the anger wasn’t even mostly at him. What ate at me most was thinking that Diana, this badass woman, wouldn’t want to look me in the face anymore. And all because I was too stupid.

“And now?” I asked out loud, but the question was more for my own thoughts than her. Still, she answered:

“Now we tell him we know. And move on. Why fight, right?”

I stopped, hugged my knees on the bed, and rested my chin. I thought, thought, and more stuff kept surfacing.

“I knew it was too weird that he never wanted to come down your street… he always dropped me at the corner down below.” I said, remembering and biting my lip in rage.

We started breaking down the dates and times, like two cheap detectives. Most of it lined up perfectly: when he wasn’t with me, he was with her. And when he wasn’t with either of us? Yeah… he must’ve been with some other slut. That cheating bastard, probably filled that old car with whores.

Diana turned to me with an even more outraged look, her eyes red from anger and disgust.

“And now, Jujube… what do we do?”

I looked at her, did that pause only a troublemaker knows how to pull. I know I’m worthless, I know I’m no good.

“You already said: we tell him we know…” I said, with the calmest tone in the world.

But what she saw on my face right then wasn’t calm at all. It was the most devilish look I’d ever given. Because I had another plan. I was gonna stir shit up again.

For the first time, she laughed for real at me, half-scared, half-curious.

“Girl, what’s with that face? What are you thinking?”

I tilted my head and replied, almost sweetly:

“You trust me?”

“No.” she shot back quick. “But spit it out — what are you thinking?”

I built suspense, let the air hang heavy. A well-timed pause, until she shifted impatiently.

“You don’t wanna come over to my place sometime?” I let drop.

She narrowed her eyes, suspicious.

“Julia, I might come… but tell me what you wanna do!”

I couldn’t hold it and fell back on the bed, laughing hard, the laughter shaking my whole body.

“Huh… meet our boyfriend!”

“Jujube, I don’t even wanna see that guy again, you know? I think I’d lose my shit. Let me tell you something — know the day he was coming back from the shop and met you? Know who paid for the car repair on the dent he went to pick up? ME!”

I looked at her, thought…

“Look, I never paid much attention, but I’m sure he was picking up the car to swap for some fancy modern exhaust he had installed, that pipi popo shit — he talked about that crap all week! Didn’t say a word about a dent.”

“What a son of a bitch — I went through hell borrowing money I didn’t have, and when I asked why his car was making that noise, he said the tire was flat and he didn’t have cash to fix it! He’s gonna pay.”

“Yeah, there was no dent. I remember that — he went to Geraldo’s shop, and that’s all about sound systems, rims, and bling for playboy cars.”

I confess that seeing she’d gotten screwed worse than me made me happy, but I was still pissed and he was gonna pay. I grabbed my phone and looked at her.

“We need help, and I know who can help us.”

“Who, the cops?”

“No, the most badass woman on the planet.”

“Who? Your cousin?”

“No, my mom!”

And I called, and that son of a bitch was gonna see what was coming to him.