Being True (5 page)

“What are you doing here?” I asked as I struggled to sit up. If that was going to happen, though, the world needed to stop spinning.

“Take it easy,” Javi said. He placed his hand on my chest and gently nudged me back onto the grass. The weight of his hand sent shivers across my flesh. “You still look a little shaky.”

That was no lie. My breathing had increased, and my blood pounded in my ears. If I tried to stand now, I’d likely resemble a newly born fawn unable to find his footing. But it wasn’t the fall that had caused these reactions. It was Javi.

For a few moments, I said nothing, and neither did he. He sat cross-legged in the grass, gazing around the neighborhood. Every now and then, a car passed by. Sometimes, the driver honked and shouted a greeting at Javi, who raised his hand and waved in reply. Javi’s popularity apparently followed him beyond the hallowed halls of Burbank High, which wasn’t all that surprising.

But while Javi studied his surroundings, I simply watched him. His long onyx hair fluttered about his forehead whenever the humid September breeze stirred the early-evening air. Every time he heard a bird chirp, he’d scan the trees and whistle back. Sometimes he’d receive a response and carry on a conversation with his new feathery friend. And the whole time, a big, cheesy grin lit up his face. As if speaking bird was the coolest thing he’d done all day.

“Are you a bird whisperer or something?”

Javi laughed before tearing his gaze from the cardinal he’d been chatting with in a neighboring pecan tree. “I don’t know. Maybe. I’ve just always been able to mimic birdcalls. Just one of my stupid childhood talents I’ve never outgrown.”

“I don’t think it’s stupid,” I said as I sat up. “It’s neat.”

“My friends don’t think so. They used to give me a hard time about it. So I really don’t do it as much as I used to when I was a kid.”

“That sucks.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, but what can you do? High school’s tough enough without being known as the weird bird boy.”

I couldn’t help but stare at Javi as if a third eye had suddenly opened in the middle of his forehead.

“What’s that look for?” he asked.

“I find it hard to believe that high school, much less anything, would be tough for you.”

Javi’s eyes caught mine. “Yeah, well, you’d be surprised.” The confident, carefree boy I’d met earlier today vanished almost entirely even though his half grin still blazed a trail across his lips. The guy who sat next to me now seemed lost and alone. The smile couldn’t hide that. But as suddenly as some unseen barrier had fallen, it immediately rebuilt itself. The lighthearted sparkle returned to his gaze before he glanced away and surveyed the trees again.

“You never answered my question.”

“What question is that?” he asked before sending a bird whistle out to the neighborhood and receiving another enthusiastic reply.

“What are you doing here?”

“Well, that’s a silly question. I live around here.”

“I’d already guessed that,” I said. “What are you doing here with me?”

Javi danced his bushy eyebrows across his lightly tanned forehead. He wrapped his sculpted arms around his knees and pulled them to his chest. Although he still wore his baseball shirt from class that morning, he’d abandoned his jeans for gym shorts. “Now you’ve gone from silly to strange. I’m here because you almost killed yourself. First with the train, and then when you learned you couldn’t fly over the rock you hit on the other side.”

“I don’t understand why you care,” I admitted. No one outside my family had ever showed this much interest in my well-being. Why was Javi taking the time to be nice to a loser like me?

“Jeez, kid,” he said. When he raised his hand, I flinched. I’d grown accustomed to quick hand gestures ending in a punch to the face or gut. I certainly hadn’t been prepared for Javi to rub my shoulder. “You must be having a really tough time, huh?”

Tears welled in my eyes again. This time, it wasn’t because I was in pain or being bullied. They were falling because someone had finally noticed me.

A
FTER
I’
D
dried my tears, Javi invited me back to his house. He claimed I needed to get cleaned up after my face’s introduction to Mrs. Sanchez’s yard, but I didn’t buy it. He’d seen how emotional I’d gotten, and he evidently didn’t want to leave me alone while I was in such a fragile state.

I’d never met anyone like Javi Castillo before in all the schools I’d attended. How did someone so popular and good-looking get to be so considerate and kind? It had always been my experience that kids like Javi were the biggest assholes on the planet.

I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.

In fact, my natural caution almost made me decline the invitation. I suspected I was being lured into a false sense of security. That Javi was perhaps leading me to some dark alley or secluded lot where Rance and the Jock Brigade laid in wait to finish what Rance had started in the boys’ locker room.

But after walking our bikes a few blocks—the collision with the rock had knocked the chain off the pulley and made riding my bike impossible—we finally arrived at Javi’s house.

It wasn’t a grand house, but it sure beat my crappy, rundown apartment. It had been painted in warm earth tones, and white shutters framed the street-facing windows. A white rail extended the full length of the porch and over to the wooden poles that framed the carport, where a blue Lincoln Town Car sat on the driveway. Dark green grass covered the well-cared-for front lawn, and the branches of a huge Magnolia tree crisscrossed its heavy branches overhead. Young trees and hearty rose bushes, surrounded by painstakingly placed bricks, spotted the yard.

The Castillos took excellent care of what was theirs.

“We’re here,” Javi said as he dropped his bike on the grass. “You can leave your bike next to mine.”

I nodded. My nerves made me capable of nothing else. I’d never met a friend’s parents before. Hell, I’d never had a friend before, and the fact that Javi was fast becoming a friend, had my head spinning worse than my recent tumble. What would I do if Javi’s parents hated me? Everyone else seemed to instantly dislike me. If the Castillos followed suit, they could forbid Javi from hanging around the poor white trash he’d literally found on the side of the road.

“You just gonna stand outside or what?” he asked from the front door. I’d been so lost in thought, I hadn’t noticed Javi cross the lawn to the house.

“Maybe” was all I replied.

He shook his head and laughed. “Get your ass in here.”

And once again, I did as Javi commanded.

The interior of the house proved to be as inviting as the outside. It wasn’t the furniture that was neatly arranged with the sofa and recliner facing the television set. Or the shelves along the far wall filled with books and knickknacks. The possessions were merely possessions.

What I found so welcoming was the atmosphere. It smelled like a home, not some place that was merely occupied for the moment, and on the air wafted a mixture of cinnamon and tortillas.

“What’s that wonderful aroma?” I asked as Javi closed the front door.

“My mom’s cooking,” he said. “She always lights her cinnamon candles while she makes supper so the house doesn’t smell like
caldo
,
carne guisada
, or whatever she happens to be making.”

I breathed deeply. I loved caldo. I hadn’t eaten Mexican beef soup in years, and last time I had the stew was longer than I cared to remember. “Well, I like it.”

He grinned. “Me too.”

“
Mijo
, is that you?” A woman asked from the kitchen. I’d learned enough Spanish over the years to know it was Javi’s mother. Who else would address him as my son?

“It’s me,” he yelled back. He then turned and said, “Wait here. I’ll be right back.” He headed across the living room and through the doorway to the right, where his mother prepared dinner for her family.

While I waited for Javi to return, I inspected the dozens of pictures that adorned the living room walls. Most were of Javi throughout his childhood. In one, he sat in a stroller, waving a rattle in his hand and grinning at whoever snapped the picture. Everything about him was pretty much the same except his hair, which lay across his head in short dark wisps. In another photo, he was dressed in a tiny suit and sat on his mother’s lap while his father stood protectively over his family. His hair was buzzed short in that one. The rest of the pictures were of Javi dressed in his baseball uniform, standing on the pitcher’s mound, or holding a trophy while surrounded by his teammates.

When I spotted a picture of Rance with his arm around Javi’s neck, my flesh crawled. How the hell could a guy like Javi be friends with an asswipe like Rance? It defied explanation.

It was too much to think about right then, so I turned around and found a picture of the Virgin Mary lovingly placed above a table to the left of the front door. On what could only be described as an altar stood two lit candles, some prayer cards, and a crucifix, around which hung a beaded rosary.

“Mom, this is the new kid I was telling you about,” Javi said as he reentered the living room with his mother. “His name’s Tru.”

I turned to greet Mrs. Castillo, readying myself for the disapproving gaze I’d grown accustomed to. I was not prepared for what happened next. Her plump lips drew themselves into a big O, and she rushed over to me. “
Ay dios mío!
” she cried to God. Her hazel eyes narrowed in worry. “What happened to you?” When she spoke in English, her accent was thick, but not as deep as the concern in her voice. She even gingerly glided her hands over my cheeks as she inspected me for broken bones.

“I told you he fell off his bike,” Javi said from immediately behind his mother. It was obvious from his tone he was slightly annoyed.

She turned around and playfully smacked her son across the head. “And you neglected to tell me he fell on his face.”

“Gee, thanks, Mom,” Javi said. His cheeks flushed a deep red. “Way to make a good first impression on my new friend here.”

Mrs. Castillo continued chiding her son as she took my hand and led me through the living room and toward the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. I stood in stunned silence as she wiped the blood from my face with alcohol and gauze. I didn’t hear any of the questions she asked or her banter with Javi.

The only word that still resonated in my ears was the one Javi had spoken: friend.

A
FTER
CLEANING
me up and bandaging my cuts, Mrs. Castillo insisted I stay for dinner, especially after she learned my mother wouldn’t get off work until midnight. The offer was too good to pass up, so I accepted after convincing her to allow me to help set the table and clean up.

“I didn’t know you were such a brownnoser,” Javi playfully teased as I set the yellow kitchen table for four.

“
Cállate
,” Mrs. Castillo reprimanded from the stove. She was making chicken mole, Spanish rice, and refried beans in her white apron embroidered with yellow daisies, which draped over her blue pants and yellow-and-blue striped shirt. She commanded Javi to be quiet, but the glint in his eyes revealed he wasn’t planning on obeying. “It’s nice to have someone around here who wants to help,” she said with a wink at me. Javi’s mom had to be somewhere in her forties, but you couldn’t tell that from her smooth skin or her long, thick locks. It was obvious where Javi’s full head of hair came from.

“You’re making me look bad,” Javi said. “You know that, right?”

I glanced at him, sitting on his ass and drinking a Coke. “I think you’re doing just fine with that all on your own.”

Mrs. Castillo laughed at my retort. Javi scowled and then let fly the loudest burp I’d ever heard in my life.

“
Cochino
!”

Javi grinned broadly at his mother’s attempt at embarrassing him. Clearly, he didn’t mind being called a pig. He seemed to rather enjoy it.

“So how was your first day at Burbank?”

I’d been in the middle of placing the last plate on the table when Javi asked his question. I froze. I didn’t know how to respond. Rance and Javi were friends. If I told the truth, what would that do to our new friendship? It wasn’t like I could expect Javi to choose me over Rance. We’d just met, and Lord only knew how long he and Rance had been best buds. I decided being vague was my best bet. “It was interesting.”

He snorted. “Yeah, right. There’s not much interesting about BHS.”

“Don’t talk badly about your school,” Mrs. Castillo said. She shook her wooden spoon at Javi to make her point. “It’s been good to you. You might even get a baseball scholarship to college because of it.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said as he rolled his eyes. This subject was obviously a bone of contention between them. “There’s more to life than baseball.”

“Like what?” someone suddenly asked.

I turned to see a man, who looked like an older version of Javi, standing at the entrance to the kitchen. Besides being slightly taller and thicker around the middle, Javi’s dad also had skin about two shades darker and a full moustache across his top lip. He wore a button-down short-sleeved shirt and brown pants. Unlike most of the people he spotted in the neighborhood wearing dirty work overalls, Mr. Castillo apparently worked in an office somewhere and not in a garage or doing shift work.

Javi rose from the table and greeted his father with a hug. Mrs. Castillo then followed suit.

“And who’s this?” he asked as he walked over to shake my hand.

“I’m Tru,” I answered as I took his hand in mine. His grip was strong and confident while mine was loose and tentative.

“True?” he asked. “Like true or false?”

“Dad!” Javi complained.

Mr. Castillo glanced at his son as if he had no idea why he was being fussed at. “What?” he asked. “I just asked a question.”

“Tru is short for Truman, sir,” I answered, trying to save Mr. Castillo from his son’s teasing.

“Ah, like President Harry S. Truman,” he said.

I nodded. “Except Truman’s my first name.”