Read A Moment for Free Online Page B

good knowing ya. I’d cried rivers for nine months straight. I’m sure the pregnancy hormones hadn’t helped. But with time and age I realized what a little loser I’d slept with and am now happy he’s no longer a part of our lives.
     
    I haven’t even been back to Chai Time. Maybe that makes me spineless. But that night haunts me. Seeing him in the tub, slumped forward, all that blood everywhere.
     
    And then that morning in the hospital room, his voice soft, his eyes troubled and I’d asked him why. I’d seen the flash of hurt, the agony of a memory that plagued him still.
     
    I don’t think it’s a girl.
     
    A broken heart doesn’t do that to a person.
     
    When Javier’s father had finally dumped me, I’d cried and wouldn’t eat and hid in the dark room, but I didn’t want to kill myself. When I’d crawled out of there, I’d come out stronger.
     
    But Ryan’s demons are dark and dangerous and something I’m terrified to get involved in, problem is… I think I already am. Because I can’t stop wondering, can’t stop trying to make sense of the madness that was that night. Why had he done it? What had forced him to a point in his life that he really thought he had no other choice?
     
    Why?
     
    Why?
     
    Why?
     
    Stepping out of the shower, I run my hand across the steamed up mirror. My cheeks are pink, hair clings to my face.
     
    And maybe part of the reason why I can never seem to forget him is the fact that I always have to shower. Though my bathroom is full of butterflies and flowers, I don’t see any of those things. I see a white fluttering curtain, wet tile, and blood.
     
    “Apurate, mija,” my mother calls, urging me to hurry. “You’ll be late for class. Ade made tortillas.”
     
    “Coming, mama.” Turning my back on the mirror, I hurriedly dress in a pair of white shorts and a light yellow halter top.
     
    After breakfast I turn to my son. He’s dressed, sitting on the ground and flipping through a comic book. My heart pitter patters at the sight of his soft wet curls around the nape of his neck.
     
    Thank God he looks nothing like his father.
     
    A half-eaten peanut butter sandwich sits on a plate next to his booted foot.
     
    “Baby, you ready for school?”
     
    He stops turning the pages and looks up, his eyes halting at my chest. Javi never looks in my eyes.
     
    Putting on a brave face, I turn to Ade and mom. “Okay, I’m off. Wish me luck. Today I get to articulate a skeleton.”
     
    “Didn’t you do that before?” Mom asks.
     
    I shrug on my back pack. “Yeah, but I did that freshman year, I think they want to make sure we haven’t forgotten. Anyway.” I kiss my fingers and blow it at them.
     
    “C’mon, baby.” I hold out my hand to Javi.
     
    Standing, he grabs his comic, unzips his book bag and gently slides it in. He ignores my hand completely.
     
    Hand hanging in midair, I bring it slowly back to my thigh and smile like it doesn’t bother me, but it does, it always does.
     
    Three hours later I’m done articulating the bones. But I hadn’t liked it. I nailed the test, I know it, but it was an infant skeleton. It’d felt macabre. Some of the guys in my class had laughed, calling the bones cute.
     
    To me they weren’t cute. They were the bones of a child a mother had lost. So when I stepped out onto the campus lawns, I was grumpy.
     
    The day is warm. Hotter than it’d been the last few weeks, with temperature’s soaring past one hundred an hour ago, and that only made me crankier.
     
    I need a drink.
     
    And I know immediately where I’m going.
     
    There’s a good chance he’s not even there.
     
    My stomach flutters.
     
    Really I have nothing to worry about.
     
    But if I’m being honest I’d known I was going to go there this morning. It’s why I’d taken such care to look nice. Why my hands had been shaking all day. Biting down on my tongue, I cross the street, smelling the coffee long before I open the door.
     
    I moan