He sat there next to me, watching me settle despite my attempts to push him away back to the party.
"Are you okay?" He murmurs quietly.
God, I hate that question.
I slowly nod my head popping another sour candy in my mouth, allowing the sensors of my tongue to dance. It brought me the right distraction I needed. A type of focus away from everything else.
"Can you not look at me like that." I tilt my head back meeting his gaze.
"Like what?" His eyebrow raises.
"For fuck sakes, like you pity me,"
"I don't pity you. I'm concerned." He clarifies. "You scared me there for a second Steph."
I roll my tongue to the side of my mouth. "So was I." I twist my head and notice the red stains on his knuckles and the shattered pieces of the car window covering the floor around us. An utter crime scene.
All because I couldn't control myself.
Because I needed a stupid candy.
I take a piece of my stained dress and rip a piece of its fabric. Taking his hand, I wrap the fabric over the bleeding knuckles. He flinches when I tighten the knot, squeezing his eyes.
"We should go to first aid, otherwise your hand will get worse."
"What about you-"
"I'm fine." I snap, my cheeks burning red. "I'm sorry… It's just a thing I deal with."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
I shake my head from side to side, unable to look him in the eyes. I felt horrible.
"If you're worried about the car, don't worry, I'll get Omar a new one."
A sigh escapes my lips. I wanted to say that it wasn't about the car. Rather, it was more so I was angry at myself for being the way I am. I was even more frustrated at the fact that I didn't know how to put what I felt into words. How on earth do you explain this to any normal person?
"We should get back to the venue," I suggest to Leo.
"Are you sure?"
"It would be too rude to leave without saying goodbye to our parents."
He understands where I am coming from, as we both were well aware of our social conventions as a couple of Latinos. It was one of the things we connected and can resonate with one another about without being a competition.
One day in particular, after a group competition in middle school, Leo and I were waiting for our ride to come and so we sat on a bench in front of the building. Our teams achieved second place, and while I was indeed bummed, Leo seemed to have taken it to heart. For once, I was able to see a small side I never see, the version of Leo that was non-perfect like me.
His face puffed pink and he refused to turn his head to face me. I grabbed my sweater and placed it over Leo, concealing his distraughtness.
"My parents are going to hate me. I'm supposed to get us to first place. I'll put them to shame after all they've done for me to come to this country just to get second place. My own mother named her after her favorite artist and here I am tainting his name!"
"No, they will not! You know as well as I do that we did our best. They'll understand Leo."
As he wept under the sweater, I attempted to console him with words such as "Second place isn't so bad" or "We'll get them next time". It seemed to cheer him up a bit as he eventually removed my sweater from his face. I let him take over our conversation as he usually was the chatty type. Most of it was in Spanish and English, a.k.a Spanglish.
"Us first gens may have it rough, but that doesn't mean we should quit at second place. As our parents would say, échale ganas right?"
"Right." Leo smiled tracing over the 2nd place ribbon they gave our team members in the debate. "We'll be next time and I'll make my parents proud!"
The next year, we got first place as I promised. He held the team's trophy to the crowd, displaying it proudly. His family celebrated by throwing a party in the backyard that night. I was careful to vaguely come to greet his family before returning to my house and back to the balcony with my headphones in, eating a sour candy.
That day reminded me of the weight Leo and I shared of being not only the eldest of our families but how we equally try to prove ourselves as Mexican Americans.
When our parents spotted us entering the venue, our mothers' expressions fell as we were both in not the best condition as we came.
"What happened?" Leo's mom gasped. "Mi hijo!"'
"We had an accident chasing after the paparazzi," Leo swiftly replied.
Storming through the doors comes Omar calling for Leonardo. When he spots us on the main floor, his eyes lower to Leo's poorly-wrapped hand.
"What happened?"
"Paparazzi incident," he responds. "Look, Steph and I decided to call it a night so we'll be heading ou-"
"Why did you hire this man?" His mother snaps and turns to Omar. "You're supposed to keep my son safe! What good are you if he gets injured!"
"Yes ma'am," Omar replies tilting his head downwards.
"Do you have any idea how delicate my son is?"
"I'm not delicate."
"If he comes as close as breaking a bone, his entire career will be at risk! Do you understand me?" She shrilled, ignoring Leo's protests.
"Yes ma'am." Omar drops his head, defeated. I step in front of him, momentarily capturing her attention.
"Don't get mad at Omar. If anything it was all my fault. I went after the paparazzi. Leo was safe until he followed me. Omar is a good security guard." I assert. I avoided my mother's gaze as I did not want to see her disappointment. "So if you're going to yell at someone, yell at me."
Leo's mother kept her stare at Omar, ignoring my defiance like she did with Leo. She keeps her lips locked and swiftly turns away with the rest of them, joining the crowd.
"Let's go," Leo says softly, grabbing hold of my fingertips. In the process, my mother grabs hold of my other wrist pinching it furiously. I flinch and rip out of her grasp. Her fingernail marks were present on my wrist.
"Desgraciada!" she hisses, raising her other hand towards my cheek. I braced myself for the impact, holding my head high. A loud echo of skin-hitting echoes in the venue, turning everyone's head to us.
Matching his red suit, a mark of my mother's hand is on his cheek. He barely flinched.
The bottom of my lip reaches my chin as those in the crowd fill the room with whispers. Leo's mom blinks across the room, infuriated.
"Please don't speak to my girlfriend in that way." His voice deepens with such clarity in every proclamation he makes. "You may be her mother, but I am her other half. If you'd like to be invited to our future plans, I suggest you never lay a finger on her."
Oh.
My. God.
Leonardo Ramero Vasquez took a hit to the cheek for me and he called me his girlfriend right in front of my mother.
I need another sour candy, asap.
"Buenos noches Ms. Martinez. " He steps to the side blocking her from my sight. Removing his fingers from my hands, he places them lightly against my back and guides me out of the front door with Omar.
I attempted to look back but he was fast to turn me away from her. "Keep your head up, Estrella." He whispers as we escape to the parking lot. We could hear the music of the party blast from where we were standing.
"There's been an incident with the car. We'll take mine." Leo says pulling out his car keys from his pocket, and tossing them to Omar.
He snatches them in the air and tells us to wait by the elevator.
"I'm sorry this happened." Leo apologetically releases his touch from my dress. The beautiful damaged dress. His red tux was just as dirtied from when he used the fire extinguisher.
"Leo you took a hit for me. I broke Omar's car. I should be the one apologizing." I curl my hand over my wrist where my mother had left her mark.
"No."
"No?"
He grimaces, tightening his jaw. "I shouldn't have pressured you to do this. If I had just listened to you-"
"It's too late to turn back now." I cut him off. My phone lights up in my purse with various notifications from Beth along with headlines pertaining to Leo and me.
"All we can do now is to commit to our roles and make the most out of it." I pause and take another deep breath. "Just promise me one thing, Leonardo."
"Anything," he replies, taken slightly aback at the mention of his full name.
"Whatever happens, promise me that we'll never let our parents, or anyone for that matter, influence our decisions."
"Deal."
I inch my fingertip close to the tip of his chin, careful not to touch the area my mother slapped. He's looking at me. Really looking at me. We've been closer before but this felt intimate. Nothing like those times when we were in group projects and had our heads rammed together to reach the middle part of the poster. No. This was different, and I don't know if it is good or not.
"Not so fast. When I say anyone, I mean anyone. Including the media." He keeps his eyes latched onto mine. "We do what makes us happy."
Omar pulls up Leo's red car and opens the door for the both of us.
"I promise," he says finally.