Till the Last Beat of My Heart by Louangie Bou-Montes

Author:Louangie Bou-Montes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2024-09-10T00:00:00+00:00

Fifteen

Christian leaves me at his doorstep with a reminder that tomorrow is ’80s Day at school. I don’t know what he’s expecting from me, but if Twin Day was embarrassing to participate in accidentally, ’80s Day on purpose will kill me.

I walk back home, wondering how Christian has room in his head for that kind of bullshit, and the walk is refreshing until I get close to my house. Where the air had been seasonably chill and filled with the soft rustling of leaves and nocturnal animals all along the way, the entire atmosphere around my house is as frozen over as a February blizzard.

My mom’s sitting in one of the high-backed wooden rocking chairs on the porch, her hands on the armrests. I know she’s seen me because I’m the only person walking on the street at this hour, but she doesn’t move. Frost coats my insides, starting at the pit of my stomach before blooming out to the rest of me. I’m already caught so I keep walking until I’m climbing up the porch steps.

Mami watches me approach with narrowed eyes like chips of ice, her lips pressed tightly together, nostrils blown wide like she’s holding back a scream. She probably is.

When she speaks, her voice is dangerously quiet. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, running around outside at this hour?”

I look down at my feet, knowing I don’t have much wiggle room to make stuff up while I’m holding a black mirror and candles. Whatever details I wanna omit, I can’t leave out these crucial ones.

“I’m sorry, Mami.”

“I’m sorry, Mami,” she echoes, standing up and pulling her robe tighter around herself. “Jaxon, you be as mad as you want that I hid this stuff from you! But you don’t get to act out like this, you hear me? Do you know what it’s like to look for you in the middle of the night and find you gone?”

“I’m not acting out; I swear, I’m not.”

“Get inside!” she demands.

I follow her into the main parlor downstairs as she turns on some of the low lights, pointing me toward one of the couches. I sit on it, setting the candles and the mirror beside me gently. Mami sits in the imperious-looking vintage armchair across from me, looking like an angry queen in her robe and satin bonnet.

“This is acting out, Jaxon. Hiding things, running off in the middle of the night without asking anyone. Tienes suerte que no te doy un cocotazo con ese espejo. What’s gotten into you?”

I stare at my hands for a long time, examining the pale crescents at the ends of my nail beds. My mom’s voice is thin with panic, even though she’s trying to sound hard, but she’s right. I am lucky she doesn’t whack me upside the head with my mirror. It hurts, having to think about how much to say to my mom or what to leave out. Feeling anxious about talking to my mom makes me nauseous, so I lean forward, resting my elbows over my knees and dropping my head in my hands.

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