On Our Block: Monse and Cesar s4

Chapter 5: Guilty

Monse's POV:
"So how was New Years?" Jasmine asks. "Good. The guys actually talked to each other." I say and she gives me a weird look. "What?" I laugh. "You really think I wouldn't notice." She crosses her arms. "I don't know what you're talking about." I'm a bad liar. "Monse, you look like your neck got attacked by a vacuum." She moves my hair. "I literally saw Ruby sneaking out of your house when I got here." I remind her. "Ruby doesn't have a girlfriend." Jasmine raises her eyebrows. "I don't have a boyfriend, I'm not doing anything wrong." I'm not letting myself feel guilty. My phone wrings and I pick up right when I see it's LAPD. "Hello?" I can't catch my breath. "Yes, this is Monse... what?" My heart's beating out of my chest. "What's wrong? Who was that?" Jasmine asks right when I hang up. "I gotta go... it was the cops, they wanna talk to me." I grab my stuff and my hands are shaking. "When they see people like us being nervous they just think we're guilty. Do whatever you gotta do but you can't go in like this." Jasmine says and I nod. "I know. I gotta get there though." I get in my car and I have a meltdown. Every illegal think I've ever done has been for Cesar and now we're not even together.
When I get to the station Cesar's waiting outside. "You know what's going on?" I ask. "Not yet but I have a few ideas. Whatever it is, you say it was me. I'll cover for all of you." He says and I shake my head. "No. Don't even tell the guys that 'cause they'll do it. We'll deal with this together. Ride or die, right?" I smile and he looks at my lips. "Right." When he takes a step closer I stop him. "We should go inside." I tell him. Jamal and Ruby are sitting down when we get inside. "Don't say it." I sit down next to Jamal. "Why are we here?" I ask him but he doesn't say anything. Ruby gets up and starts pacing and talking but I only get like half of what he's saying. "Can someone tell me what's going on?" I look at Ruby. "The bones... her bones. Found." He whispers. "When?" I ask. "Months ago." Ruby says. "What?!" I say a little too loudly and Cesar shushes me. "Don't shush me. You've known for months? You told me you didn't know why they called us!" I go closer to Jamal and he finally looks up. "You think he's even capable of telling the truth?" Jamal asks. "I don't even know how to respond to that." I say. "Guys we to need to be smart. We need to think of a reason we were all in the forest that day." Cesar whispers. "I can't believe not one of you called me." I shake my head and they all look at me. "I tried but you were dealing with school and shit... I didn't think they'd find out it was us." Jamal says. "So you just decided not to-" Cesar cuts me off. "Ok I got it. I have an idea. Bigfoot." He says and Jamal get up. "Was that a dig?" He asks Cesar. "No. Bigfoot could work." He's serious. "That is a terrible idea." I point out and Cesar looks surprised that I'm not just backing him up. "Fine. Then what? I don't care, but whatever it is, we need to get on the same page. That's the only way we're gonna get out of here." Cesar says and I raise my eyebrows. "We've never been on the same page." I slump in my seat. "We were on the same page a few days ago." He smirks and I roll my eyes. "When I said it was the last time I meant it." I smile sarcastically. Cesar looks away so I just stare off into space and think about how hard I'm gonna throw Cesar under the bus. I move as far away from him as possible and Jamal sits between us. I ignore these dumb asses and let them fight. "I've made terrible decisions." Ruby sits between me and Jamal. "We don't know what they know." I remind him. "Could be nothing. Let's not get overdramatic." Wrong choice of words. Jamal's over our stupid fight but still... wrong choice. "Monse Finnie." One of the detectives call my name and my heart drops. I pull a bunch of Bigfoot facts Jamal told me out of my ass. I don't know how I even remembered half of this shit.
We get out and the guys start fighting but I don't even pay attention until Ruby gets involved. "Why should we wait? Let's just start now." Ruby and Jamal walk off and I'm totally lost. "So great catching up with everyone." I start walking away and Cesar stops me. "Can we talk?" He asks. "About what? You lied to me, Cesar... again!" I yell. "I didn't know if that's what they wanted to talk to us about. We did a lot of illegal shit." He says. "Doesn't matter. We're done, the crew's done, and all of that other shit is done." I shrug. "It doesn't have to be." He says. "It kinda does. "We can't be friends and we can't be anything else so maybe going back to how things were is they best thing for everyone. We don't need each other anymore." I remind him. "So you only keep people around when you need them?" Cesar asks. "You're over me and I need space to get over you. I'm gonna be at Brian's for a couple days. Hopefully he can find a way to get me the hell away from all this shit." I walk away from Cesar and try to get in my car. "I'm not ready to lose you guys. We were supposed to work through it." He doesn't let me shut the door. "We didn't. You fucked it up again." I know I shouldn't have said that but I can't apologize. I drive away feeling guilty.