Hiding Behind an Open Door

Chapter 5

The next day, Elisa hears a knock at the door.

"Hola Antonio/Hello Anthony," Elisa says, looking kinda nervous.

"Hey, how are you?" Anthony says.

"Estoy un poquito mejor. Sólo pensando en cuando éramos más jóvenes/I'm a little bit better. Just thinking about when we were younger," they say.

"What do you mean?" he says.

"Antonio, tienes que hablar español/Anthony, you have to speak spanish," they say.

"¿Qué quieres decir?" he says, rolling his eye.

"Quiero decir como cuando me traducías todo y no entendía una mierda./I mean like when you used to translate everything to me when I didn't understand shit," they say. Anthony laughs. "Y luego de repente te detienes/And then you suddenly stop,"

"I didn't do it on purpose," he says.

"no te creo/I don't believe you," they say.

"Please stop," he says.

"Okay, fine. But you know I'm right," Elisa says.

"Well, I stopped because I knew you would learn better that way. And I was right," Anthony says.

"Do you want me to refresh your memory? Because from what I remember, I learned a lot better and faster from you translating for me. I could see how people were reaching in conversations and sorta remembered them if someone were to talk to me. I could respond the same way," Elisa explains.

"Makes sense," Anthony says.

"And you could actually speak spanish too. Now you can barely say one sentence without switching back to english," they say.

"HEY! That's... true," he says, in defeat. "But I try,"

"Yeah, you do. And that's good and all, but you actually could have gone to spanish class," Elisa says, walking into the kitchen. That's when their mom looked at them, shaking her head.

"Tú tampoco estabas en clase," their mom says.

"What did she say?" Anthony whispers.

"She said that I wasn't in class either," Elisa replies and turns to their mother. "Hice. Solo me salteé clases un par de veces./I did. I just skipped class a few times,"

"¿Y de quién es la culpa?/And whose fault is that?" Elisa's mom asks.

"Su/His," they say, pointing at Anthony. He gives them a "what?" look.

"Antonio, ¿eso es la verdad?/Anthony, is that true?" she asks.

"I don't understand," he says. Elisa rolls their eyes and their mom laughs.

"Okay, let's go. I think Sophie and Ian wanted to talk to, well me. I guess," Elisa says.

"Oh yeah, right. Forgot about that," Anthony says.

"How in the gods' name in hell could you forget about last night?" they say.

"I didn't, I just forgot that we were gonna talk about it," he says, clearly lying.

"Yeah, right," they say, sarcastically.