The Rich Boy in a Rock Band

Song 3 ♪ Bring Me To Fight

The mailman put a yellow envelop in our mailbox exactly a week after that, that contained the results from the Holy Trinity High School interview.

Of course, I didn't even think to check the mail as I left the gringo's house that day and walked over to my best friend Leti's across the street. I walked into the living room from the front door and gave her Nana a kiss on the cheek. Nana was so old that no one knew exactly what her age was. Even though she had trouble making her way around by herself, she was the sweetest person I'd ever met in my 17 years of life and she never failed to make me feel like I was her own great granddaughter.

"Bendición?" I asked her, the traditional way to greet an elder that was never in use in my house.

"Dios te bendiga," she told me in a trembling and raspy voice.

Nana's daughter was Leti's grandma. She barreled out of the kitchen to see who it was. Contrary to Nana, Grammie Socorro didn't like me that much, as seen by the sudden downturn of her mouth. "Oh, it's you." I repeated my greeting to her and she spat out the blessing sorely by the sheer power of politeness, but I could tell it tasted sour on her tongue. "Leti's in her room, getting ready for who knows which party this time, bleh."

I racked my brain trying to remember which party there was tonight but came out blank. Socorro gave me one more nasty look before going back into the kitchen, as though I was the reason why her granddaughter spent most of her time party-hopping, when in reality I barely went to a third of the parties. I liked to dance only a bit less than I liked singing because, hey, Latina al fin. When the rhythm found me, it found me. But I wasn't a huge fan of the local party scene. One thing was a wedding or a quinceañera, but a teenage party was filled with many more hormones than I knew what to do with. And it hadn't gone well for me in the past.

Nana's chuckle brought my focus back to her. She squeezed my hand. "Cuídame a Leti, sí?"

"I'll try," I said, seeing as she focused on the TV again.

Leti's parents were probably at work at this time, so I didn't find anybody else in the house until I reached my best friend's room and found her in the middle of her version of getting ready. Half dressed and half made up but fully dancing to Jerry Rivera in the middle of her room. I ignored all of this by virtue of having seen it so much already, and flopped on her bed.

"What's the party this time?" I asked her as I hugged her pillow.

She whirled around and clasped her hands in front of her. "You're kidding, right? It's only the best party before the start of the school year. No one's going to remember any other party we had this summer, except for this one. It's-"

I raised my palm up to silence her. "Let me guess, it's DeAndre's party."

She squealed and bounced on her heels. Okay, so DeAndre was the hottest guy, not just in our class, but in the whole school. He'd even been recruited to do modeling. I'd even seen rich white ladies double take at him. I'd be lying if I said that I was immune to him, because I certainly wasn't, but my favorite part about him was that he was like, a genuinely nice guy. He didn't do any of those boasting macho shenanigans that were so common in these parts and got a lot of boys in trouble. No, DeAndre was clean and did well in school.

And besides, despite his top tier status, he treated me well. Like I mattered, too. So I developed a bit of a crush on him since sophomore year. No one knew about this, especially not Leti, whose crush on him was legendary.

"Well, have fun."

Her head did this thing where it pulled back a little just as her expression morphed into a perfect Latina resting bitch face. "That almost sounds as if you're not coming."