Dark Places

26 | self-preservation, i suppose

❝it's all wrong, she's looking for a fight;
just say my name, and i'll come running.❞

☽

"WHEREVER YOU'RE GOING, I'm coming with, Melo."

"No." I shake my head as I duck around him quickly, snatching my tote and striding to the door. "Quédate aquí y cúbreme. I'll be back."

Slowly, as I steal a glance over my shoulder to ensure Jeanine is distracted, I hesitate, mistakenly peering at him. His jaw, slack in surprise. His cheeks, flushed darker. His lips, pulled tight. He blinks, blinks, blinks, and I nod in gratitude, before sneaking over the threshold and slipping out of the quiet classroom, but by the time I hit the top of the staircase, Drake is already relapsing, neck-deep in our bad fucking habits.

His thundering footsteps, chasing after me.

"Medina," I grind his name out through clenched teeth. "Vete."

"Melo, ¿adónde vas?"

Ignoring him, I take the curve around the railing recklessly, like a drunk driver on Payne Road, failing breaks and screeching tires, forgetting about my persistent shotgun passenger. Drake, taking the wheel, like always, forcing me to pull over... before I kill us both. Keys yanked out. The Dominican flag, waving between his clenched knuckles. He'd lean over the console, catch me, sweep thumbs across my damp cheeks—

Luz, mírame, he'd say, his voice soft. Tranquila. Estás bien.

—and I'd collapse into the arms of the only person who ever really spoke Spanish to me when I was a teenager, feeling like I was... home.

Refreshing your memory, he'd tease, when I'd begged him to stop baiting me in Spanish. Keeping our first language our first.

Ours.

Drake fucking Medina, in all his Dominican pride, his Dominican music, his Dominican flag, his Dominican slang, an annoyingly punk-ass 12-year-old, displaced from the DR... to the Bronx... and eventually, crash-landing in Portland, Maine. 2008.

I'd never been the same.

Drake would just... hold me, soothing soft Spanish in my ear, and I'd cling to him drunkenly, sobbing into his shirt, and Drake would drag me out of his car, sit in the dewy grass beside me, shiver in the icy darkness... with me. I'd sober up slowly, on the side of the deserted road, in quiet conversation and faint heartbeats, and then Drake would hitch me up onto the hood of his car, open a sketchbook across our laps, share his last cigarette, stare into the skyline of trees silently, and... wait... until I told him I was okay to go... home.

Suddenly, I'm jerked back, wrenched from the surreal memories of us to find his long, dark fingers, wrapped around my arm tightly. "Ay, Melo, mírame," he hisses, yanking me to a stop at the bottom of the staircase level. Second Floor. "Hey, what the fuck are you doing?"

He doesn't understand. I don't need him anymore; I don't want him anymore.

I tear out of his grip too quickly, storming away, away, away. 300 miles away. "¡Vete! ¡No es asunto tuyo!"

"¡Luz, puedes gritarme todo lo que quieras!" His words, laced with exasperation, rip through me, like razor-sharp blades, carving through my heart. He never backs down. Inhaling deeply, I turn to look at him. "I don't care." Drake tosses his hands up and shrugs, closing the space between us carelessly. "I'm going with you."