Chapter 70: The morning after

The alarm on my phone goes off at 6:30 AM. I reach out from under the wool blanket, slide my thumb across the glass to silence the ringing, and press the power button to take the phone out of airplane mode. The screen blinks twice as the network connection registers. A stream of notifications floods the top bar immediately—eleven missed calls and fourteen text messages, all from Raph.

I bypass the message history, refusing to slide the log open. Right below Raph's alerts is a single message from Sarah sent ten minutes ago. It’s a short video clip from the Oakwood student forum. The clip shows our chemistry teacher, trying to demonstrate a gas expansion experiment, only for the glass beaker to shatter and spray white foam all over his knitted green sweater. Sarah added a single line of text underneath: He wore that same sweater to third period yesterday. It still smells like vinegar.

A laugh leaves my throat. The sound of my own laughter bounces off the bare walls of my bedroom loudly. I keep my eyes on the screen, still smiling as I slide my feet out from under the covers and pull my a cardigan over my uniform shirt. I keep the phone in my right hand, replaying the five-second clip of the foam exploding across the classroom desk.

I push my bedroom door open, the phone held from my face as I let out another low chuckle.

The smile dies on my lips the moment my foot touches the kitchen linoleum.

The small radio on the counter is dead silent. The yellow overhead bulb is turned on, casting a harsh light over the kitchen table. My mother is sitting in her usual wooden chair, her hands clamped tightly around a ceramic mug of tea that has stopped steaming. Her hair is unbrushed, sticking out in messy grey strands around her ears, and her face is red around the eyes. Across from her sits Leo. He has his bad leg propped up on a wooden footstool, his arms crossed tightly over his chest, his mouth set into a thin line.

"You're laughing," my mother says, her eyes fixed on the dark liquid inside her mug. "Your phone is in your hand, and you are standing in my kitchen laughing."

I drop my hand, sliding the phone into the pocket of my cardigan. The screen goes black against my thigh. "Sarah sent a video from school. What’s going on?"

Leo shifts his weight on the pull-out sofa, the old metal springs letting out a sharp creak, his eyes locked onto my face, tracking the movement of my hands.

"Raph called my phone at five o'clock this morning, Maya," my mother says, finally lifting her head. Her eyes are bloodshot, the skin beneath them dark and bruised from lack of sleep. "He was weeping into the receiver. A seventeen-year-old boy, crying so hard he couldn't form his words because his lungs were seizing up."

I stand still by the refrigerator, my fingers tightening against the fabric inside my pocket. "He has bruised ribs. The doctor said he would have spasms for the first few days."

"He didn't just have a spasm," my mother snaps, her hand slamming down against the laminate table. The tea inside her mug sloshes over the rim, leaving a dark brown puddle on the plastic tablecloth. "He was suffocating, Maya. He said the compression wrap you put on him was too tight. His chest swelled up in the middle of the night, and the elastic was cutting into his skin like wire. He couldn't reach the metal clips behind his back to take it off."

I don't look away from her. I keep my expression flat, refusing to let my jaw tighten. "I wrapped it the way the instruction sheet said."

"He called your phone eleven times between midnight and two in the morning," my mother continues, her voice rising as she leans forward across the table. "He was lying on that couch next door, alone in the dark, unable to draw enough air into his throat to call out for help. He tried to reach you because you are less than ten feet away through that wall. And what did you do? You shut your phone off. You went to sleep and let him lie there."

"My phone was on silent," I say. The lie comes out of my mouth smoothly, without a single hitch in my breath. "I was tired. I didn't hear the vibration."

"You never leave your phone on silent, Maya," Leo cuts in. He taps his knuckles against his bad knee, his eyes narrowing. "You keep the ringer on high in case the warehouse supervisor calls Mom’s cell or in case I need help getting off the floor while she's on the night shift. You’ve done that since the day I had my surgery. But last night, the exact night Raph is lying next door with cracked bones, you suddenly don't hear eleven phone calls?"

"I was exhausted, Leo," I say, turning my head to look him dead in the eye. "I had three exams yesterday. I fell asleep the second my head hit the pillow."

"Raph’s father bought this building, Maya," my mother whispers. The anger in her voice suddenly breaks, turning into trembling panic that makes her shoulders shake. She reaches across the table, her fingers gripping my wrist, pulling me toward her chair. "Do you understand what that means? Mason bought every square inch of this place on the first of the month. We owe three months of back-rent to the old management firm. Three months. The collection agency had already prepared the filings for the regional court."

She squeezes my wrist until her fingernails press into my skin, right over the yellowing bruises Raph left there on Tuesday.

"Mason called the management office and had them withdraw the papers," she says, tears finally spilling over her lower lids. "He told them we were his guests. He told me last week that as long as I keep checking on Raph and making sure the apartment is clean while he’s away on business, we don't have to worry about the rent. We are living here for free, Maya. Every piece of bread you eat, every drop of hot water you use in the shower—it is all because Mason is a generous man who values what we do for his son."

I look down at her hand on my wrist. The smell of the old tea and the cold grease from the stove fills my throat. "I know he bought the building, Mom."

"Then why are you acting like this?" she cries, her voice cracking as she drops my hand. "Raph is a sweet, lonely boy who has done nothing but try to help us since we arrived. He spent three hours on Wednesday fixing the water heater in our bathroom so Leo could have a warm shower. He bought those aluminum crutches out of his own allowance because the hospital ones were chafing Leo's arms. And you treat him like he's an inconvenience. You ignore his calls when he's suffocating next door."

"I didn't do it on purpose," I say, keeping my voice steady.

Across the table, Leo lets out a short snort. He leans his head back against the wall, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. "She's lying, Mom. She didn't fall asleep."

My mother looks up at him, her face confused. "What do you mean?"

"She's been acting weird at the night Raph got injured," Leo says, his gaze sliding down to fix on me again. "She used to come home ooking like she was walking to a prison cell all week, and the second she heard Raph is out of commission for five days, she started singing over her plate. Now Raph calls her all night because he’s in agony, and she conveniently has her phone turned off." He leans forward, his elbows digging into his thighs. "You're glad he was hurting, aren't you, Maya? You wrapped that bandage like a tourniquet on purpose."

"Leo, stop it," my mother groans, rubbing her temples. "That's an awful thing to say about your sister."

"Look at her face, Mom," Leo says, pointing a finger at me. "She’s not denying it. She's standing there right now with her hands in her pockets, waiting for us to finish talking so she can leave the house."

I look at the digital clock on the microwave. The numbers read 6:52 AM. The 7:10 AM public bus will pull up to the concrete island outside the corner bodega in exactly eighteen minutes. If I stay in this kitchen for another sixty seconds, my mother will start crying again, and Leo will keep digging until he finds a hole in my story.

"I have to go," I say, stepping back from the refrigerator and picking up my nylon backpack from the floor by the shoe rack. "The bus is coming."

"You are going straight to his apartment after school today, Maya," my mother says, her voice turning hard again as she points toward the hallway door. "Do you hear me? You will walk into that room, you will apologize to Raph until he tells you it's fine, and you will help him clear the kitchen counters. His dad isn't back until tonight, and that boy is not going to spend another twelve hours alone because you're being callous."

"Okay," I say.

I pull the front door open, step out into the grey concrete stairwell, and pull the door shut behind me until the latch clicks into the frame.