I woke up to someone shaking my shoulder. 

The sun was low in the sky, meaning my room remained relatively dark. The hand that reached for me appeared disembodied. I scooted backwards and the back of my head hit my bed frame. The loud ding of the impact echoed as a dull ache formed at the base of my skull. 

"Shh," the figure hushed. They reached over and flicked my lamp on. Curly hair and basketball shorts came into view. Julio was standing over my bed with his arms crossed. 

"Mom and Dad don't want me to go to school unchaperoned but they left early so you have to take me."  

I rubbed my eyes and checked the time on my alarm clock. It was only seven in the morning. 

"Why can't Nancy take you?" 

"She already left." 

I groaned and massaged my temples. It was custom for me to slowly ease my way into my mornings. Being shaken awake and forced to leave the house was not part of that routine. "How long do I have to get ready?" 

"Fifteen minutes," he replied, nonchalantly. 

I gaped at him. "Then, move! I don't have a lot of time!" 

A little over fifteen minutes later, Julio and I were leaving the house. Immediately, I spied my aunt and uncle’s car in the driveway. Tìa drove Tìo to work every morning before diving to her own job. There was no other mode of transportation they used. If they had already left for work, it made no sense for their car to be there.

“What is the meaning of this?” I asked, pointing to the vehicle. 

Julio grabbed my arm and tugged me forward with a guilty wince. 

I had been too sleepy to realize it but Julio had hushed me when he woke me up. If everyone had already left for the day, then why would I have needed to be quiet? I bet that Nancy and his parents were all inside. 

What exactly had he woken me up for? 

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” 

He released me once we were a half a block from the house. He shrugged his book bag strap higher onto his shoulder and I noticed the front pocket wasn’t zipped. I stopped him and zipped it for him, the whole exchange going on wordlessly. 

Whatever the reason for the walk, walking Julio felt nostalgic. I remembered Nancy and I being picked up by Tìo after school. Julio would be waiting in the school yard with him, holding onto his hand so he didn’t fall over like toddlers were so prone to. When Julio would spot the two of us, he’d bounce up and down with a giant smile on his face. Then he would trade his father’s hand for one of ours. Nancy and I would watch over him like hawks, making sure he didn’t get too close to the street or put anything he wasn’t supposed to in his mouth. Tìo would call us his guardian angels. 

Now Julio was only three years shy of being considered an adult and getting into trouble much bigger than licking rocks or not holding onto one of our hands. 

“Is there anything you want to tell me?” I tried, as we crossed under a couple of trees with leaves falling from their stems. The leaves crunched under our feet. 

“You know I’ve always been cool with Darren, right?” 

I nodded, scared that saying anything out loud would scare him into silence again. Clearly, he had lured me away from the ears of our home for a reason. Whatever he was about to say was sensitive information. 

He made a point not to look at me as he spoke. His eyes traveled the streets ahead of us. They’d be empty for a couple more blocks before we got out of the suburban area and into the town. 

“The dealers that I get my stuff from, they get their stuff from someone else,” he said, his thumbs fumbling with his backpack straps. It seemed uncanny to hear those kinds of words leave his mouth. Though his voice was deeper now, he still sounded like that little boy I used to know.

“I heard Darren’s name get thrown around.” 

“What are you implying?” I asked. It was taking me for a loop that my boyfriend’s name was being scrutinized again in such a small window of time. 

“Nothing. Just . . . Maybe you should ask him about it.” 

That was easier said than done. How was I supposed to approach him? How was I supposed to word that? 

“Julio said you might be dealing to high schoolers. Is that true?” 

He’d think was crazy. 

After I dropped Julio off at his school, I thought more about what he said. 

If it was true, which I was pretty sure it wasn’t, what possible motivation would Darren have? It would have to be the same reason lazily prescribed to Adonis: Money. There was a flaw in that theory. Darren was fine money wise. Sure, he shared an apartment with several roommates but that was more out of familiarity than necessity. Either way, it wasn’t like he was going hungry. Darren was well enough along to not turn to criminal activity and he would never do something like that as a side hustle. He was more likely to start knitting sweaters to sell on  Etsy than drug dealing. 

 The only time Darren was ever in a pinch for money was when his business was tanking and that was long ago. They figured it out together. They got it solved in a right and honorable fashion. 

I had to cross the cemetary on the way back home. It was small and pretty new as far as cemeteries go. For the duration of time I’d lived with my aunt and uncle, no one I knew had been buried in Clover Cemetery. My mother was buried a few towns over and I was grateful for that. If she was buried at Clover, it would be a constant bitter reminder. Adonis was here though. 

I made the turn and entered the cemetery before I could think much about it.  

The gate to the cemetery was open, the black iron forming an archway entrance with the letters of the place running across it. The fields of grass smelled freshly cut, hedges and trees scattered around to keep the place looking serene and peaceful. Even the tombstones had the trend of being a copper color rather than the standard stone gray. 

I found Adonis’s tombstone in a grass field with very little graves around it. It seemed that they had just started burying people in that section and Adonis was one of the first. It was nice not to see his tombstone lost among many more, characterizing him as just another person lost to the world. 

The flowers placed on his grave were old and needed to be changed. I was tempted to head to the flower shop a few blocks away to do it myself but I knew my sister would have wanted to be the one to do it. Instead, I sat across from the grave and pulled the ladybug necklace out of my pants pockets. 

I was going to wear it out that morning but I chickened out at the last second. I didn’t know what I was afraid of exactly. Maybe I was scared of how it would remind me of both my mother and Adonis. I was worried the grief would be too strong.

I sat in the grass with both Darren and Adonis on my mind. I often wished I wasn’t so trapped in my own perspective. I wished that I could view the world from someone else’s eyes. I was curious how Darren saw this whole situation regarding the wedding, Adonis's death, and my past. I knew I could just ask him but would he really tell me what he was honestly thinking? Would he be able to perfectly articulate himself if he tried? 

I could never gauge what Darren and Adonis really thought of each other. I was tempted to assume it was something like apathy or disinterest but I couldn't help but sense there was some data I was missing - like maybe there was something I wasn't seeing. 

Well, there were times when they were a little more than uninterested in each other.

One of those times came to my mind. 

We were on one of the first of many double dates the four of us would go on. Adonis and Nancy had been together for a while but Darren and I were just starting to get serious. 

Before Darren had come in the picture, I was often the third wheel to Adonis and Nancy. Like a good big sister, every once and a while Nancy would invite me to go somewhere with her and Adonis. It was strange having Darren around at first. There was no more splitting a plate of chilli fries with Adonis or having to get lost every now and again to give the two time alone. I had someone to laugh at the movie with and hold hands with. It was strange but in the best way. 

The double date we were on had been going well. The movie we saw was even greater than we could have hoped for and the froyo we got right afterwards hit the spot. The four of us were walking to the parking lot to end the day, the sky already dark and dotted with stars. I was holding Darren’s hand and giggling at his impressions of the movie’s main character, the two of us lagging behind Nancy and Adonis who had already made it to the car, when Adonis waved Darren over to him. 

“Can you help me with something?” he asked, gesturing to the open trunk of his car. 

As Darren jogged up to help Adonis, Nancy strayed away from the two and towards me. I couldn’t see what Darren was helping Adonis with but I could tell they were talking very intently. 

I nudged Nancy who was scrolling through her phone. 

“What do you think they’re talking about?” 

Chewing on a stick of gum, Nancy replied, “Adonis is probably warning him not to mess with you or something. Reminding him that people care about you and he’ll wring his neck if he tries anything.” 

Nancy seemed sure of this as she didn’t even think to glance up from her phone. 

Then the focused expressions on their faces shifted. There were scowls and sarcastic looking scoffs. There were bits of their sentences floating over to us in the wind as they teetered on yelling. There was fog from their breath filling the frosted air. 

“. . . you’re crazy . . .” 

“. . . What do I care?” 

“. . . She’s not going to . . .” 

Those were the fragments I held onto. Worried that whatever was going on would escalate, I tapped Nancy on the shoulder to get her support. 

“They look like they’re fighting. We should -” 

By the time Nancy had glanced up, the two were laughing. Darren was playfully nudging Adonis's arm and the latter was snorting the way he did only when he found something truly hilarious. I watched as they gave each other a clap on the back, in utter disbelief. I questioned if what I had seen was even real. Whatever had happened between them, it was done. 

I never found out what they were talking about but ever since that night, Darren and Adonis would share knowing looks over my head I couldn’t quite decipher. 

I still couldn't decipher them.

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