Oops.

Glass shattered against the wooden floorboards of Adonis's childhood home. The tinier shards shot out from before my feet, scattering underneath the clothed tables with food trays still placed across them. The arrangement of white flowers that had been in the vase laid in a puddle of water, looking sad and abandoned. I raced to pick them up. I hoped there was an easily locatable broom and dustpan somewhere nearby. It would be best to have the mess sorted out before Adonis's mother or brother noticed. I was supposed to be making the funeral easier for them, not harder.

The service had gone by in a blur of coming to the realization that Adonis was truly gone. He wouldn't ring my doorbell next Friday for family game night. There would be no more double dates with him, Nancy, and Darren. I would never speak to him again or hug him again or be in the same room with him again. He was gone. It hurt knowing that I hadn't even begun to feel what it would be like to miss him. It had only been a week since the wedding. What would I feel when another week had passed? A month? How could time make grieving easier if it only punctuated how long I had gone without him?

Not many people attended the funeral. Adonis lived a quiet life and was part of a small family. His mother and brother were all he really had - not that he was very close to either of them. His mother hadn't been very good at raising them and she was honest about that. She was an absentee single mother and left her two boys to fend for themselves. One would have thought that would have brought them together but for whatever reason the two siblings maintained a relationship that was more of an aquatiancship than a familial one. It wasn't until Adonis supported his brother in getting sober  that they seemed like friends. Even then, I got the sense that Adonis helped more out of obligation than kinship. "He's blood," Adonis would say. "You have to take care of your family no matter what."

I placed the soggy flowers on the table and turned to make a beeline for the kitchen. I was stopped when I crashed into a wall of flesh.

I let out a yelp and clenched my fists in the air. Darren placed his hands up in an "I surrender" position, his gaze darting from me to the broken glass.

"Please don't punch me. You'll mess up my good looks."

I released my shoulders from their ultra-tense place at my ears. Normally, Darren's clowning around would be enough to make me relax but I was too fixated on the post-funeral mess I just made. The others were still out in the backyard putting away the foldable chairs set out for the post service lunch. Luckily the door had been shut by a stray gust of wind or else all of them would have come rushing in to see what a help I was being.

"Help me find a broom, would you?"

Darren obeyed, disappearing behind the kitchen archway for a moment and then returning with said cleaning object. I reached for it but he shook his head.

"Let me take care of it."

I knew it would be futile to argue so I started bringing the food trays from the living room into the kitchen like I was supposed to be doing. The kitchen was distractingly outdated. It was like walking into the 70's with the dark brown cabinets against peeling orange wallpaper. As per the warning Adonis's mother gave me, I was gentle with the door on the glass cabinet. One quick motion and it would fall off its rusted, bent up hinges. I hadn't said anything but nearly all the other cabinets were the same. When Adonis's brother, Fernando, asked me to heat up some of the casserole in the oven I had to fiddle with the knobs for a few minutes to get it working. The house was in rough condition and suddenly I understood why Nancy had volunteered to help pay for the funeral charges.

With all the food stored, I helped Darren find the little bits of glass that were hidden in crevices like the snag under the bohemian rug and underneath the recliner.

"Have you been sleeping alright?" Darren asked. The question startled me out of our quiet teamwork. As if to prove a point, it took me a second too long to process what he had said. "You know, your beautiful sleep deprived or not but - babe, you look very sleep deprived."

"Even with that endearing preface, that was still insulting," I said, picking up the dustpan filled with glass and retreating to the kitchen to toss it. Before I could, he grasped my arm with a lowered voice.

"I'm serious, Michelle. Are you doing okay?"

I winced at his use of my full name.  "Yeah. It's just been a rough couple days."

It was the understatement of the century. At night, in the daytime, when I was alone, when I was not alone, I replayed the sound of gunshots in my mind. I saw Nancy in her bloody gown, I felt Darren's hand on my back pushing me through the panicked crowd, I smelled the rusty scent of blood on my palms, and tasted copper in my mouth at the memory of finding out Adonis had been fatally shot. The events were on a loop in my head, mixing and remixing into horrible renditions of the same night.

Then there was the dance I was supposed to share with Adonis after Nancy's tipsy toast to me. I had been certain it was to give him a chance to apologize to me after his wife accidentally humiliated me but what if he wanted to tell me something else? What if he was going to tell me something important, something I'll never know because it died with him?

Of course, I didn't want to share these thoughts with anyone. It took years for everyone to stop looking at me with pity after I watched my mother die. I spent the rest of my childhood and early teen years under heavy surveillance because of it.

Mickey can't go to the sleepover because what if she has one of her night terrors?

Mickey can't watch any of the movies kids her own age watch because the gun violence may trigger her.

Don't raise your voice at Mickey because she's sensitive.

Mickey can't go away for school because she needs us.

It took years of having it together to be trusted enough to do the simplest of things. Since becoming an adult, the overbearing protectiveness had dissipated. The only traces of concern that remained were found in the subtext of interactions between my family and I. The "Are you sure you should do that?" and the lingering stares. Those were bearable. The way Darren was looking at me - frowning with a solid crease in between his eyebrows - was not. Darren hadn't known me as the broken little girl who watched her mother die. He met me in my twenties, with enough years between me and the incident for it to just be a tragic part of my past. He met me as Mickey.

"I know but what happened was terrifying," Darren explained. "People don't just bounce back from things like that and given your past -"

"Don't," I hissed. Darren's grasp on my arm loosened. I never got angry with him. "I dropped the vase because I'm clumsy, not because I'm on the verge of a mental breakdown. Alright?"

He swallowed back all the things he so clearly wanted to say and offered a stiff smile. "Alright. It's probably not a bright idea to anger you when you have a million pointy weapons on you anyways." He took the dust pan from me but his exit was stopped short by the entrance of the others.

Nancy pursed her lips as she walked into the living room. She wore a black jumpsuit with shoulder pads that gave the illusion of an hourglass figure paired with the same dazzling earrings she wore to her wedding. Her makeup covered the dark circles that had been under her eyes this morning, her skin as radiant as ever. I wished I had done a better job at mine. Maybe then Darren wouldn't have interrogated me over my well-being.

"Did something break?" she asked. "I thought I heard glass shatter."

"That would have been me," Darren said before I could say anything. "I knocked into the table by accident and dropped a vase."

Adonis's mother stood with her arm looped through Fernando's. She had sweat sliding down the wrinkles of her face like a waterslide ride, her other hand holding a fan decorated with tropical plants. Her reading glasses rested at the base of her convex nose as she licked her lips.

"I apologize, Mrs.Guzman. I can replace it for you," Darren offered.

"Don't bother," she replied. She had the voice of a long time smoker. "It was old. And ugly."

Fernando patted his mother's arm. He was not much taller than she, short like Adonis was. I imagined that Fernando looked more like his father than his mother and Adonis vise versa since the two didn't share many features. Fernando's hair wasn't as thick or curly. His skin was lighter and his features soft where his brother's were sharp. He had a distinguishing triangular mustache whereas Adonis could only dream of growing a beard.

"Weren't you going to give that thing to the Morales family? What we found in his old room?"

The senior's face lit up. "Oh, yes. Thank you for reminding me."

"Mrs.Guzman, you don't have to give us anything - " Nancy started but was cut off.

"It's not a gift. You'll be doing me a favor by taking it. I hate clutter," Mrs.Guzman explained as Fernando guided her up the stairs. "I'll be right back."

A silence fell over us as the two disappeared. My uncle walked over to Nancy, placing an arm around her shoulders. "How are you feeling?"

"Weird. I think I am just beginning to realize all the things that left with Adonis. All the plans we had just vanished." She picked at her nail polish, lost in thought. "Moving to California, settling down, starting a family . . . A few days ago my life was going one way and now . . ."

My aunt puckered her lips. "Don't worry about the future right now. You are still very young. You'll find your footing again, just give it time."

"That's all I have," she replied, glancing at the stairs as if to hurry Mrs.Guzman and her son back down.

"It bothers me," Julio said. All of our heads turned to him. He had been standing so quietly it was easy to forget he was there. He faltered back for a second, clearly rethinking the outburst that had gotten him so much attention. He continued. "The cops haven't told us why those men shot up the wedding and it's been a whole week."

That was another thing I had spent my days pondering over. The why. Why did an organized group of men plan out and execute an ambush on a wedding? Adonis and Nancy's wedding in particular. The key piece of information was the only piece of information I had. One of the gunmen had gone up to Adonis in particular and asked him "Where is it?"

It meant Adonis was the target. It meant that the gunmen thought he had something that was of such high value that they would kill for it.

It was such an absurd thought but it was the only one that made sense - it was stating the obvious. But I couldn't let myself believe that Adonis had done anything to anger such dangerous people. There had to have been a mistake. Perhaps there was a last minute change in the wedding venue and the men showed up at the wrong wedding for the wrong groom. It was a mix up. All I knew was that they couldn't honestly be after Adonis.

Mrs.Guzman and Fernando came trudging down the steps, the former with a picture in her hand.

"I have no idea how this made its way back here since Adonis has been living on his own for years. I figured this was something you'd want."

She handed the picture to Nancy who smiled down at it and then turned it around so the rest of us could see. It was a picture of Nancy, Adonis, and I on line for a concert. It was taken about two years ago, when Nancy and Adonis were getting serious. We wore matching neon green shirts with light blue jeans to resemble the group we were seeing. My hair was put into two tight ponytails that nearly gave me a facelift while Adonis's was held back by a neon headband. Nancy and I pressed our cheeks up against Adonis's who stood between us for the selfie. You could already see the traces of our eye glitter being transmitted onto Adonis's face. I remembered how that glitter had ended up everywhere that night, even the nacho chips we ordered after the show.

Nancy giggled, giving me a playful smile through tears. "We practically shared him back before Darren came into the picture, didn't we Mickey?"

Darren's grimace at the thought made everyone laugh.

I laughed along but my mind was somewhere else. I was thinking of all the shared memories of Adonis that Nancy and I had. I remembered one in particular from around the time of the concert.

"Whatcha doing?"

Nancy strolled into my room with a mischievous grin and her arms clasped behind her back. She had spent the day preparing for a date with Adonis but through the walls I had heard him cancel last minute. Nancy had acted calm on the phone but the instant she hung up she was complaining about it.

I was finishing up the last of my university assignments at my desk when my sister said, "Nevermind. I already know you're not doing anything."

Closing my laptop, I spun around in my chair. "What do you want?"

She held out her phone to me. "I found the event he said his brother was forcing him to go to."

The screen showed a flier for a fancy looking party in a ballroom at the nearest hotel. The occasion was for some party to celebrate the completion of a program called LiveBetter.

"Okay, stalker much?"

"I did some looking around and got us in but our names are," she paused, scrolling through her phone to find the right page,"Rachel and Angela Perkins."

"How?"

Ignoring my question, Nancy went over to my closet. She was a bigger size than me but I preferred my clothing to be loose fitting so we were accustomed to taking each other's things. She pulled out a velvety red dress I had never dared to wear because of the bright color and tossed it at me.

"Our objective is to have tons of fun tonight without getting recognized by Adonis. He can't know we were ever there or else it'd be weird." She fished out the black heels I had only worn once and launched them at my bed. "We treat this as a sisterly outing with the added edge of trying not to get caught."

"He knows how we look, Nancy. He'll see us."

She pouted. "No, he won't, buzz killer. Tìa has tons of wigs we can borrow and I can do our makeup differently." She picked the dress off my lap and draped it across her body, wiggling around suggestively. "Besides, no one would ever believe you put on something like this."

Her last sentence got to me and I found myself accepting the challenge.

"Fine," I said, taking the dress from her. "We'll go and we won't get caught."

The event was crowded, making it fairly simple to avoid Adonis. We spent the first half of the night on the other side of the room as him, dancing to every song - something neither of us was ever inclined to do at a party before - and eating all the foods the caterers passed by with.

Then, the regular party stuff got stale. It wasn't like we could mingle with anyone else. We didn't even know what the event was truly for. That's when we got more daring. One of us would purposefully cross Adonis's line of sight, strutting around as the made up Rachel or Angela.

Adonis didn't seem to spare a glance our way. He was engulfed in talking with who seemed to be his brother and his friends. When he was idly standing, his gaze never lingered on Nancy a moment longer than it had on anyone else.

We grew bolder and bolder, even brushing by him with a muttered "Pardon me" only to return back to each other giggling like five year olds bursting with excitement.

We left thinking it was a success. We got into a cab, faces flushed and hair frizzy. Our blonde wigs and dramatic makeup had fooled him. We had mastered the body language of our made up characters and so we would live out the rest of our lives with this little secret between us both. Or so we thought.

I recieved a text from Adonis.

Was that you in the red dress?

Panicked, I wrote back: No. I'm at home watching TV.

Nancy was preoccupied with her own phone, scrolling through all the pictures we had taken. I looked back at mine.

Yeah right. I'd recognize you anywhere.

Also, you should wear red more. It suits you.

I didn't want to spoil Nancy's fun so I never told her we had been caught. I wasn't even sure it was us both he had seen. He had texted me. He said he had recognized me.

"You ready to go?" By the look on Darren's face, I could tell it wasn't the first time he had asked. I put on an apologetic smile and nodded.

My family and I were crossing the front lawn to our prospective vehicles when a dark car pulled into Mrs.Guzman's driveway. It parked behind Fernando's jeep and out of it came a man I recognized from the night at the police station. It was the detective that had delivered the news of Adonis's passing. Seeing him again sent a jolt through me. One glance at Nancy and I could tell it did the same to her.

"Can I help you?" Mrs.Guzman asked from her position at the front door. Fernando came up beside her, stepping out into the midafternoon sun to greet the man.

"My name is Detective Lennon. I am here to update you on your son's case." The detective's squinted eyes wandered over to Nancy who was staring holes into him. "Ah, Mrs.Morales. I was going to stop by your place to fill you in later but since you're already here . . ."

A few minutes later, everyone was seated in the living room waiting for Detective Lennon's update. He didn't seem deterred by having a larger audience than he had previously intended. Rather, he seemed to enjoy it. He drew out his sentences, speaking slowly and letting his intense gaze drift from person to person. I was reluctant to believe he was doing it for the theatrics. It was more likely to me that the detective wanted to gauge our reactions to the news, maybe for investigative purposes.

"I must preface this by saying that this case is highly sensitive. Meaning, to protect the integrity of it, we are choosing to withhold some information until we sort some things out."

Highly sensitive?

"We have a motive for the shooting and specifcally, for the murder of Adonis Guzman," the detective said, pausing as the air room noticeably shifted. The statement had confirmed that Adonis wasn't killed by accident - he didn't get caught in the crossfire. He was the intended target and my theory was right.

"Why did they want to kill him?" Nancy asked, voicing all of our thoughts.

Detective Lennon brought his hands together in front of his lap and intertwined his fingers together. I held my breath as he glanced at me. It was only for a second but it was such a sharp look, it felt like a staring contest I was bound to lose.

"This may come as a shock to you all but Adonis was involved in an illegal drug trafficking operation -"

"No way!" I clamped a hand over my mouth. My aunt reached over from where she sat beside me, placing a hand on my shoulder as if to silence me.

"What she said," Nancy agreed. "My husband would do no such thing. Check his records, Adonis has never so much as stolen a stick of gum."

"He was living a double life, Mrs.Morales. For example, I understand he told you that he got a promotion at his job."

"He did."

"There was no such promotion. The rapid influx of money he was receiving was from his illegal activities. We believe he crossed the people he was working with - owed them money or stole from them. Either way, it gave them motive to kill him," the detective concluded, his tone matter of fact.

Mrs.Guzman began to cry. A stunned Fernando sat perched beside her on the arm of the couch, absently stroking his mustache as he thought. I looked at Julio who had his nose crinkled, eyeing the detective warily.

"How could he keep a secret like that?" Nancy said more to herself than anyone else. She was on the verge of crying. "How could he lie?"

Most seemed to be reacting to the news like it was certain but I couldn't understand how they could accept it without any further explanation. Cops and detectives could make mistakes. They didn't know Adonis like we did.

"What evidence do you have to support that?" I asked, my cheeks burning with heat. Adonis was honest and kind. He would never do something that could put us all in danger just for money. Adonis wasn't a greedy criminal. I couldn't let this detective label him thus, especially when Adonis could defend himself no longer.

"We can't share those details at this moment."

"So what? We're just supposed to take your word for it?"

The detective's brow quirked in the slightest, like he hadn't expected my reaction.

"I'm afraid so."

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