I lay awake in bed, despite my best efforts. Feeling pathetic, I close my eyes and try a last-ditch method for coaxing myself to sleep: memories. The smell of fresh tamales fills my nose. Abuela had always made the best tamales. They'd always cheer me up. I grab onto a memory quickly, blindly. It doesn't matter which memory it is. Just that it works.

I stood in front of my front door. I lived with Abuela and Abuelo since Mamá had died giving birth to me and Papá had to travel a lot for work. As I stood there, I was looking at myself with the selfie-mode on my phone. I had been crying earlier, because I had found my locker vandalized badly that afternoon. It had words scrawled across it that I won't repeat here, trash stuffed into it and a bunch of my stuff stolen. It had been eighth grade, when I had some really bad bullying problems. When I walked in, I found Abuelo in his rocking chair, like always. He was a pudgy man with more gray than dark hair. He had a thick mustache and kind, dark eyes that always seemed to twinkle when he spoke. When I walked in from school each day, he'd be in that chair with a nice, long book and puffing a long cigar.

I had tried to slink upstairs before Abuela noticed I was here. I had failed miserably. Abuela rushed in nearly immediately after I came home, of course. Sometimes I would think the woman was a psychic. I wished for teleportation at that moment. "Hola, Abuela," I said, trying to sound cheerful.

She motioned to the kitchen for me to join her inside. Abuela was a plump woman with hair that was striped with her natural coffee color and silver from her age. Her golden skin and dark round eyes seemed to laugh with her when she was happy. I followed her into the kitchen. She was making her famous tamales -- everyone on our block loved them, hence us getting invited to every potluck. We started forming them in silence. Spoon, wrap, tie, repeat. Spoon, wrap, tie, repeat. It had been surprisingly therapeutic.

"I got a call from the school about what happened," Abuela said as she placed a tamale on a plate.

"Oh." I tied my tamale too tight at this statement and spilled filling across the table. I bit my lip to hold back the curses that were on my tongue -- I didn't need a scolding from her to top my day off -- and searched the kitchen for a towel.

"Those boys at school aren't plain evil, you know that, right, Nina?"

I looked at her as if she had told me she had met a dragon last night.

Abuela sighed. "A human's heart is a lot like a tamale."

Now that dragon was married to a fairy, but cheating on her for a hot unicorn.

"Tell me, what do you think of tamales?"

I licked my lips. "Bueno. Muy, muy bueno."

"What makes a tamale good? The best part?"

One-plus-one-equals-two kind of simple question. "El relleno."

"We wrap the filling, yes?"

"Sí." Obviously, you wrap the filling. I had no idea where she was going with this.

Abuela nodded. "And then we tie it." She waited for me to finish cleaning up my filling mess before continuing. "The filling is who the person really is, flaws and all. Then they wrap their heart in shields, whether it's because they've been told or something happened to them. Those shields hide who they are."

"This seems to be more about an armory than tamales," I said. Abuela decided to ignore that little comment. I did not blame her.

"They then tie themselves up so no one will easily peel through. Some people tie too tightly --" she nodded to where my mess was before, which made my cheeks get hot "— or not tightly enough. A fragile bit of heart is left out. That's okay until it's hurt. Then the hurt piece hurts others."

I understood, but still sighed. And, being me, I had to make a snarky as hell comment. "Are you just comparing things to food?"

Abuela smiled, knowing she had gotten through to me. "Tal vez. Now, go start your homework while I finish cooking. You don't need F's along with the boys." And she laughed a little as I scurried upstairs.

As the memory ends, I smile. I switch the memory to a new one. Memory after memory. I see the time Abuela was out on vacation with an old friend (leaving me and Abuelo at home). Abuelo tried to make me tamales, but forgot to tie them. We ended up nearly ruining Abuela's nice pots and getting McDonald's. Next thing I watch is when I had gotten into a fight in the schoolyard and beat up some jerk kid. Abuela was a scary woman when she had to be. Then, the first time I had won against Abuelo at chess. I see myself winning the championship lacrosse game, and Abuelo and Abuela hosting the entire team over. Soon, the image I have been avoiding pops into my head.

It had been a week, or maybe two, after the Locking. Tristin, Lucy and I were searching for supplies as one of the first search parties. To get to the old grocery store, we had to go through my old street. I had found something that made me collapse into tears in front of both of them. Abuela and Abuelo's corpses, starting to rot already and being fed on by maggots and strays. They smelled horrible. Flies swarmed their bodies. Blood pooled under them from where animals had bitten into their flesh. Their bodies held hands on the street, dirty and skinny. The rash and the boils and the paleness and the weakness and the blankness in their eyes... it almost made them unrecognizable. But I knew it was them. I'm not sure why, it just clicked into place. I had refused to get up for nearly an hour, refused to abandon Abuela and Abuelo. They were too old to survive the virus, their immune systems too weak. It had killed them within days.

My eyes shoot open and I'm now shaking. It won't be long. Soon, I'll avenge them. Soon, I'll avenge them. Soon, soon, soon. I repeat the words silently for a while. Maybe an hour, maybe two. It's hard to tell. I just keep repeating them until I fall asleep.