❝my heart'll get so low, it could touch my feet. so just leave me alone,
there's nothin' i need.❞

❘❘

CONCENTRATE. JUST FUCKING CONCENTRATE.

There's something stifling in the dry heat of the library. A stoic silence sits heavy on my heart, thick and suffocating after drowning myself in club music for days. I shift and squirm in my seat, searching for some semblance of stillness.

Even when all my limbs lock in place, I can't escape the tumultuous sensation, churning my thoughts and grinding out the last trace of stability. Everything is fucking spinning, and I'm edging into a dizzy desperation as I trace the words in the article with stinging eyes.

"In the last few days the matters of keeping families together and the mistreatment of immigrants at America's southern border has been raised again."

I swallow a shaky sound, tucking a knotted strand of hair behind my ear.

"The administration has announced a change in a long-held policy related to how long children can remain imprisoned along with their immigrant parents, and it has sparked a debate over the humanity of its U.S. immigration policy."

Bile crawls up my throat, and for a long, delirious second, I think I might dry heave.

It's something unspoken in the words, something so deeply rooted in the present immigration crisis that I can barely contain a sob.

Because it's just now sparking a debate over the 'humanity' of U.S. immigration policies.

It's taken years for people to care.

No one cared when we were freezing in la hielera in Arizona. No one cared when my mamá got sick. No one cared when our entire family was separated. No one fucking cared.

"The new policy extends the length of imprisonment of families with children from 20 days to 60 days."

Another wave of nausea rolls through me. As I collapse in the chair, sick and tired, I bite back another cry.

Imprisonment. Entire families. Who are trying to seek asylum.

A feral, frustrated sound unravels in the back of my throat, but I swallow it with a grimace. Staring down the blazing, white-hot screen in the dim library, hands shaking and pulse racing, I force myself to scroll further and further down the fucking Forbes article.

And at the sight of the next bold words, me paralizo.

DEPORTATIONS

My blood runs cold.

"Meanwhile, back in July, when President Trump vowed to deport "millions" of immigrants from the United States, he was signaling that an Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation targeting migrants with final deportation orders was on the way. The real list had about 2,100 families on it, and had the goal of deterring Central American migrants from trying to cross the southern border."

I grind my teeth together. A million nasty curses threaten to tear free, but when I glance down, another headline silences everything.

'No day in court': US deportation orders blindside some families

Es interminable. If I keep scrolling and scrolling and scrolling, I could waste an eternity reading stories of immigrants—fucked over, turned away, separated from their families, deported, left to die.

"You need to focus on one thing," Meir had said yesterday when I finally contacted him. "You're breaching a broad topic, but the more concise and informed you are about the one thing you're writing about, the more it will matter. The more people will understand."

No sé si eso es verdad. Because it's not just una sola cosa. Es cada pequeña cosa. All these heavyweight headlines just skew the stories into one perspective, but they're all pieces of a bigger, broader, messier truth.

Largest US immigration raids in a decade net 680 arrests

I sigh in defeat.

Fuck, I don't want to feel like this.

Miserable. Defeated. Desesperado. Just... triste.

Every story is fractured, splintering into a million pieces; they might be broken, but they all start in the same place. They just never end the way they're meant to.

I thumb the book beside me delicately. Tell Me How It Ends. It's in the first question they ask unaccompanied migrant children in the immigration court: Why did you come to the United States?

Maybe they all start with some twisted desire for the American Dream, but for millions of people, there is no happy ending. There is n—

"Hey."

I whirl around so quickly that I fumble. "What?"

"Hey, you got anything?"

My head clears; I blink at the girl standing at the next computer, her dark gaze trained on me. Something about her looks familiar, in a tired, trampled type of way. Like she hasn't closed her eyes in a few days, like maybe we're running on the same sleepless schedule.

"What?" I ask blankly.

A soft smile curls at her lips, painting her expression into something gentle. "You Mexican?"

Irritation hits like whiplash, and I reel back with a scowl. "Why?"

"I thought... you... uh, I thought you might have something," she says hesitantly, culpa flickering in her eyes.

Ouch. The undertones in her approach almost sting more than the truth—the fact that I do have drugs.

"Hmmm." I cross my arms over my chest. "Because you thought I was Mexican, you thought I'd have drugs."

Sheepishly, she shrugs. "Yeah."

"Well, that's not racial profiling or anything."

"Sorry," she breathes, averting her gaze. A bluish-white light washes out her darker complexion, but it exposes the exhaustion swimming in her eyes, half-concealed by dark lashes and hidden behind a distraction of mascara and eyeliner. "I just... I think I saw you in the bathroom a few weeks ago. I..."

Right. I hadn't exactly been inconspicuous. Mierda. "Oh."

"So... you got any coke?"

I nearly flinch at her words, anxiety exploding in my chest. My gaze jumps around us rapidly. "Shut the fuck up."

"Sorry."

Vaguely aware of her sinking into the seat beside me, I steal another quick once-over before pinning her with a glare. "What the fuck do you want?"

"I'm looking for a new plug." It's a mere whisper, so quiet that I have to crane closer to hear her as she glances around just as cautiously as I did. "You sell? Or do you have someone you can put me in contact with?"

I cock my head to the side silently.

"I'm good for it," she hisses urgently. "I swear."

My eyes narrow. I could use some money, but I'd taken what I needed from Julian for myself. "What do you want?"

"An 8 ball. I'm heading to a club tonight." Her breathing hitches. "Just wanna get a little high."

I lean back in the chair. "What happened to your plug?"

Muttering under her breath, she looks away. "Dunno. Ghosted me. Stopped returning all my messages."

My brows raise. "Really?"

"Yeah," she sighs, her gaze returning to me desperately. A million red flags fly. I should know better by now. I can read them in her better than I can read them in myself. "But then I saw you, and I remembered that you..."

"I have some," I cut her off. "Where are you going tonight?"

Amusement tugs her lips up into a grin. "Why? You wanna go out with me?"

❘❘

There are shards of the moment that we meet in the trenches of Bushwick. I barely remember her name, and somehow, she exists in some otherworldly opposition to the moment we first spoke in the library at NYU.

A low-lit sunset dances over her cheeks, highlighting faint specks of gold and glitter and skimming over rose-tinted lip gloss that I can almost fucking taste. Dark, curly hair frames her face, tumbling down the straps of a maroon dress—barely concealing a tattoo along her bare shoulder.

There are only these hazy fragments, feathered and fringed with a fleeting fascination; only these remnants of warm air and a shared cigarette ensnaring us into this distant summer euphoria.

It's a surreal sensation—like watching two strangers meet in a consensual crash-collision, pre-gaming with stolen snow and the promise of an unforgettable night. Fumbling into a deep, dark doorway beneath scaffolding in the heart of Brooklyn. My fingers in her hair, her hands at my hips, the faded taste of a few too many Newports between us.

I shake my head; squeeze my eyes shut; try to find some ground.

"Are you okay?" she asks, and I realize I still don't remember her name.

"I'm okay," I breathe, and fucking curse myself for the dreamy veil in my voice. "I'm okay."

Though ice splinters in my chest, puncturing the promise I had slipped up on, a warmth radiates from her. Our fingers brush softly, and I fully blame the blistering high sinking into my skin, but I want to fuck her and see if it feels like electricity.

In the darkness, a spark erupts in her eyes, playful, mischievous, innocently reckless. The making of a bad, bad, bad idea. "Let's go."

I follow without hesitation, staggering down the sidewalk to anchor myself in step with her. If I lose her, I might lose this... este sentimiento—like we're swimming and shaking, skating in a series of silent giggles and breathless smiles, teetering on curbs and stealing space and air that isn't ours.

Nada is ours.

"Neva, you're going to love it here."

It feels like deja vu; I escape her gaze for a millisecond to take in the cracked, crumbling concrete and the twisted, towering brick buildings and the winding iron fire escapes and the light... the light... the light. All the featherlight caresses of light, fluttering from green and pink window panes like rays of dust and dirt, dazed and delirious, d—

"This is the hottest Latin club in Brooklyn, baby," she slurs in my ear, and then detaches from me slowly. Carefully. As if she's afraid I might fall.

I'm afraid I might fall. Hard.

Because as she shimmies up to the door in her deep, dark dress, my gaze clings to every inch of her body, tracing curves and edges until nothing is straight.

"Do you have any more coke?" she whispers, reeling me in as we skid through the door.

Something lashes at my heart, but I nod numbly. "Yeah."

And the night descends into a beautifully intimate exchange that lasts forever—fingers brushing and lips skimming, our bodies flush to each other to hide secretive motions of palms connecting to share tiny bags of uncut, stolen snow.

With a gentle kiss, with a breathless murmur, with an unspoken thank you, we drift and dance and drown beneath the layer of music—an upbeat Latin track melts into a softer, sensual song, faint and forgotten by the time we end up alone in a bathroom stall. We bleed and breathe and break; every thought and sensation tangles into something untouchable. Every stroke of slick skin, every brash, bruising kiss, every raw, reckless decision that lulls me to my knees in front of her.

Tell me how it ends, I hear in the back of my head, in the folded, ink-stained pages of a million questions that will never find a real answer. Maybe this is how it ends—on my knees in a bathroom stall, happy and hopeless and high.

But eventually I stand, wobbling and woozy, and a little vial is pressed into my palm. "It's less messy than taking bumps off your key," she explains softly, understanding lacing her words.

And there's something lawless and raw, something almost erotic, about taking hits on the dance floor, surrounded by everyone and feeling like nothing.

"Neva," she says my name like it's air, and I love it. "Your phone is ringing."

"My phone?"

"Yeah, I've been holding it all night." Sparks erupt when our fingers graze again, and at the sight of his name, an electric shock jolts me away from her. She laughs coyly. "Who is Julian?"

"No one."

"A boyfriend?" A sly smile graces her lips. "Don't think he'd be too happy about you going down on me, huh?"

I smile. "Just someone I hook up with sometimes."

"Yeah?"

Teasingly, her fingers trace my jaw. The slight motion sends me tumbling into her, desperate for más... más... más...

"I get some of the coke from him," I admit quietly.

Under the fast, frantic music, a low heartbeat of a helpless city, her breathing hitches. "Can he meet us here?"

"Why?"

"We're almost out."

A dizzy spell claims me. As I sway in her arms, staring in surprise, I try to steady. Did we really go through everything? What time is it? Where are we? Panic races through my veins, paralyzing me into silence. What... what are we even doing? What am I doing?

"Wait, wait, wait, Neva," she breathes urgently, hands meeting my shoulders to shift me aside. "I think... I think that's Javier over there."

I nod, or shake my head, or start to mumble something, but I can't piece together a sentence. "Javier?"

She whispers something I can barely hear, and I squint at her, awestruck in some strangely, stupid moment of how beautiful she is.

Who the fuck cares about Javier?

"Javier is... or was... my plug," she rambles off into a messy curse. "Ugh, why does he have to be so fucking hot?"

As I spin and glance up, she doesn't even have to say anything else. I can already feel him from the bar, and as our eyes clash, I know.

"Colombiano," she murmurs in my ear. "Javier brings in good shit."

His dark gaze never leaves. Leaning back against the bar, Javier is untouchable—a Colombian drug runner with ink tattooed along the side of his neck, ice cold and intense and so fucking irresistible.

"Javier," I test his name out on my lips, almost willing him to me. Heat coils in the pit of my stomach. "Javier used to sell to you?"

"Mhmm."

"Do you think he has anything?"

"Bitch, you ain't got cash."

A lazy smile tugs at my lips. "So?"

"So Javier doesn't take anything less than cash, Neva."

Maybe I'd been too fucking lucky with Julian, or maybe... I coul—

Suddenly, we're twisting through the crowd, tilting between light and dark, and I'm watching, watching, just fucking watching, as red light flashes, flickers, and flushes his skin into a tempting shade.

When we still in front of him, a ripple of arousal tears through me.

"¿Javier, qué carajo?"

Unimpressed, Javier quirks a brow at both of us. "¿Qué quieres, baby?"

Lo quiero. I want both of them.

"You know, it's rude to not get back to someone," the girl beside me fumes, stomping a heeled foot. "I texted you weeks ago."

His lips twitch into a cool smile. "I didn't have anything."

"You're an asshole."

"And you are high, Dana," he shoots back, "so you got something from someone else, sí?"

Dana. That's her name.

"This is Neva." Pressing a palm to my hip, Dana tugs me closer. "She hooked me up because you couldn't."

Something flashes in his eyes, but when they fall to me, they soften. "Hmmm. Neva."

"Mhmmm." I hum, dazed and dizzied by the intoxicating look in his eyes—full of sensual promises and sweet nothings. "Like snow."

"Snow," he snickers. "Beautiful and cold, huh?"

Or just cold.

"Sometimes."

Cold and deadly and invincible.

Javier chuckles, his dark eyes washing over my entire body. "So Neva, how does a girl like you get her hands on enough snow to sell? How does a girl like you, high out of her mind, ever make any profit?"

"Wealth isn't created," I say, the words falling from my lips like a breathless surrender under an icy attack. Cold. "Wealth is seized."

A smirk toys at his lips, a touch of something dangerous, something that incites a rampage of fantasies and fears, all intertwined into a beautiful snowstorm. "Oh, mamacita, pretty girls like you get killed with that kind of attitude."

❘❘

**OH YES. Shit is about to get real for Neva.

If anyone wants to know, the book Neva mentions is called Tell Me How It Ends by Valeria Luiselli. It's heartbreaking, but so, so, so good. All the articles are also real.

Besos para todos! ❤️