Chapter Five

Dante woke up the next morning to a soft beam of warm sunlight peeking behind the heavy curtains of the dank motel room and hitting his face. Dante squinted and took a moment to let his eyes adjust to the morning sun and recollect the events of the night before.

He looked down and saw Gloria sprawled across his chest, her arms wrapped around him in a tight embrace. "Oh yeah, that," Dante thought to himself as he sighed with a tinge of discontent. Last night was fun and all, but it left him feeling out of balance. As soon as he saw Gloria's eyes flutter awake, he flung her arm off him.

"Well good morning to you too, " Gloria replied through a yawn, rubbing her eyelid. She noticed the tense crease in his forehead and asked instinctively, "What's wrong?"

Dante threw the rough comforter off and pulled his shirt on. "This isn't how this works," he said sharply. "You don't ask me about my day, and I act like you don't come running to me when things get bad at home."

Gloria's smile disappeared for a second, but only a second. She couldn't let Dante know he could affect her. Her face returned to her trademark cold, empty smile, but her eyes couldn't hide the heartache. The comment had only hurt her so because it was true.

Back in high school, Dante and Gloria were the "it" couple, the couple all other relationships thrived to be in their four year lifespan. Then, Dante made the mistake of telling his high school sweetheart he loved her on the last day of school. Dante wasn't really expecting her to say it back or anything, but he certainly wasn't expecting her to go ballistic and cut him out of her life.

Three months later, Gloria knocked on the door of a heartbroken Dante, her hand covering a large purple bruise on her arm. Things went back to normal for one night, and Dante made another mistake, he assumed they'd gotten back together. Gloria had to break his heart all over again the next morning, which only deepened his resentment for her.

Even still, Gloria sought out Dante from time to time, and Dante always followed. It was the last place she'd felt safe, which explained the multiple bruises he found on her during their many encounters. Dante had come to assume it was her drunk father's doings. Everyone knew what was going on, but because Gloria and her mother always seemed to hold their heads high, they'd just decided they could leave it alone. "Mind your own business" and all. Besides, at the rate her father was drinking, she wouldn't have to be living under his roof for much longer.

This time it was a dark blue bruise under her rib cage. Dante always noticed them but he stopped asking about them a long time ago, because he'd convinced himself that he stopped caring a long time ago.

Dante drove home in his pickup truck while Gloria was still in the shower. He carefully opened the squeaky dark blue front door and came face to face with his enraged mother.

"Where the hell were you last night?" Dante's mother asked with her hands on her hips. She was a small, but scary woman. She stepped closer to her son, and Dante instinctively flinched, ready to bolt should the situation call for it. He had to be prepared for the chanclas his mother wielded had many times before in his childhood. Dante racked his brain for a way out the hole he dug for himself.

"Oh, after I dropped the girl off, I helped Freddie with something and I accidentally fell asleep at his place," Dante said, proud of his solid excuse. Freddie would back him up if he had to.

Freddie's mother poked her head out from the kitchen with a bagel in hand, "Boy don't drag us into your mess," She walked up to Dante, gave him a quick squeeze, and whispered in his ear, "Thanks for helping Freddie last night."

"Mami, I was-" Dante began.

Mrs. Garcia shushed him, "You're twenty two. You're old enough to make your own mistakes as long as you don't bring them into my house." Dante lowered his head, "Just be glad your father isn't here today. Now go get some food and take Freddie to work."

Dante walked into the kitchen and saw Freddie and Manny snickering to themselves, "Ooh, someone got in trouble," Freddie taunted, as if they were children on the playground.

Manny cut straight to the point, "So you get laid last night?" he probed.

Dante waved his butter knife at the two of them, "Shut up, both of you," he told the duo before buttering his toast, which only seemed to amplify the squealing giggles.

After breakfast, the family prepared to go their separate ways, Manny to school, Dante to the construction site, and Mrs. Garcia to the restaurant she ran with Freddie's mother. Dante dangled the keys to the pickup truck in front of him, "Do you want to drive?" he asked Freddie.

"Not yet man," Freddie answered. He was obviously still shaken up over last night's incident. Dante, however, had almost forgotten about it. So much had happened over the course of one night.

They started off on their normal way to work, but were stopped by a large orange sign indicating the bridge had been closed down for repairs that day, even though no amount of repairs could bring the hazardous bridge up to code. The roads were narrow and worn down, and the railings were so flimsy, a harsh wind could have pushed a distracted driver into the dangerous river below.

Should such an event occur, the body would be found days later by an unsuspecting child with plenty to tell their therapist in the years to come.

"Well I guess we should call Alex and tell him we're not coming in today," Dante said with a shrug before doing a three point turn on the road.

"Or…" Freddie began, "we could take the main road. It's faster too!" he added, as if Dante cared if it was the quicker way to work.

"Or… we could call in sick," Dante countered. He looked at Freddie's disapproving face and relented, "Fine, we'll take the main road," he said, grimacing.

Dante had no problem with the main road. It was just one particularly prominent building on the street he had a strong disliking for. As soon as he felt the building begin to loom over the pickup truck like the Grim Reaper, Dante found everything on the opposite side of the street so much more interesting.

"Stop!" Freddie screamed, stomping his foot into an imaginary brake pedal. The car screeched to a halt just centimetres from the car in front of them. "Pull over man," Freddie said, looking like he was ready to jump out of the window to avoid the collision.

Dante was unphased by the almost accident and said, "I'm fi-"

"Boy, I told you to pull the hell over!" Freddie yelled, not unlike how his own mother yelled at him when he was acting up. Dante obeyed Freddie's orders and fearfully pulled the car over to the side of the road. Freddie marched over to Dante's side and dragged him out by the collar of his shirt. "If I'm gonna die no matter who's in the driver seat, then I am sure as hell driving this crappy car," Freddie said to himself, even though the entire street heard him.

Dante trudged to the passenger side of the truck and grumbled, "It's not crappy, it's paradoxical."

Freddie looked at Dante like he needed to take a quick detour to the mental asylum on the way to work, "Pair of what?"

"Ya know, because my car is old and..." Dante trailed off. He knew the gist of what Naya had said last night but he forgot exactly how she said it that made it sound like his car was worth a million bucks. "Forget it."

Dante was actually a little happy Freddie had taken the wheel from him. It made it somewhat easier to ignore the daunting hospital just ahead. Dante shuddered. Even the thought of hospitals sent shivers down his spine. Hospitals were where you go to die. Dante accidentally caught a glimpse of a young girl with a cast being hoisted from a wheelchair and into a car, free to go home. Dante's brother hadn't been so lucky.

It was the dream of Andre Garcia to join the police force. He always had a rock solid sense of right and wrong and he wanted to change his community, to set people on the right path instead of jail them for twenty five years and release them back into society with no money and no one to call their own. He was only twenty two years old when he got shot on active duty and was rushed to the hospital.

He was there for weeks under recovery from the bullet wound that had grazed some of his internal organs. Dante visited him everyday and trusted the doctors' reassuring briefings of Andre's improving condition. Everyone thought he would be fine, but one night was all it took for things to take a turn.

Dante thought of it as an anti-miracle. Andre died and all his family had left were with mounds of hospital bills. Ever since, Dante had an aversion for hospitals. Even when his abuelita was sick, Dante refused to visit her. It didn't do much for his growing fear when she died in the hospital just hours from being discharged to depart surrounded by her family. To Dante, hospitals were a curse.

Freddie pulled up to the construction site, still pissed at Dante. Dante however felt a wave of relief as he felt things going back to normal. Alex handed him his assignments for the day before he could make it two steps out the door. Dante pitched in with some major projects and worked on some one man jobs throughout the day.

Things were finally returning to their normal cycles. No owners looking over his shoulder, no racially profiling cops, no stolen cars, and no horny ex girlfriends waiting outside. But of course, such peace and order could only last so long.

Dante was working on putting in the first guest bathroom's tiles when a breathless Naya with beads of sweat rolling down her forehead, knocked on the door and asked, "Hey, can I have a ride?"