Say Something

“Say something,” she says.

I watch her, with her arms folded, her face twisted into a pain that I put there. That I started. That I don’t know how to stop.

“Say something,” she repeats.

She drops her arms in defeat and looks down at the floor and I want to run to her, to grab her, to pull her toward my chest and let her know that everything is ok. That I’m sorry. That we’re going to be fine.

But I don’t.

“Say something,” she whispers.

“Say anything.”

She looks up at me, her eyes full of water and she sighs and my heart breaks at the crack in her voice. The resignation.

She nods and I watch her turn away from me, and everything in my body is telling me to move, move, MOVE.

But I don’t.

Because I don’t know how.

I am six.

It is early morning. It is still dark.

My father is passed out on the couch, empty beer bottles on the carpet beneath him.

I got up to pee and found my mother.

Standing in the bathroom, staring at herself in the mirror and slapping her face over and over again.

She sees me and turns to look at me.

Her mouth opens for a second and then closes.

Her hand reaches out for me and then she pulls it back in, close to her stomach.

She opens her mouth again and then closes it once more.

I watch as she closes the door and locks it.

I go outside and pee in the rosebushes.

I am ten and am living in the shadows of the lives of my friends.

I watch as they talk to each other.

I watch their mannerisms.

Their gestures.

What it means to have a conversation.

I watch my buddy Kyle look at my other buddy Michael.

I notice the way his hands twitch when Michael is around. The way the sweat starts to fall across his forehead.

It’ll be years before Kyle officially comes out, but I already knew.

You learn a lot by watching.

Eventually, Kyle and Michael will stop hanging out with me.

“He’s so weird,” Michael says to a group of boys in the school bathroom, not knowing that I’m in a stall.

“He’s so weird,” they agree.

I am fifteen and girls think I’m mysterious.

My quiet interpreted as cool.

 I am invited by Antonia, a girl everyone likes (including me) to be in a quinceanera.

I go to her house for a dance practice and am overwhelmed by how loud it is.

Her brothers are watching the football game while her older sister blasts Bad Bunny from her bedroom, both sounds colliding with each other.

Her grandma is making pozole shouting to Antonia’s sisters to help.

Antonia’s mom is laughing with her aunts.

One of Antonia’s uncles is grilling carne asada outside while other children run around playing soccer.

People are shouting questions and giving commands and laughing and everyone is smiling and my head feels like it is about to explode because I have never seen so much in one place and I have never been so incredibly jealous in my entire life.

Antonia and I date for a year.

And then one day as we sit across from each other in the cafeteria, she says she wants to breakup.

I can feel my insides start to churn, my chest start to collapse.

I’m not in love with Antonia. I don’t know what love is yet. Not really. But I am in love with her family.

I’m in love with the way her dad ruffles my hair whenever he sees me.

The way her mom asks me a million questions.

The way her grandma always makes me a shrimp quesadilla when I come over because she knows it’s my favorite.

I don’t want to lose them.

“Do you want to know why?” I hear Antonia ask me.

I look up. But I don’t say anything. I don’t know how.

Antonia scoffs and rolls her eyes. She stands and looks at me and says, “I used to think you were deep. That your silence meant something, but it doesn’t, does it? You’re empty. You’re just so empty.”

I am twenty-five when I meet Rosa.

I’m sitting at bar.

My father has just died and I am sipping on a beer wondering if I should feel something. Feel anything.

I don’t.

When my mother, who I hadn’t spoken with since I left the house at eighteen, called me to tell me, I didn’t recognize her voice. I didn’t recognize who she was. I’m wondering if I should feel something about that.

I don’t.

Rosa plops down next to me.

I look at her and she smiles at me.

A wide, breathtaking smile and asks, “So, do you come here often?”

I laugh so hard that beer spills out my nose.

There is something about Rosa that keeps me at ease.

It could be her jokes.

The way they catch me off guard.

The way I know that I have never laughed so much in my entire life.

It could be that she laughs like a donkey, and I find it so off-putting and so adorable that I’m not sure what to do with myself.

It could be the way she holds my hand.

It could be how she insists on reading me the Hunger Games because I have never read them. She reads it out-loud before we go to sleep and does all the voices, and I pretend to be annoyed even though I am having a great time.

When she asks me about my life, my past, my parents, I shrug.

Not much to say, I tell her.

She looks at me like she’s seeing through me, and I think she is, so I always look away and change the subject and mercifully, she lets me.

I am with Rosa when I get a call from my mother.

The first call in four years.

The last call was when she told me my dad died.

She didn’t ask me if I was coming to the funeral because I think she knew that I wasn’t going to.

This time she calls me to tell me that she is dying.

I hold the phone in my hands and wait to feel something.

I don’t.

Rosa is looking at me, mouthing, “Is everything ok?”

I nod.

I hang up on my mother.

“Who was that?” Rosa asks.

“Telemarketer,” I say.

It is a summer night and Rosa is asking me to move in with her and my chest is caving and my palms are sweating and I can feel myself shaking my head.

“Why?” she asks me, her shoulders tensing, rising to her ears.

I continue to shake my head because I don’t know what to say.

What do I say?

How do I tell her that I’m terrified, that I don’t want her to see the truth of me.

The emptiness that Antonia saw, that my friends saw, that everyone eventually always sees.

The coldness that I don’t know what to do with.

The coldness that drove me to not go to my father’s funeral; to abandon my mother.

“Where is this going?” Rosa asks and I don’t know what to say and she tells me that she wants us to move forward, that she needs us to move forward, that she wants to get married and have children someday, and I stand there and watch her crumble because I don’t know what to say.

She tells me that if this isn’t moving forward that she has to walk away. Has to find someone who wants the same things.

I can feel my stomach flipping and my heart wanting to crawl itself out of my chest. I can feel the sweat building in the palms of my hands.

“Say something,” she says.

I watch her turn away from me, and everything in my body is telling me to move, move, MOVE.

And as she walks away, I see my life flash before my eyes.

My parents.

My friends.

Antonia.

And I wonder why this is happening. Why I’m seeing all this. And I realize it’s because it feels like dying. Rosa leaving feels like dying.

And I run after her.

And I grab her.

And I turn her around to face me.

And I open my mouth,

And it all comes out.