High School Sweethearts

Chapter 1: Homecoming

I lay back on the soft lilac carpet in the middle of the small loft area, staring up at the roof. It was covered in pictures each documenting a different event in my life. They served as reminders of how lucky I was because I had such an amazing life filled with caring friends and family or of how strong I could be when things got hard. You know the funny thing about this was that the roof was nearly full yet somehow the biggest part of my life was nowhere in sight. It was the part I tried my hardest to forget but couldn't. It was like a dream a sweet beautiful dream the kind you could get lost in, the kind you wish were real but suddenly it turns sour into a complete nightmare the one place you once found comfort becomes horrible into your own personal hell something you can't escape no matter how loud you scream or cry out you're stuck there without a way out that is until you wake up and realize that it was all in your head but that was the thing I couldn't wake up I couldn't escape I was stuck with these horrible, scaring memories for the rest of my life. However long that was. my thoughts were interrupted by a soft knock on the railing that enclosed the small area. I looked up to see my mom yawning and rubbing her eyes.

 Mom: Can I come in?

Josephine: Sure Mom

She walked over and laid next to me

Mom: What are you doing up so early?

Josephine: Just thinking

Mom: What about?

Josephine: Nothing much

Mom: You sure?

Josephine: Yeah it just feels weird to be back

Mom: You’ve been gone for five years honey, of course, being back is going to feel different 

Josephine: I know, I just wish everything was the way it was before all of this happened

Mom: Everything will go back to normal, you just have to give it some time.

She squeezed my hand and looked at me.

Mom: we’re going to be just fine honey.

Josephine: I really hope so mom.

At that moment I felt safe and loved something I hadn’t felt in a long time I never wanted to lose this feeling because it made me whole and complete like I’d been missing a huge part of myself before like I was just the shell of my old self the truth is what had happened to me in Puerto Rico had broken me it’d turned me vulnerable into something I didn’t recognize I never thought I could fall so deeply in love with someone because if I’m being honest love has never really been my thing so letting someone in like that was big for me and I never imagined letting myself love and be loved for once would be the end of me I don’t see how I can ever be the person I was before and maybe I don’t to be all I want to be is safe and loved by the people I care deeply about and I finally had that being back home the only place I actually felt whole but then again good things never last and my story is no different.

Mom: Well I have a photoshoot in a few hours so, I got to get some sleep

She stood up and started walking towards the staircase, she turned back to face me.

Mom: you coming, honey?

Josephine: I’ll be down in a minute

Mom: Ok but don’t stay up too late love you

Josephine: I won’t mom love you too

She smiled one last time before leaving the room. I waited until she was gone and went to sit at the desk and pulled out a letter. It had arrived soon after I did. The contents of the note were simple “one year” that was all no signature, nothing simply one year, and yet somehow the words seemed callous and cold with evil intent it sent shivers down my spine. I repeated the words to myself one more time before placing it in a box with dozens more that matched it. I placed the box in a drawer and locked it, placing the key in one of the potted plants before making my way to my bedroom and attempting to get some sleep.

                                                                 {four years prior}

I placed a few of my books in the locker before it was slammed shut and my best friend Vanessa. She threaded her arm through mine and we began walking back to my dorm.

Vanessa: Is it true?

Josephine: I mean you are a little weird but I wouldn’t call you a psychopath

Vanessa: you’re hilarious

Josephine: I like to think I am

Vanessa: I meant is it true that Erick Ramos asked you out.

Josephine: Oh yeah he did.

Vanessa: And you aren’t excited?

Josephine: I mean and he seems pretty sweet and he’s attractive.

Vanessa: Understatement that man is sexy as hell and he’s like the literal embodiment of an angel sent from heaven to bless us with his talent and beautiful face.

Josephine: Do you want me to set you guys up?

I unlocked the door, closing it behind us. Vanessa jumped onto my bed as I placed my things down and got us food.

Vanessa: You don’t get it do you?

Josephine: Not really, no

Vanessa: Erick Ramos doesn’t date!

I handed her a bowl of fruit and a bottle of water as I sat down next to her.

Josephine: I thought you said girls throw themselves at him.

Vanessa: They do, he just doesn’t care. He says he doesn’t want a fling or a friend with benefits he wants a real relationship with like feelings and s**t guys can be so needy sometimes.

Josephine: Really?

She nodded biting into a piece of watermelon.

Vanessa: What’s wrong babe you seem confused.

I shook my head and looked up at her.

Josephine: I don’t know, I guess I only said yes because I thought it was nothing serious. Maybe I should cancel. I don’t want to lead him on.

Vanessa: Ok so you might be overthinking this a little bit but if you don’t want anything serious just tell him. You going on one little date with the guy doesn’t mean you’re gonna have his f*****g children just have fun you’re a teenager for god's sake but if you don’t feel comfortable then let him know it’s all up to you. 

Her phone buzzed, she looked at it and frowned.

Vanessa: Well I have to go. I love you.

She grabbed my head and kissed the top of it before getting up and grabbing her stuff.

Josephine: I love you too. I’ll text you.

Vanessa: You better. Bye.

Josephine: Bye.

I laid back onto the bed and sighed.  Completely unaware of how much my life would change because of that night.

                                                                 {A Few hours later}

I looked in the mirror one last time, my hand smoothing the skin-tight red dress I was wearing and brushing the knots out of my straight hair before answering the door.

Erick Ramos stood in front of me, his lips pulled up into a bright smile that reached his eyes. He was holding a bouquet of sunflowers in one hand while running the other through his carefully styled hair fixing a few hairs that were out of place. His eyes scanned me shyly 

Erick: You look beautiful

Josephine: Thank you. You don’t look so bad yourself.

His once confident smirk turned timid and his cheeks turned bright red.

Erick: Thank you.

He handed me the flowers he was holding. I smiled and smelled them.

Josephine: sunflowers? How did you know?

Erick: I asked Vanessa.

Josephine: That’s very thoughtful of you thank you.

He held out his hand 

Erick: Shall we?

I placed the flowers on the table and threaded my arm through his, laughing.

Josephine: We shall.

                                                    {present time}   

I walked into the open living room the sweet smell of maple syrup filling the room I took a seat at one of the stools at the kitchen island

Momma: Good morning honey 

Josephine: Morning momma.

Momma: You hungry?

Josephine: No thank you I’ll just have orange juice.

I got up and got some juice. Momma continued cooking.

Momma: so how are you feeling? I know it must be really hard for you to be back here after everything.,

Josephine: I mean it is hard to be back but I’m glad I get to see you guys again. I have missed you all so much.

Momma: we missed you too honey.

She pulled me into a tight hug pulling away after a while.

Momma: So you got any plans later?

Josephine: Not really.

Momma: Well you should at least go meet with your friends.

Josephine: I don’t know momma. Maybe I should distance myself from them. I mean I did almost end up in prison.

Momma: Really Josephine?

She put down the spatula, she was holding visibly irritated.

Josephine: Yes momma I just don’t see myself being friends with them anymore.

Momma: Ok tell me something who was there to help you when you broke your arm falling off the monkey bars in second grade?

Josephine: Chris he carried me to where you and mom were.

Momma: Who spilled cherry soda on you to cover up the fact that you had leaked through your white shorts at uncle victor’s pool party when you were twelve?

I cringed at the awkward memory then smiled when I remembered how funny it actually was.

Josephine: Channel she even lent me her sweater to cover the stain until we got home.

Momma: And remember what happened when Joey Mendez cheated on you at the seventh-grade homecoming dance?

Josephine: Jenny and Marisol beat him up behind the bleachers they got suspended from school for two weeks just for me.

Momma: See they’ve always had your back and you’ve been there for them too you’ve celebrated victories and mourned losses together there hasn’t been one moment in the last fourteen years that they weren’t there even if it was just through a letter. You know you’re lucky if you find one good friend in your life and you’ve found four you can’t just let something like that go hold onto it as long as possible because once it’s gone you’ll miss it. 

She squeezed my arm before returning to her cooking.

                               {sometime later}

I laid on the couch watching TV.

Momma: I’m going to go run some errand and I'll be back in a few hours. Do you need anything?

Josephine: No I’m ok 

Momma: ok bye love you.

Josephine: Love you too.

She left closing the door behind her. I closed my eyes thinking back to my earlier conversation with momma the more I thought about it the more I realized she was right even if we had gotten into trouble together more times than I can count they made my life better they had my back they were my rock and I couldn’t let that go I needed them now more than ever. I got up,  grabbed my keys, got in my car, and started to drive.

                           {Five years ago}

Chris: You can’t be serious about this. 

Josephine: No I'm deadass.

Chris: This is how all those racist horror movies start you know brown kids walking in a dark alleyway before some asshole in a terrible mask sneaks up behind them and straight up gutts them

Jenny: Shut up Chris you sound f*****g crazy.

Channel: I have to agree with Chris on this one. You know it’s true Brown people always die first in scary movies.

Marisol: No they don’t there are plenty of horror movies where the token minorities don’t die first cause if they did they’d be called out as racist and that scandal would end the genre 

Chris: says the pasty one name one scary movie where the first person to die isn’t a person of color?

Marisol: You’re next.

Channel: Ok that’s cheating there wasn’t a brown character in that movie.

Marisol: Ok how about the OG scream Drew Barrymore’s character died first and she’s white so

I looked back at them annoyed.

Josephine: Why is that the conversation that you’re having at this exact moment in time?

Jenny: Ok let’s talk about the fact that you dragged us out here in the middle of the f*****g night without a f*****g explanation whatsoever.

Josephine: Well no one forced you to come so.

Jenny: Yes you did you quite literally dragged me out of bed and forced me to come. 

Just then there was a loud sound coming from behind the dumpster and people started jumping out of it. They were all wearing clown masks and holding handguns. They started surrounding us.

Chris: What the f**k did I tell you? Huh? Now, these jackasses are doing to shoot us and send our severed heads to our parents in cake boxes.

Channel Punched his arm.

Channel: shut up Chris, maybe don’t offend the people holding guns.

One of them held their gun's barrel against my forehead.

Masked capo: Password?

Josephine: what?

Masked capo: Password or I shoot you for trespassing.

I thought back to the note I’d received instructing me to come here.

Josephine: Ricke?

He removed the gun from my forehead and placed a bag over my head tying my hands behind my back. I could hear my friends struggling behind me but there was nothing I could do to help them.

                           {sometime later}

My hands were untied and the bag was removed. My arm shot up shielding my eyes from the bright light. I felt someone reach out touching my face shooting their finger repeatedly at my eye.

Marisol: Nina is that you?

Josephine: yes and you’re poking my f*****g eyeball!

I slapped her arm away noticing a figure hiding in a dark corner.

Ricky: Wow you have such a foul mouth for someone your age.

Josephine: Who are you?

Ricky: Oh how rude of me allow me to introduce myself

He stepped into the light holding out his hand waiting for me to shake it. 

Ricky: I’m Ricky.

I eyed his hand and he set it down slowly. 

Josephine: I suppose you know who we are or you wouldn’t have called for us.

Ricky: I take it you are the leader of this little club.

He eyed our matching red leather jackets.

Josephine: what makes you think that?

Ricky: You seem a little too vocal for a henchman.

Josephine: Maybe I just have a smart mouth, you don’t know me.

He smirked, taking a seat on one of the sofas that decorated the huge living room we were standing in.

Chris: Uh do want us to get you two a room.

Jenny slapped his arm.

Chris: Stop abusing me!

Jenny: Then shut the f**k up.

Josephine: Can both of you shut up?

They eyed me annoyed and compiled.

Josephine: What the hell do you want from us?

Ricky: Take a seat

I raised an eyebrow at him.

Ricky: Ok.

He opened a laptop that was sitting on a coffee table in front of him turning it towards us. It was security cam footage. It was dark and you could barely see anything.

Channel: What is that?

Ricky: Oh that is CCTV footage of one of my properties.

Josephine: Why should we care?

Ricky: Because this is footage of you stealing from me.

Josephine: You can’t prove that’s us it could be anyone.

He turned the computer back to him.

Ricky: Not in its raw form, no but if you turn up the brightness you can clearly see that there is a hooded figure spray painting over the cameras and if you take a closer look you can see a patch in the back of said figure’s jacket it’s only for half a second and it’s blurry but if you enlarge the image and make it clearer you can get a few possibilities of what it could be now the matches aren’t always accurate especially here since you can only see the image for such a short period of time but all the matches seem to be pretty similar the most common letters being c.n. h. a. r. q. and e. Now the way this crime was executed was pretty advanced it wasn’t committed by a rookie or a first-timer but it also wasn’t committed by an adult no adult could move with such agility as the perpetrators of the crime I mean they were in and out in a matter of minutes and they managed to rummage every corner of the house sneaking in tight space leaving no trace of themselves except for this three-second clip which happens to be the same for every single camera that was in the facility so I did a reverse search of the juvenile delinquents' website in Miami searching for every name with the letters c. n. h. a. r. q. and e. All the matches were in for petty theft and other stupid little crimes like that except for one Channel Marquez who was in for the robbery of a shopping mall however further investigation shows that she didn’t act alone she was part of a group of delinquents wich also included Chris Luna, Marisol Moreno, Jenny Luna and the self-proclaimed leader of said posey Josephine Moreno. Now Florida police are absolute trash most of them are corrupted as hell I should know half of them are on my payroll. So I was very surprised to know that most of your information wasn’t public however I was able to find something way more valuable your i********: accounts now most of it is all generic teenage post but if you scroll past all two hundred posts on one Marisol Morenon’s i********: you find a family picture and analyzing the picture you find that most of the people in it are irrelevant except for three people which would be a ten-year-old Marisol Moreno a ten-year-old Josephine Moreno and twenty-seven-year-old Maria Santana the famous movie star/ Model/Dancer/ Singer. And if you go back a few years on her verified i********: account you can see a throwback Thursday picture of a seventeen year old Maria holding a baby with the caption “ can’t believe my baby is ten now I love you, Josephine”. And the rest of it was rather simple; you'd be surprised at how easy it is to find an A-list celebrity's house. All I had to do was wait for the right moment to plant the note and wait for you to find it, eventually making your way to me.

My eyebrows raised and my eyes widened in shock.

Channel: Who in their right minds decides to go to some random alleyway in the middle of nowhere because they found a note telling them to?

I looked down.

Chris: Nina what did you do?

Josephine: I thought it was from Joey’s brother.

Jenny: Joey Mendez?

Josephine: yes

Marisol: The guns to our heads should have been a clear sign that this wasn’t some high school kid playing a prank on us Josephine.

Channel: Why would you agree to meet Joey’s brother anyway didn’t Joey break your heart? I mean Jenny and Marisol beat his ass behind those bleachers for a reason.

Josephine: I know but I miss him ok.

Chris: oh my god Nina I can’t believe you

I rolled my eyes ignoring his comment and turning back to Ricky.

Josephine: What do you want from us?

He leaned back in his seat putting his hands behind his head.

Ricky: It’s quite simple. I want you to work for me.

I laughed

Josephine: Yeah we don’t do bosses.

He sat up making extreme eye contact with me.

Ricky: Ok let me make myself clearer you are now working for me.

Josephine: Let Me make Myself clearer We are no one’s, bitches so go and find yourself some other group of mindless ten-year-olds to be your little drug runners.

Ricky: I don’t think you’re understanding what I’m trying to say.

Josephine: I don’t think I do.

Ricky: If you don’t agree to work for me I’ll send this video to Florida police and get you charged with robbery, destruction of private property, trespassing, violation of parole, and a whole load of other crimes and get your little asses stuck in adult jail for way more time than you got in juvie for robbing a f*****g shopping mall. Not to mention I’ll kill every single person that has ever made contact with any of you or better yet I could just leak this video to the press and tell them your celebrity mom’s big secret that she has a criminal daughter now that would probably ruin the career she worked so hard to get devastating her so much she commits suicide. And to think you could avoid so much tragedy by working for me.

I looked at Marisol who was looking back at me, her expression unreadable. She stared into my eye deeply trying to make sense of what I was feeling she was trying to find my answer because we all know one thing the decision was mine I wasn’t going to ask them what they thought I should do and they sure as hell weren’t going to tell me they trusted me enough to choose for all of us and I knew they’d ride with me if my decision came back to bite all of us in the ass. I didn’t deserve them. I looked back at Jenny, Channel, and Chris. We all had so much to lose our families needed us. I mean Jenny had a newborn daughter for goodness sake. There was no good decision here on the one hand if I took this deal and it backfired we’d go to jail for violating parole and for being part of a multi-million dollar cartel on the other hand if I didn’t Ricky would pin all his crimes on us he’d kill our families and we’d die in prison. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath before turning back to Ricky and giving my answer.

Josephine: Ok fine We’ll work for you.

He smiled and nodded leaning back into the seat satisfied by his accomplishment.

                              {present time}

I got out of the car and knocked on the door rapidly. The door swung open Channel opened it she appeared annoyed at the knocking though her expression changed when she saw me standing before her.

Channel: Who the hell i-. Nina?

Tears started spilling from my eyes trickling down my face and onto my neck. I opened my mouth and tried to speak out but nothing came out except for sobbing noises and so I threw my hands around channel pulling her into a tight hug. She wrapped one of her hands around me using the other to lightly pet my head, neither of us speaking. Even if the giant lump in my throat wasn’t there I wouldn’t be able to speak not after what happened the week before all I could do was cry which was exactly why I wasn’t planning on coming here in the first place I had planned to break all contact with them because I couldn’t bear to see how heartbroken they were because of my pain. She pulled back placing both of her hands on either side of my head using her thumbs to wipe away the tears that were still falling.

Channel: It’s ok babe you’re safe now he can’t ever hurt you again.

She closed the door guiding me into the living room and seating next to me.

Josephine: Where is everyone?

Channel: They took Jesy to the park.

Josephine: Oh.

I looked down trying to avoid the topic she was thinking about. She grabbed my hand causing me to look up.

Channel: Do you want to talk about it.

Josephine: No

Channel: Why not?

Josephine: I just don’t want to

Channel: come on Nina you can tell me anything 

Josephine: I know that

Channel: Then why don’t you? Look at you, you clearly need to talk about something I’m just trying to help.

Josephine: I know you’re just trying to help.

Channel: Then why won’t you talk to me?

Josephine: Because! I know how much it hurts you when we do. I know how you wished I wouldn’t have stopped you when you and Chris were so close to killing him. I know that you will always look at me like a vulnerable little girl because I let him hurt me when no one would even dare look at me before because they feared me. I don’t want to give him that I don’t want to know he won I don’t want to live knowing I gave someone the power to physically and emotionally abuse me bringing me down completely shredding my soul into a million little pieces turning me into a shell of my old self I don’t want to be weak Channel! I won’t be weak! Not again!

Her eyes started watering. She didn’t say anything. She just held me for a long time petting my head wiping my tears comforting me. She knew it was true What I said they all saw me as vulnerable now how couldn’t they the state they found me in was humiliating, but I didn’t care I just needed someone to hold me and tell me everything would be ok even if I didn’t believe it would be and that’s exactly what she did.