Two weeks later, when Guapo and Frogface were long dead, and I hadn’t eaten in over a week, I stopped turning up my nose at Manny.
The jerky, fruit leather, and nutri-paste from my backpack were long gone. I had collapsed from hunger and exhaustion during another of our endless marches under the blazing sun of the Cambio.
Manny held my head in his lap and lowered a finger to my lips. He was smiling, and the sun cast a halo around him.
“Go ahead,” he said softly. “It’s all right.”
I was so weak with hunger and fever that I could barely shake my head. “I...won’t.”
“Just have a bite,” said Manny. “I won’t tell anyone. Nobody will know what a flappin’ hipócrita you are.”
I remember thinking at that moment how much I hated myself...first, for smiling at the tutti-frutti bastard’s jo
