With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo
The Chase
After dinner that night, when we get to the meeting point where we go our separate ways, Chef gives us a little wave. “Make sure you all get to your host family house safely. Remember, you’re guests, so get there as soon as possible.”
Pretty Leslie and I might be the only two people who actually have been going home on time. I’ve been hearing stories in the morning of people going out dancing and to bars. They keep talking about trying absinthe, which is impossible to find in stores in its strongest form in the States, so folks are way too hype to try it.
“Emoni, you coming home?” Pretty Leslie yells from halfway up the hill to our homestay. I shake my head. And she looks from me to Malachi through narrowed eyes.
“Pretty Leslie didn’t handle the end of y’all talking well, did she?” I ask Malachi as we take a turn that leads not to the house but to another little street. The streets of Sevilla have ice-cream shops sprinkled on almost every block the way Papi stores and Starbucks are back home. I pass an ice-cream shop every morning and I know it’s exactly the kind of place Malachi would love. I lead the way.
He shrugs. “She and I had an honest conversation. I told you from the beginning I thought she was a cool girl, and I still think so . . . even if she says some dumb shit when she’s trying to pretend she doesn’t care what people think.”
I want to ask for more details, but I figure it’s not my business. Although Malachi says he was only her friend, I wonder if she wanted to be more.
Malachi takes my hand. His long fingers close over my own and he tugs me to him when we pass a couple on the street. I look over at him. His dark brown cheeks, his high forehead. The wisps of hair on his chin and the sideburns shaped into a perfect Philly point. He’s not smiling, and I want to make him smile more than anything. He’s a different person when he smiles, a friendlier Malachi that I imagine is someone I can talk to about this Malachi standing next to me that I don’t know what the hell to do with.
The streetlights glint against the stone streets. My hand is still in Malachi’s and he gives it a light squeeze before sticking his hands in the pockets of his black jacket and pulling my hand in with him. Outside of a restaurant a man plays a guitar and sings a slow, sad song that sounds like it comes from the bottom of his gut.
This moment is one I don’t ever want to end. And my breath stops short. This is exactly why I don’t hang out with guys. Angelica would tell me I’m being stupid, since I don’t hang out with girls, either. And she would be right. This is why I don’t get close to people. Because it makes it too easy to hurt them. Be hurt by them.
I stop walking and Malachi stutters to a halt. I pull up on my tippy-toes, grip the hand that’s holding mine, and begin meeting his mouth for a kiss, when I feel a sharp tug on my shoulder and I drop my hands to see that a little kid has taken off, clutching my purse.