The anger faded from his face, his jaw unclenching. He grabbed the phone and clicked it on. “Mamãe.” There was a slight pause, and then he rubbed his forehead. “Desculpa, não.” He paused and asked, “Ana?”
While I listened some more, I couldn’t make out a word he said the entire call, his accent getting thicker and thicker until his words sounded so jumbled that even the little bit of Spanish—a sorta similar language, I think?—Mom had forced me to take didn’t help in the slightest.
Kai stared at him intently until the call ended, tapping his finger against the couch. When João deposited the phone into his jeans pocket, Kai cleared his throat. “How is she?”
João looked at me and clenched his jaw. “She’s fine for now.”
“Who?” I asked, curious.
“Nobody,” João said at the same time Kai said, “Ana.”
Sitting back, I smoothed out my jeans. “Who’s she?”
After João gave Kai a death glare, João lit a cigarette. “My sister.”
“What’s wrong with her? You sounded worried.”
“What did I fucking tell you about getting into my business?” João snapped.
“My mom is a doctor,” I said. “Maybe I could help.”
“You and your stuck-up mother could never help. We’re from the bad side of fucking town, Imani. You seem like you’ve forgotten that. And the cold hard fucking truth is that nobody from your side of town gives a fuck about any of us. That won’t change either—unless we do something about it.”