Page 49 of Wasted On Us

Eden bursts out of the bedroom, hair mussed and wearing my shirt, and her face is white as a sheet. “Oh, my God! Mateo, is she…”

I grab her by the shoulders, trying to calm her down before she starts crying too hard to function. I can’t take care of her and Abuelita at the same time. “Call 911 for me. I’m going to go sit with her and make sure she doesn’t move until the ambulance gets here, okay? Just stay calm. And whatever happens—this wasn’t your fault.”

She nods, chewing on her lip to hold back the tears, and dashes back into the bedroom to grab her cell phone. I take the stairs two at a time, thundering down to where Abuelita is crumpled against the wall. I don’t see any blood, and taking a quick look into her eyes tells me that she’s still lucid. Her breathing is good, but there’s a labored and painful wheeze to it.

“It’s going to be okay. Help is on the way. Just don’t move for me, okay? Can you do that?”

“There was a light on. I saw it from the kitchen. The house is supposed to be empty, so I came to check on it. Mrs. Lambert—Emily—and I… we were always so close. The alarm was disabled, I’m part of the neighborhood watch group, and I wanted to make sure it wasn’t a gang of hoodlum kids set on destroying the place. I tried calling you, Mateo, because I know you have a key. And then—oh. I never wanted to see you in yourchones. But now I know where I sawherbefore.” Leave it to Abuelita to ignore the fact that she’s just fallen down a flight of stairs and to focus instead on the trouble I’ve gotten myself into. Moaning in pain, she points a finger at the door to the bedroom. “This was eating at me all day. It’s the girl from next door. It’s Daniel’s daughter.”

“I know, Abuelita.” I try to soothe her, keeping her head balanced against my thigh while gently stroking her forehead. “Are you in much pain?”

“Yes,” she hisses, gritting her teeth as she adjusts the way her leg is lying against the bottom step. “But not as much as you’ll be in. Your father… her father… they’ll never accept this.” She holds her breath and crosses herself. “It’s doomed!”

There’s a hitch in her voice like she may cry, and the idea that something I’ve done could make my Abuelita this upset makes me want to curl into a ball and disappear. But I can’t. I’m causing the two women I love nothing but pain. Physical and emotional. Nothing about the way that Eden and I feel about each other is wrong or bad. It is simply two men unable to get past their own misgivings and move on with their lives that is keeping us from announcing our feelings to the world and living like two normal and healthy adults.

And I can’t let that continue to hurt the people around me.

“They have to. I won’t let their ridiculous stubbornness come between us. You’re the one who told me to believe in love, Abuelita. What’s more important? My heart or a decades-old feud that no one even knows why it really started to begin with? It’s ridiculous. But emotions—my feelings for Eden—those arereal. I don’t think I can lose her.”

Before my abuelita can argue my point, we are both drowned out by the sound of the ambulance coming down the block. It’s loud enough that a person with earplugs in could hear it, alerting the entire neighborhood that someone is inside the vacant Lambert house. So much for keeping things a secret.

Chapter Twenty-One

Eden

Oh, my God.

We almost killed Abuelita.

I’m going to hell.

On a one-way ticket.

I keep pacing by the front door, my eyes darting from Mateo and Abuelita at the foot of the stairs to the living room window, waiting for the inevitable ambulance to come blaring up the street. On top of it all, I can’t even begin to process what I just heard Mateo say.

Mateo García, whose middle name should probably be womanizer. Mateo who has never had a relationship longer than a week, who sneaks out before breakfast and doesn’t call back. That Mateo. The same guy just told his grandmother, the most important person in his life, as she’s lying on the floor in agony, that he can’t bear to lose me. And I still haven’t even digested his proposal earlier that I be his girlfriend. I still can’t believe it.

Me, of all people.

I told myself after Rick that I wasn’t going to let anyone in, that I was going to be fun and fast and loose and not open myself to the possibility of getting hurt like that again. And yet, here I am, risking it all to hook up with a guy in a vacant house because I can’t bear the thought of losing him either.

And no matter how much it would hurt my dad to know I’m here, I can’t stay away from Mateo.

He’s real and so are my feelings for him.

It’s all too much, so I slip out of the front and stand on the doormat, leaning against the door as I wait for the ambulance to arrive. Until I cross my arms, I don’t even realize that I’m not wearing a bra. Just Mateo’s t-shirt and a pair of jeans. Great. That means that my shirt and my so lovingly picked-out lace bra are still sitting in Mrs. Lambert’s master bedroom. The adrenaline is starting to wear off, and I worry that I might just puke in the hydrangea bush next to me. I need nicotine, or caffeine, or an entire bottle of vodka right now. Best I can do is just slow inhales and exhales, trying to remember that I’m not the one who just fell down a flight of stairs.

This isn’t about me.

The ambulance shows up before I know it—one of the perks of living in such a nice part of town. The other is that even though everyone wants to watch, it would seem too tacky to stand on the front lawn and gawk. Everyone settles for crowding around their living room windows instead, lights dimmed so it isn’t obvious. I can definitely make out the family across the street though, backlit by the massive big-screen TV behind them. The paramedics that climb out of the cab are two really beefy blond guys, and if I wasn’t so shaken, I’d try to snag one of their numbers for Ensley. She has a thing for huge dudes. Vikings. Lumberjacks. Fireman. It doesn’t matter.

It seems like I’d be intruding if I went in along with them, so I wait outside for them to finish up. A lifetime passes before they’re coming back out of the door again, wheeling Abuelita out on a stretcher. She looks so small and fragile strapped down like that, and it makes me feel like the scum of the earth to see her so weak and know that I had anything to do with it.

As they pass me, she says something to one of the paramedics and they slow down, Abuelita reaching out to touch my arm.

“You’re going to be okay,” I tell her, and it’s obvious from the tone of my voice that I’m not convinced at all. My eyes start to well with tears again, and I have to swallow hard to not start sobbing then and there. “I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.”

“No, blame this clumsy old woman.” She gives me a slight wave of her hand and grimaces in pain at the movement. “Do something for me?”

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