Things Are Explained...

"What was that toast about?" Ellie asked as soon as we were alone.

"It was about Maya, look she's not what you think..." I started, but Angelica got all huffy.

"How do you know WHAT we think Kev? You haven't even been here in six years, you don't know us!" She exclaimed, venting a small amount of the six years worth of pain and anger at my not having so much as sent a post card.

"Angelica, I'm sorry, I know it's been hard, but please listen..." She woudln't let me get off that easy.

"YOU DON'T KNOW SHIT KEV!" She screamed in my face. "YOU'VE BEEN CHILLIN IN ME-HE-CO FOR SIX YEARS WHILE WE WONDERED IF YOU WERE DEAD!!!"

Somehow, I kept my cool. "My father would literally have had us both killed if I'd told you where I was." I explained.

"What?" Ellie asked.

"My father would literally have had us both killed-" I repeated, but Ell cut me off.

"NO. I heard you, the 'What?' was asking you to explain."

"My father was a big man with one of the cartells. I don't know the details and I don't WANT to, but he always had money to burn and he never did any kind of real work, just made a lot of phone calls." I began. "Anyway, one time, I asked if I could come see you and mom for Christmas, and he told me: 'If I ever find out you have been talking to those sluts in america, I will have both you and them killed.' The thing you have to understand about dad is that he NEVER made idle threats. If he said he would do something, he would do it, or see to it that it was done. I knew then that I couldn't ever see you again before that bastard was in the ground. I was thirteen at the time, so I couldn't face him then, but when I saw Maya hogtied on his couch and naked..."

"What?!?" They both exclaimed in unison, and I sat them down on the hammock and told them the whole story, NOT the sanitized version.

"My god!" Angelica said when I was finished, clutching Ellie and shaking. Ellie looked stoic, the same way she did after we dared her to eat a night-crawler from the bait store when we were seven.

"So you see, there is nothing between me and Maya except friendship, we CAN'T see each other any other way. I saved her life, and she saved mine by summoning the paramedics, so we feel a strong bond. There's nothing romantic in it though. It's more like how the three of us were when we were kids." I finished.

"God Kev, 'what the hell?' you know?" Angelica finally managed. "That guy you're talking about, he wasn't HUMAN. He certainly wasn't your dad like we knew him when he lived up here with your mom. I don't ever want you going back down there, Okay? Something happened to Mister DeLaCruze down there that turned him into a monster, and I don't want that happening to you!" Angelica said, grabbing my hand. Her touch sent an electric charge racing up my nerves and kicking my heart into overdrive. I swallowed, hard.

"Since Maya is going to have to stay in your old room I guess you have to sleep in the tree house." Ellie said, shaking herself back to full awareness.

"That thing's still there? I said looking up at the young redwood, and stopped in shock...