WILDFLOWERS

Fifteen Vanessa stopped after emerging from the bush-lined path at the side of her house when she saw Mrs. Cisneros moving about the living room of her home across the street. Not wanting to explain her puffy red eyes and torn clothes, she headed across the street deciding to slip into the house through the backyard. While standing on two stack bricks at the back gate, she fumbled with the latch until it opened, and hoped Mrs. Cisneros hadn’t locked the backdoor for the evening. She crossed the yard and then ascended the stairs carefully stepping over two creaky ones at the top. She opened the screen door and turned the knob. She quietly entered the kitchen and heard Mrs. Cisneros laughing to a Spanish television program as she crept through the hallway to the spare bedroom that had been Malo’s and Salsa’s older brother Gilly’s bedroom prior to his imprisonment. She pulled one of his large t-shirts out of one of his dressers and limped to the bathroom at the end of the hall. She pressed in the light switch and gasped when she saw her reflection in the mirror: her face was swollen and red where Twin had slapped her and the shades had cut her nose when he’d knocked them from her face and broken them. “Man, when’s it all gonna end?” She removed iodine and a bag of cotton balls from the medicine cabinet. “When ahm dead,” she concluded. She took the washcloth from the bathtub and let hot water run over it as she slowly and painfully undressed. After wringing out the washcloth, she sat on the edge of the bathtub in her underwear and bra and wincing, she set about cleaning her cuts and gashes. As she began applying the iodine with cotton balls on her gashed knee; she began crying as she envisioned Twin yanking her up by her hair and slapping her, then panicked when she couldn’t stop the blood from oozing from her gashed knee. She rummaged through the cabinets until she found rolls of gauze and band aides. “How do I stop this bleeding?” She thought it odd how many of her mother beatings rarely drew blood, but the first time Twin beat on her, blood was all over her. “This is the first and last time.” She sat back on the bathtub; ripped pieces of gauze with her teeth, folded over a strip and placed it over her bleeding knee and wrap another piece of gauze around her knee and tied it tight. She used various sizes of band aides for cuts on her arms and other knee and then noticed the blood already seeping through the gauze of the gashed knee. “Dang,” she muttered and slipped Gilly’s large t-shirt over her head. It draped below her knees and she was satisfied it hid her cuts incase she ran into Mrs. Cisneros in the hallway. She balled up her torn pants and quietly left the bathroom. Mrs. Cisneros laughed out loud at her Spanish program as she slipped into Gilly’s bedroom and saw Glen leaning against the dresser. “Why you here? Mrs. C’ll have a fit if she finds you here.” “Look at you, Lil’ V, he jumped on you, didn’t he?” She glared back at him. “Man, he hit you up before me about last night, didn’t he, Lil’ V? Man, I should’ve thrown down with him when he was all up in my face.” “When?” “Just now at the park. He tried to thrown down on me about being in your bedroom last night. I told him Running Horse sent me over.” “Running Horse is the one who told him.” “What?” He began pacing back and forth and she worried he’d go back to the park to fight Twin. “I’m going back to the park. Twin ain’t getting away with this.” “No, Glen, it’s over between us.” “No, it ain’t. You’re crying over him.” “Look what he did to me!” “That’s why you can’t let him getaway with this. He ain’t chor mother.” “Twin’s, I dunno, he’s just too jealous of you.” “I told you that when you started dating.” “I’d be wit’ him right now if you had never came back.” “What?” He stopped pacing and stood with his hands on his hips. She was distracted realizing he'd picked up her stance. “What?” Glen repeated. “If you weren’t around we’d be all right.” “Oh-yeah? Well, don’t cry too much over him ’cause he’s at the park getting high with some homeboys and girls I ain’t never seen before. And he was eyeing them hard.” “What’s going on in here?” Mrs. Cisneros walked in the bedroom. “What are you doing in here, Glen?” “Nothing, apparently.” “Are you being smart with me Glen?” “Of course not, Mrs. Cisneros, that was meant for Vanessa. From now on I’ll stay out of your business, homegirl.” He stepped to the door and Mrs. Cisneros stepped aside to let him pass. “Good night, Mrs. C.” “Good night, Glen. Vanessa? Are you ready to talk about what’s happening?” She avoided Mrs. Cisneros’ concernedness by shoving her pants in a brown bag. “About who you’ve been fighting with? Your mother didn’t do that to your face.” “No, Mrs. Cisneros, she didn’t and no, ahm not ready to talk.” “Good night then, Vanessa,” Mrs. Cisneros said, turning off the bedroom light. “Good night, Mrs. Cisneros,” Vanessa replied, crawling under the sheets.