Untitled - Cora, age 17

Untitled

By Cora, age 17

I had never had someone confess a murder to me. It was on a Tuesday, in July. We sat on our porch, and he told me what he did. And then we went to the Mexican place, the one by the post office with all the Frida Kahlo prints. I ordered the fish tacos and he ordered chicken. When we first met, I remember, he told me he didn't quite believe that people actually ate fish tacos. He thought that it was just something that sat on menus, to fill up space and maybe for the Catholics that came on Fridays.

I remember I had just gotten paid so I ordered Tres Leches even though I didn’t think either of us liked it. It came on a square plate with a border of colorful squares. There were all the colors on the plate except purple. And indigo, if it's still a color. I remember we paid and we tipped 40% because we didn't quite know what money was for back then. And then, when we walked home, on the stretch with the empty lot and the house that has Christmas decorations up all year, I told him that I wasn't going to tell the police.

And he didn't say a word. I did not have any more to say, so I did not speak more that night. We would not speak of it for over 3 years. We would go to work and come home, month after month. I remember we would eventually leave that city and go somewhere else. This new place was dirtier. We liked it that way. The old one had been too clean, its houses too finished, its windows too polished.
Someone I had known long ago met us. He didn't know her, but that was okay. I’ve stopped worrying about things like that. We went to a coffee shop and we laughed and talked and did what friends do, or as much as someone like me would understand. After a time, he got up to refill his ceramic coffee mug.

"You didn't use to be this happy" my friend said.

I laughed and said something that sounded like it had a meaning to it, but now I'm not so sure if the sounds that came out of my mouth had any sense to them. I do not think I should have laughed, but I did not know what to do because it was true. I had never been unhappy, but there were times when the world was silent to me. It wasn’t like that anymore. And I liked the noise. I liked his noise.

It was the next day after I heard, said, and thought these things, that I asked him why he did it.

He knew what I spoke of, but he paused and sat on the ground. It was our room without. That's what we called it. We had a room that was barren in our house. I think it was meant to be a living room. We had other rooms with things in them, but that is not important. This room was what it was and I do not feel the need to say more.

I sat down too, and we sat across from each other. And I waited, but I was not curious, if I was I wouldn't have waited. But I still liked endings, and that was what I wanted.

"He pulled the gun, but I shot faster."

"When?"

"Years ago. He dealed, ripped people off. The works. I got on the wrong side of him."

"Dealed what?"

"Nothing hard."

And we sat for a while, and I got up. It was late and I called for pizza. After I put down the phone, he had gotten up too.

He looked at me and told me that he was sorry. He probably said he was sorry everyday, every second or something cliche like that. I don’t really care because I don’t think it matters. The pizza came, and we tipped 40% because now we knew what money was. We didn't eat on paper plates, but fine china, filled with whimsical drawings of flowers. A gift from his grandmother for a first apartment. Now they were chipped.

I would think, years and years later why I did what I did. I could never know if it was right or if it was wrong. But I can remember that when we ate that pizza on those china plates that everything seemed to be alright and maybe, just maybe, I was happy and that was enough, enough for me.