CRASHING: Introduction to Heartbreak

MINIMUM SPEED LIMIT

My fingertips were matted with dust, each piece of memorabilia I'd torn off the walls lending to layer upon layer of dirt. I wiped at my cheek. I could feel the congealed blotches of dirt and tears tightening over my skin.

This was what I was left with now. Torn-up memories, faded dreams, and broken things that will never be mended. Not now, not ever. I looked at the Polaroids scattered around and under my folded legs. They were strewn across my bedroom floor along with envelopes, trinkets, colorful knickknacks from a time when I was still living my life in Technicolor.

Now I was living a silent movie: dark, scratchy, grainy, every quiet chuckle being made at my expense. I was the joke.

There was much to be said about where I'd gone wrong. Still, none of this made sense to me. The first fifteen years of my life were perfect. I was happy. I had people I trusted as friends, I had a loving family—I had my future all planned out. The metaphorical rug being pulled from right under my feet wasn't part of that plan, but it happened anyway. I'd fallen on my back with only a little bit of stability from my past to hold on to.

But now even that was taken away—by the very people I'd trusted to catch me if I fell.

i. THE GAME

"Rae!"

"What?"

"Did you hear?"

Four thirty in the afternoon, on the dot, three converted yellow vans marked "Greenville School Service" pulled up outside the school to pick us up. We would pile up beside our regular rides and file in: thirty kids, all from the same village, going to the same high school.

I had an especially excited seatmate today in the form of Tessa Bernal, my best friend and constant companion since our days of scraped knees and milk teeth. "Did something happen?" I paused from replacing the batteries of my recorder to face her, bright eyes meeting bright eyes as anticipation sparked in the small space between us.

"Yuan! He got into the JV team!"

Just then, the steel door flew open beside me, letting in a flood of afternoon sun. My vision blurred as a rowdy group of boys jumped in. I squinted as hoots and whistles filled the empty spaces of the van. Aforementioned Yuan nearly tripped on his way up but he didn't seem deterred. He wore a small but satisfied smile on his lips all the way to the seat he'd chosen to take across from me.

Head whistler, Mike Vera Cruz, followed close behind, one hand quick to fix his hair at the slightest hint of disarray. He slid his noisy ass on the small space left between me and the end of the van where I usually sat. He was being very, very loud.

"Everyone! Quiet!"

Whenever Mike told people to be quiet, people listened. That was just the way it was. He was the cool, popular guy: smart, charismatic, friendly, and completely untouchable as far as most of our schoolmates were concerned. The role of leader in our little band of neighborhood kids fell easily in his lap. And he wore it gladly—effortlessly. It didn't matter whether they were younger like me, the same age like Yuan, or older. No one was any less wise to question it.

"Effective next week," Mike began, making a show of kneeling on the floor of the van so he could grab Yuan's hand while also keeping a hand on my shoulder as he continued, "He will no longer be just Yuan Recto, nope. He will be Yuan Recto, our JV basketball team's newest shooting guard!"

Mike looked so earnest in his speech, face contorted in mock seriousness before he raised Yuan's hand and nearly shook it out of its joint. I rolled my eyes and shook my head while Tessa giggled beside me the whole time, half her face—from nose chin—hidden behind her favorite pink handkerchief.

Everyone inside the van exploded into more whoops and claps, half for Yuan and half for Mike. Even the ones who were waiting to get in while Mike finished his little display were cheering from outside the van. They were only a few silly words matched with equally silly faces, and yet the energy was enough to light up a bunch of tired thirteen-year-olds.

I smiled along soon enough, did my best to clap my hands even when Mike's fingers had found their way around one of my wrists. He was just a few centimeters short of actually holding my hand. I swallowed at the thought as I zoned in on where our hands almost met.

The universe made up for it a minute later with a shoulder nudge and a smile when he finally settled in his seat beside me.

Tessa cleared her throat, snickered as she sat sideways and turned her back on Mike and me. I put on my earphones so I could ignore that for now and listen to my recordings from earlier. Eventually, Mike stole one of the buds and plugged his own ear with it. I made a face and used all my weight to push his body against the side of the van as retaliation.

He didn't really mind. And apparently, I didn't mind as much as I'd pretended to either.

"Did you record about me today, De los Reyes?"

"Shut up, Vera Cruz."

Not a centimeter was wasted between us on the ride home.