Apology by Jon Pineda (books to read this summer .txt) 📕

It was not a dream, though it felt like one. A beautiful piece of memory that could make him cry. Exequiel woke now, feverish. Out of his head. He summoned it, from the faint scar woven in the bottom of his foot. A story hidden in the flesh.

Maybe it had slipped through the long-ago knit vessels, skin’s sheathing, and was whispering him awake, as Paul would have done and had done that one morning he was supposed to be gone. Exequiel had cried himself to sleep during the night, and Paul had stayed, grabbing him now by both shoulders and asking, almost idiotically, if he was awake—Are you? Are you awake? In truth, Exequiel had come to a handful of seconds before and had the presence of mind to pretend, for just a little longer, that he was indeed asleep, settled comfortably in a dream. What better thing than to have his brother stay?

“Mano,” Paul whispered. He held up one of their father’s T-shirts and rolled and folded it, as Exequiel had also been taught, and now the stale scent of their father’s sweat came between them and hung in the sweltering air.

“I thought you were gone,” Exequiel said, rubbing his eyes.

“I was,” Paul said. “I came back.”

“So that I could beat you one more time?”

Paul laughed.

“Mano, that will be the day.”

“That will be the day,” Exequiel echoed.

“Come on, let’s not wake up Mama. I’ll meet you outside.”

Paul took the ball and, with it, their father’s scent vanished from the small room.

Was it first light that had stepped its way effortlessly through the vacant street, the shimmering choreography of broken glass and gravel? Exequiel watched as Paul negotiated the sliver of field, juggling the cloth ball in and out of a group of shadowy opponents, ghosts of former games.

Then came his brother’s taunts. It was expected.

“Mano, you still asleep? Maybe you want I should get Tia and see if she can join in? Maybe you want to play her instead of me?”

The ball rested on his knee. Then it flew up, spiralling, to perch behind his brother’s neck. The body hunched before him. The ball like a burden to carry for a long time.

Though he wore no shoes, not even the crudely constructed sandals some of his friends possessed, Exequiel sprinted forward to challenge his brother. He shoved him, knocking the ball free. Paul immediately laughed. He was pleased to see the lesson of aggression had been passed down.

Then another scuffle.

Something inside had possessed the younger brother. Welled up like a curse. Settled in his mouth and split his tongue, a fury. A fire stoked. His tongue burned with words he had never said before, but which he knew were reserved for only the most uncontrollable moments of anger.

Exequiel was mad at his brother. He didn’t know why. Then he did. Paul was leaving. It reminded him that he, Exequiel, had nowhere he could go.

Exequiel did not soften his words as he pushed on his brother, flailing with elbows. Fighting for the ball between them. Their father lost within the cloth.

“Let go,” Paul said, suddenly serious.

His smile had faded.

“You let go,” Exequiel said.

He continued to charge forward, wrapped up as he was in his brother’s arms. He wanted to hurry up and be free. He didn’t care for other things in this life, like his brother did. Other things were dreams. He wanted what was here, what was real.

Paul complaining plenty of times about the way things were. Paul wanting to go elsewhere, beyond the only place he and Exequiel had ever known together. Northward. Where land shifted out of itself and into other forms. Dreams filled with concrete.

“Mama, I will send money. I will build a huge house and bring you and Mano there to live.”

How many times had Exequiel heard this plea? It felt like a plea, to hear his brother repeat it like vespers. And with the same capacity their mother released such prayers in the town’s chapel. Too many to name, but always these repeated lines. A prayer ending with a miniscule flame being lit and that flame’s life watched briefly, until it disappeared within itself.

Exequiel had, at first, been excited to hear his brother say he would send him back a stitched-leather ball. The echoing remnants of this promise burned inside the boy’s desire to overcome his brother. Exequiel wanted to show him he would not back down.

Paul stood still.

“Mano, you need to calm down.”

“You need to calm down,” Exequiel said.

He had resorted to throwing full-on punches. Stepping into each one. Paul just stood there. He wouldn’t bring up his guard.

Whatever lingering guilt Paul felt accounted for more than he realized. He had not known what had kept him from leaving the night before. But now he knew. His little brother was making sure of it.

Exequiel had forgotten about the ball entirely, but when he pushed back on his brother, their legs tangled. The cloth ball had found its way between them again. As if trying to break the two brothers up.

Then Exequiel screamed.

Paul knew he had not hit him, but still, he threw his hands up. Exequiel immediately reached for the ground and hobbled over to the side of the empty street. He grabbed his ankle and fell into the grass. Glass, slender as a finishing nail, had lodged in the boy’s foot. He waited for the blood, but it did not appear.

“It hurts,” he said to Paul, and without saying a word, his brother took the lifted leg and searched for a wound that he could not readily see.

There, in the callous padding of his younger brother’s heel, Paul found where the glass had entered. If it were a compass needle, it would have been pointing north. Paul lightly brushed away more of the dirt and could see that it was, in fact, a substantial piece of glass. He pushed on it,