don't wanna rush | oscar diaz

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Oscar doesn't notice at first. He wants to be defensive about it, later; it's not like his mom has ever been good about being around. Has never been, not in Oscar's memory—which is a lie he'll tell himself until he's blue in the face, the years spent down in TJ a dream he'd rather forget.

None of that matters. Penelope hops from job to job, stays clean for weeks or months sometimes and comes crashing down anyway. Throws shit, sometimes, when she's mad enough for it, her hands never as scary as his father's even if it's clear she wants them to be. She's not strong enough for it to hurt anymore but it's the principle of the thing, he thinks.

November doesn't really mean anything different from what previous months held. He'll be eighteen soon but he's on probation for another little while anyway, and it's not like they ever celebrated holidays besides Christmas. The house isn't any louder or quieter, that month. Just another cage. Just another place to lick his wounds.

None of it's a real excuse, though. Not really. He realizes it a little before his birthday, comes home with his neck raw from his latest tattoo—a Santos cross, freshly done. He let Chucho convince him to give him a California-shaped stick-and-poke a few weeks ago; he's surprised it came out as good as it did. Cesar's watching TV in the living room when he gets home.

"I know you ain't watching that without your homework done," he says as he walks back towards the bathroom.

Cesar starts whining. "But it's Friday."

"Y qué?" Oscar calls back, "turn that off, homie."

The ink is dark and glossy in the mirror, but that might be the Aquaphor smeared over his skin. A cross with SANTOS crawling down it. Oscar feels a pang of regret. Bad enough that the teardrop keeps targets on his back. It only seemed fitting that he let the realities of this life brand him further. It's not like he's really losing out on anything either way; what's been taken from him has been taken already. He doesn't think it matters.

He knows Penelope's going to lose her shit though, and it's this thought that makes him pause. He tries to remember when they last spoke, what she did or didn't say to him. Taking care of Cesar has been his responsibility for so long that it doesn't matter whether she's there or not, but as he stares at himself in the mirror he realizes, slowly, that it's been at least two weeks since he's seen her.

Things slow down. He moves like he's underwater, the doorknob to his mother's room chilling under his touch. When he opens the door the air smells stale. He swallows, mouth full of sand while his eyes sweep over the too-neat bed, covers folded and untouched for who knows how long. No trash, needles or spoons or blunt wrappers. He opens the closet and it's half empty. TV unplugged, shelves dusty as ever.

It doesn't have to mean anything. Oscar's not stupid, though. He knows exactly what it means.

And he doesn't mean to scare Cesar, but he knows he does when he puts his fist through the back screen door. Has to, with the way it makes him shout, "Fuck!"

He doesn't remember walking out of the room. The pain is grounding for a split second. A reminder that he's still here, still responsible for Cesar, still in this stupid fucking house that first his father and then his mother trapped them in.

He's not even eighteen, he thinks. Watches blood drip down his knuckles, Cesar staring at him from the end of the hallway.

"Oscar?"

"I'm fine," he says, like that answers anything. Cesar says his name again, and Oscar shakes his head, goes to his escuincle like he always does. "It's okay."

"You're bleeding."

"Yeah," he says. His hand throbs. "You ready for bed?"

"You're—"