Page 124 of Privilege

“Yes.”

“Good, you go get it for me.”

Diego turned before darting out of the room, and Renzo took a moment to regain his bearings. Standing, he grabbed the stuffed dino from his brother’s bed, and shoved it into the bag, too. He grabbed the full duffle, and the empty one before heading out of the bedroom and down the hall to the bathroom.

Where he kept all his shit.

It wasn’t much.

A few pants.

Shirts.

Nothing important, though.

Everything else, he kept on him.

“Renzo, you can’t go—”

Lucia’s quiet voice reminded him that she was still there. He could hear her hesitance, the worry. He didn’t want her to sound like that at all, but here they were.

Spinning around to face her in the dimly lit hallway, he said, “I can’t go? I absolutely can and will go. There is one thing in this life that is mine, and that is him. He is my life. What, you want me to sit around and wait for her to report me to CPS? For them to just come around someday and take him from me? You think she won’t, and you are wrong. I have only gotten by this long taking care of him because I have kept moving. I have kept her away, so people didn’t know what it was like for us. Not that it would matter—nobody ever looks too long at people like us, anyway, right? But when they do, they just hurt us.”

Renzo shook his head, saying, “Who is going to take him if someone comes here and removes him from my custody? His sister? Rose is seventeen, and still in school. We don’t have any other family that would be willing to take him. An uncle in San Francisco, but he doesn’t want anything to do with his sister’s mess, or her shit. Meaning us. Where does that leave Diego, Lucia?”

She opened her mouth to speak, but he beat her to the punch.

“To the system,” he spat. “That’s where he will go. And I will never get him back.”

“Ren—”

“This is my life, Lucia. It’s not a nice place to live, but here we are. So please don’t fucking tell me what I can and can’t do to protect my brother. Okay? Just don’t.”

He turned around, and headed for the bathroom to grab his shit.

Lucia’s voice followed behind him, never once fading as she kept in step with him. “I was going to say that you can’t go without me, actually.”

Renzo almost missed a step as he came to the bathroom doorway. “What?”

“You can’t go without me, Ren. You’re wrong—you have two things. I’m yours, too, remember? You can’t go without me.”

There was panic in her voice.

High, and unmistakable.

It cut him deep. Like a knife right to his heart.

He didn’t turn around, but she came up behind him anyway. Those small, soft hands of hers pressing against his back was a momentary relief from the hell his life had just turned into.

“You should go home,” he murmured, “back to your family. They’re right, you know? I’m not good for you, Lucia. This isn’t good for you. This isn’t your life.”

“Ren—”

He spun around, so he could stare her right in the face, and maybe then, she might hear him when he told her the hard facts about him and her. “This isn’t your life.”

“But you are,” she whispered, coming close and grabbing hold of his jacket with both hands like she was terrified that if she let go, he might disappear. “You’re my life. You know what I realized today? I got up this morning, and I was looking at my calendar. It took thirty-six fucking days for my entire life to change. Do you know that? It’s been thirty-six days since I met you, and nothing is ever going to be the same, Ren. You did that. And now you want to tell me that I have to do all this alone? I’m not me without you, and all it took was thirty-six days.”

“Lucia—”