The Luis Ortega Survival Club

by Sonora Reyes

Genres: YA Coming of Age; YA Contemporary

Synopsis

Not Yet Available

Release date: May 23, 2023

Publisher: HarperCollins

Print pages: 320

Sample

ONE

The driver looks at me like he knows exactly what I just did. I run my fingers through my cold, sweaty hair and smooth out my black dress for the millionth time since I walked out of that party. The cute wrap dress with slits revealing some of the skin on my ribcage gave me the confidence to break out of my shell, which I’m now wishing I never did. I’ve been waiting outside for a while now, numb to the music thumping from inside the house behind me. Numb to the chatter from the backyard and to the buzzing on my phone from Luis texting me to forget the ride and come back inside.

Waiting in the cold was better than spending one more second at that sensory hell of a party. Besides, it’s not like Phoenix gets freezing cold, even in February. I step in the car, and the driver sizes me up through the rearview mirror.

“Uh . . . Luis, is it?”

I break eye contact with the mirror and stare at the cup holder in the backseat filled with breath mints—he must really want a five-star rating. I’m definitely not Luis, but he doesn’t need to know that. Luis called a rideshare for me since he’s eighteen and I wanted to leave. I know I’m not technically allowed to be in this car without an adult, but I’ll take whatever trouble I might get in for taking this ride over being that close to Luis again. All I want to do is go home and sleep. No, I want to shower first. I smell like Luis, and for once, I’m not enjoying that smell.

The driver clears his throat. I force myself to make eye contact with his reflection in the mirror and nod.

Can the driver see your picture when you use the app? Aside from our similar medium-brown skin tones, I look nothing like Luis. I don’t have his pretty gray eyes, and my straight-haired bob looks nothing like his curly fade. Plus, he’s tall and fit while I’m five one and thick as hell with big ole scoliosis boobs. But I could be Luis, as far as this driver knows. Hopefully he can’t tell I’m only sixteen.

After another quick look down from the mirror, he finally chuckles and starts driving. Thank God.

“Okay, Luis. Where are we headed?”

I don’t answer. Isn’t the driver supposed to know where they’re going? Luis put my address in. Does he want to know if we’re going to my house? The thought of a random driver knowing where I live makes my skin crawl.

“So . . . how was your night?” the driver asks. I look out the window instead of answering and watch the party house disappear as we turn the corner. I hope I never have to see that house again.

If I could bring myself to answer his question, I’d say my night sucked. Like, really sucked. I’d say I had sex for the first time, and I hated every second of it. I made an enemy out of Shawni, too. Shawni, aka the nicest girl I’ve ever met. She lent me a pencil last month when I forgot to bring one to class, and she sometimes holds the door open for me. Okay, she holds it open for lots of people, but still. Now she probably wants to kill me. She told me to stay away from Luis and I didn’t, even though I knew she wasn’t over him after their breakup.

I’m a terrible person.

“Quiet type, huh?” the driver asks. He has no idea. If he keeps asking questions, this will be an awkward ride, because I literally don’t talk.

My mom says I won’t, but I just don’t. Not to anyone besides my parents and sometimes my journalism teacher, Mrs. Jones—but other times I can’t even talk to any of them. My parents don’t believe in psychiatrists or therapy or doctors or any of that “big pharma” crap, so Google diagnosed me. Autism with a heavy dose of selective mutism, I’m pretty sure.

I used to think of myself as the Little Mermaid, whose voice was stolen by a sea witch. My voice comes back when I feel completely safe, which is really only ever at home. It makes having a social life in high school pretty much impossible. Which is why this party was such a big deal. No one ever expected me to actually show up.

Luis is the only person who ever tries to talk to me. He says he doesn’t mind that I don’t talk back. He’s always been so nice to me.

I wish he hadn’t been.

It would make hating him right now a lot easier. But he’s always made me feel special somehow, ever since the first time he spoke to me. The first time anyone at school did.

I remember the day he first introduced himself to me at the beginning of the school year. I was sitting alone at lunch and he took the seat across fro

m me.

“Ariana, right?” he’d said. “I’m Luis.” He’d said my name with a hard r, like my mom always insists on.

I blushed and nodded.

“You look lonely.” The dimple on his left cheek deepened. “Are you?”

I shook my head no and smiled. Not then, I wasn’t.

“You don’t have to say anything, Ariana. I just want to look at you.”

At the time, I thought it was sweet that he didn’t mind my silence. Now I feel like that’s the reason he liked me.

He didn’t even ask me if I wanted to have sex with him. Just kind of assumed. I mean, I did . . . I think. Maybe not, I don’t know. He should have asked. Is that a thing? Don’t people ask before having sex? It should be a thing if it’s not.

“Rough night?” the driver asks. I almost forgot he was there.

He probably wasn’t expecting me to burst into tears at the question. I don’t even know why I’m crying. I had a crush on Luis before he ever spoke to me. Everyone does. This is all I wanted, for someone to pay attention to me. And he did more than pay attention to me. So why do I hate myself right now?

“Woah, look, it’s going to be alright . . .” He gives me an awkward smile like someone is holding him at gunpoint to make him comfort me. I wipe my nose with my arm and cry into my hands as the car slows down.

We pull up to my apartment complex, and I’m out of the car the second it stops. I wave a quick goodbye and run to my building, not bothering to wipe the tears flooding from my eyes. I’m sure I would be making a scene if there were anyone around to see, but the apartment complex is dead right now. When I reach my building, I can’t bring myself to go up the stairs. I hope my parents are already asleep because I don’t want to face their questions. I don’t want to talk about any of this, ever.

Instead of going up, I sit on the steps in the cold and throw up between my knees on the cement.

TWO

 

When I finally gather the courage to go inside, the lights are already out. I can hear my mom snoring from her spot on the couch, where she’s been sleeping on and off for the last year or so, ever since my dad caught her cheating. The only one who greets me is my black cat, Boo, who mews and rubs herself on my calf.

“Shhh . . .” I whisper as I crouch down to pet her. If I don’t, she won’t stop meowing and it’ll wake up my mom. It’s too dark to see, so I use my phone to light the way to the bathroom. I tiptoe across the living room and down the hall to keep the floorboards from creaking as I make my way to the safety of the bathroom and quietly shut the door.

I’m so not looking forward to tomorrow when my parents will ask me about the party and the first boy—person—I ever brought over to the house. I’m not looking forward to Monday when I’ll see Luis at school. And I’m really not looking forward to seeing Shawni.

If she didn’t hate me before the party, she definitely does now. I think she put together what was happening before I did. The music and all the people at the party were giving me a sensory overload, making my skin crawl and my ears burn. I thought Luis was being considerate by taking me to a quiet room. When we were heading into the room together, Shawni happened to be coming out of the bathroom. She looked like she was going to cry when she saw Luis and me. Then she looked angry.

“What are you doing with her?” she had asked. Ouch.

“We’re just gonna talk,” he’d said.

And I believed him.

Shawni clearly didn’t. She just ran out the door and left. I didn’t get why she was upset then. I thought we were just getting away from the noise.

No one saw us go in the room but Shawni. Maybe no one else has to find out.

I don’t see Luis as the type to go running his mouth, but I text him anyway.

Me: Please don’t tell anyone what happened, okay?

I put my phone down on the sink and take off my clothes, ready to wash Luis’s touch off my body. I stare at what would have been the bathroom mirror but is now completely hidden by a sheet taped to the edges. My mom covered all the mirrors in the house about a year ago. It annoyed me for a while, but tonight, I’m grateful to not have to look at my naked body. Somehow I think seeing myself the way Luis saw me tonight would just make me throw up again.

I hop in the shower and turn on the water as hot as it’ll go. It takes a while to warm up, but when it does, it’s hot enough to singe Luis’s smell from my skin. I should have listened to Shawni. She tried to warn me. Whether she did it out of jealousy or to look out for me, she was right.

“In case you didn’t already know, he’s using you.” Shawni had come up to me the moment Luis left to get a drink at the party.

I rolled my eyes. She thought I was a rebound. And maybe she was right. But I’d never been anyone’s anything before, so being someone’s rebound was actually kind of exciting. If it turned out he had real feelings, I would probably die from exploding into glitter and rainbows. Especially when Luis could be with Shawni. I wasn’t exactly in her league.

Shawni was gorgeous in a really effortless way. Her long box braids were tied in a low ponytail under her left ear. She didn’t wear makeup or dress fancy or anything, but she was so hard to look away from. You could tell she was a dancer just by her appearance. Her posture, plus the shadows of muscle shaping her dark skin, gave her away. I looked at the ground instead of at Shawni when I realized I was staring, and tried not to think about how I was competing with her right now.

She kept talking, so I didn’t bother getting out my phone to type out a response.

“Stay away from him, okay? I’m serious.” I thought it was weird how she threatened me and gave me a sympathetic look at the same time. I didn’t need her fake pity.

Shawni’s going to kill me.

The look she gave me made me feel like she didn’t believe I could be with someone like Luis. But the truth was that I could. She just didn’t want me to be. Yesterday, being with Luis was all I could think about, but now thinking about him makes me sick.

I scrub everywhere Luis touched. My face. Hips. Thighs. Breasts. And . . .

I scrub so hard it hurts, but I still don’t feel clean. When my hands are too tired to keep scrubbing, I fall onto the shower floor and hug my knees, letting the hot water hit my back. I don’t know how long I’m sitting there like that, but by the time I get up, my skin is pruned and the water is cold. When I finally turn the water off and take a step out of the shower, my foot slides on the shower floor and I end up on my back.

“Fuck!” I shout. I don’t mean to be so loud. Sometimes I can’t help it. When I go so long without making a sound, it has to come out in little bursts. And right now, I need to let it out. I pull a towel over my face and cover my mouth with it. Then I scream, hoping the towel will muffle the sound enough to keep from waking up my parents, if I haven’t woken them already.

My phone dings, and I’m scrambling out of the shower a second time. Luis’s name is on my screen. If he doesn’t agree to keep quiet, I don’t know what I’ll do. I’m afraid of what he might say: “Oops, too late, I already told everyone including Shawni and she’s going to murder you.”

My shoulders tighten and my throat dries at the thought. I open my lock screen to assess the damage.

Luis: Tell anyone what? ;)

I sigh out loud and sink back onto the floor in relief. No one has to know about this. I can just pretend like it never happened.

THREE

I spend Saturday locked in my room, not even getting out of bed to eat. Usually, when something’s bothering me, I get up and dance until I feel better. Or at least until I’m too tired to be upset. Today, though, I just can’t bring myself to move. I can barely get up to go to the bathroom. Today is not a dancing day. It’s a sulking day, and that’s okay. My dad knocks on my door around noon.

“You hungry, mija?” he asks. He’s rarely home on the weekends, and if it were any other day, I’d be jumping at the opportunity to spend time with him. He’s always been so good at making me feel better. He’s really easy to talk to—at least about problems that aren’t his own. Talking to him about what happened with my mom is like pulling teeth. I guess it’s not a problem he thinks he can solve. But I can’t move. I can’t even talk. Papi opens the door and peeks inside when I don’t answer. “You okay?”

I can’t look at him right now or I’ll cry again, so I pull my sheets over my face and roll over.

He sighs. “I guess you want to be left alone. ’Stá bien, mija. I’ll be here when you want to talk about it,” he says gently. The problem is, he won’t be. He’s never home, and I’m wasting my chance to take advantage of him being here.

I shut my eyes when the door closes, but it opens again just a few minutes later, and my mom walks in, sitting herself on the edge of my bed.

“Well?” she asks with an anticipatory smile on her face.

“Well what?” I ask.

“How was the party? How are you and Luis? He seems like such a nice boy!”

The mention of his name clogs my throat, and I can’t bring myself to utter another word, so I repeat what I did with my dad, pulling the covers over my head and rolling over.

My mom does not take the hint.

“May I?” she asks.

I let out an “aagh!” instead of the word no. She’s asking me if she can touch me, probably to rub my back through the blanket, but I can’t be touched right now.

There’s a long pause. “Okay, mija. Let me know when you want to talk . . .” She sounds sad, but I can’t think about her feelings right now.

I don’t pull the blanket off myself until she gets up and leaves my room, clicking the door closed behind her.

I don’t even bother feeling sorry for myself. I’m just numb. Just tired.

I’m not sure how much time I lose dissociating in my bed. Boo is sitting on my chest purring like she does when she’s worried about me. I heard cats don’t just purr when they’re happy, but they also purr when they’re stressed as a way of self-soothing. When I’m stressed, Boo sometimes snuggles up and purrs on my chest, and I think it’s her way of trying to make me feel better.

I stare at the dark spot in the ceiling where the white paint is peeling. And even though it doesn’t feel like that much time has passed, the setting sun lights my room with an orange tint from my bedroom window. The sounds of rush hour traffic outside are already dying down, and I still can’t move.

So I sleep.

Or try to. The sun goes down and the lights go out, but my mind won’t rest. I stay laying restlessly in bed for hours until I finally check my phone. It’s almost three in the morning. Thank God tomorrow’s Sunday. Today. Whatever.

I stretch out my leg, looking for Boo at the foot of it to bring me comfort, but she’s not there. I sigh and hunch over the side of my bed, peeking underneath it. Boo’s big green eyes stare back. Sometimes she sleeps underneath my bed, but I wish she’d just stay consistent.

“It’s okay, Boo,” I say, making kissy noises to try to coax her out from under the bed, but she doesn’t budge. I flop back down in bed and close my eyes, trying my best to fall back asleep, but it’s no use. My mind is too loud for sleep. All I can think about is last night. I keep replaying it in my head, wondering if there was something I could have done differently, but I come up blank every time. There’s no way I can sleep if I can’t get him out of my head.

I reach for my headphones on my nightstand and start playing my emo playlist on Spotify. This is what I usually listen to when I’m feeling shitty for any reason. After two songs I’m fully awake and fully emo, and I need to get it out somehow. I usually don’t just get up and dance in the middle of the night—it’s mostly a “get out my pent-up after-school anxiety” kind of thing,

 but I’m tired of lying in bed sulking, and a good dance vent seems like the only thing to get it all out of my head right now.

I sit up in bed, starting out just using my upper body, waving my arms around and throwing my head from side to side. But eventually my whole body wants to move, so I crawl out of bed. I put my hands on my knees and start flipping my hair wildly, and then I throw myself on the floor into a somersault. I get back on my feet and attack the air in front of me, punching and kicking and swinging my arms as close to on beat as I can manage. I pretend Luis is standing there, and that I wouldn’t feel guilty beating the shit out of him for how he made me feel last night.

For the first time, I give myself permission to fight. To feel my feelings where no one else can see. I throw myself onto the floor again and kick my foot in the air, then roll so I’m on my belly on the floor. I throw my head back and close my eyes, and then I let myself fall to the ground, and I just lie there for the rest of the song. I don’t realize I’m crying until the music fades out.

I let myself sob until I finally fall asleep, right there on the floor.

It isn’t until Monday rolls around that I’m forced to get out of bed. I snooze my alarm again and again until I completely run out of time to get ready. There’s no point in waking up early today. Besides, Boo is cuddled up next to me, and isn’t it against some kind of law to move a sleeping cat?

Usually, I wake up at least an hour before I have to leave for school so I can pick  out an outfit and straighten my hair. ...