"Tío"

Diego Batista sits on the edge of his bed with the .45 pressed to his right temple, waiting for the right moment to pull the trigger but, once he finally readies himself to do it, he hesitates again.

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath that is supposed to calm him, but he just ends up breathing faster and eventually hyperventilates. His eyes open and he hunches forward to steady his breathing and stays down until the fuzziness in his head clears and he can hear noises from the street coming through the window.

A whole world out there, a whole world that doesn’t care.

He thinks that thought and his face crumples into a frown, into an explosion of tears and he weeps haplessly. When he tries to stop, that makes it worse and he cries harder.

When he finally stopped crying, he licks his lips absentmindedly, tasting sweet salt while looking at the gun with disgust held at it and himself before setting it down on the nightstand.

He loathed this familiar feeling of despair and wretchedness but, most of the time he just felt so useless and unwanted, especially whenever he thought of Angelique.

Her beauty haunted him and her smile, once so loving, seemed like a cruel sneer and her once warm laughter rang in his ears coldly like wicked mockery.

She was the first girl he ever loved and he, being young and foolish, loved with all his heart. He thought the feeling was mutual and that they were meant to live happily ever after like the prince and princess did at the end of the fairytales his older sister used to read him and his other siblings before she tucked them away and left for the night.

He thought her true; loyal, loving and true, and dreamed of her being his wife and him being her husband, until he caught her with another man. He was angry at her but, was stung and sobered when she showed no remorse for her actions and cursed at him with her own rage.

She told him that he was still a little boy and she didn’t play house with little boys.

That cut him severely and even after those many years, he still couldn’t get over the betrayal and hurt.

Diego did a lot of drinking to forget about her and it was a slight respite from the depression, but when he woke up the wrenching heartache was back, accompanied now by a hammering headache.

He thinks about her now and new tears begin to sting his blood-pink eyes.

“Tío?”

A blurred shape that he recognized as his niece was standing before him now and the tears had pooled and slid down in rivers of shame. He pressed his palms to his eyes and rubbed them as she approached closer with those sparkling emeralds of concern.

He felt so selfish.

Here he was contemplating suicide, though he was sure he was never man enough to do it, and here was this sweet, innocent girl who loved him and who needed him. He probably needed her more than she needs him, truth be told.

He was a pathetic man while Beatriz proved herself to be a responsible girl with a good head on her shoulders and took her mother’s death very well, even though she didn’t understand the true concept of death.

He looks at her with the light coming in from the street and realizes how much she looks like her mother did at that age, so much like a woman, so mature.

“Did I wake you, baby?” Surprisingly, his voice is not broken with emotion; he’s learned to talk through tears.

“No, I was waiting up for you.”

The stinging returns and his face crumples again slightly.

Oh Beatriz, you’re too much for my heart to take.

He musters a half-hearted smile.

“You shouldn’t do that, you’re missing your beauty rest. But then I guess a girl like you doesn’t have much use for that.”

She smiles and blushes slightly, that makes his heart lighten.

“Oh Tío”, she’s so coy at compliments, “I worried.”

Oh, she worries for me. She’s the only one who cares, loves, matters.

Suddenly, before he can restrain himself from doing otherwise, he explodes into tears again. Cries and cries and cries. Beatriz tries to console him, she hugs him around the neck and he at first does nothing, but then hugs one arm around her waist.

“It’s ok, it’s ok.” She sounds like a mother and he a child.

He calms down after awhile and she continues to hold and comfort him while he sniffles. Her chest is pressed against his and he can’t help but notice the firmness. He holds her tighter.

How old is she, fifteen? Sixteen? She’s growing into a woman and one day she’ll be a woman and then leave him like Dolores, like Angelique.

Anger blossoms from somewhere dark and grows, accelerated by the alcohol. He’s mad at her now and he doesn’t know why, just consumed by some unwholesome wrath and he pushes her away callously.

She looks at him confused, though no stranger to his sudden changes, just not accustomed, but before she can say anything, he backhands her in the mouth and grabs her arm to hold her up to openhandedly slap her on the other side of her mouth and throws her on the ground.

She looks up at him frozen in fright, her abused mouth gaped open in surprise as he stands and looms over her.

“You’re a whore! Just like all of them, you slut! GET OUT!! GET THE FUCK OUT!!! NOW!!!”

He makes a motion to stomp on her, but she scampers in a crawl out of his room and he slams the door after her.

He sits on the bed again, angry now at himself and cries again, completely feeling worse than shit.

He was shit. Why did he do that to her? She is the only one who loves him, cares for me, matters to him. He mistreats her all the time and she just takes it and forgives him, still loves him, still cares.

He eyes that pistol again and grabs it, puts the barrel in his mouth, and closes his eyes, convinced that he can do it now. He’s proved to himself that he’s not a man.

Angelique was right.