Even in the wee hours of the morning, Yadriel knew sleep wouldn’t come easy. His relationship with it was always tenuous at best. The events of the night buzzed through him restlessly.
In the span of a few hours, he’d gotten his own portaje and been blessed by Lady Death with the powers of the brujo. And he was still worried about Miguel. The grief of losing his cousin didn’t feel real yet. On top of all that, he’d summoned a spirit and was now harboring a dead boy in his room.
Yadriel didn’t manage to fall asleep until he put a pillow over his head with Julian’s muffled voice wondering whether ghosts got wet when it rained. A couple of times, rummaging sounds nearly pulled Yadriel back to consciousness, but then he always slipped back under.
When his alarm went off in the morning, Yadriel groaned into his arm. He felt even more exhausted than before he’d fallen asleep. He rolled over, hand blindly reaching to hit snooze on his phone. With effort, he forced his bleary eyes open.
To find a black pair staring back at him.
Yadriel thrashed and scrambled back, hitting the back of his head on the edge of the window. In his panic, he’d accidentally kicked Purrcaso off the foot of the bed. As his alarm continued to blare, Purrcaso cried from the floor.
“FINALLY!” Julian burst out, annoyed but smiling as he leaped to his feet. “I’ve been—dude, stop screaming—I’ve been waiting for FOREVER!”
Yadriel’s heartbeat hammered painfully in his chest, unable to comprehend anything Julian was saying. He snatched his phone and killed the alarm. Purrcaso stopped her indignant meowing and sat on the dresser, cleaning her paw. Yadriel squeezed his eyes shut, willing the throbbing in his head to stop.
He strained to listen for any signs from his family, wondering if someone had heard his shout, but there was only the distant bumping of his abuelita’s Tejano music from the kitchen.
“Are you even listening to me?” Julian demanded.
“No.” Yadriel squinted an eye open to look up at him. In his sleepy daze, it took a moment for Yadriel to remember he was a spirit. Standing there in the middle of his room, arms crossed and frowning, Julian looked very real and alive. But then Yadriel blinked, refocusing his vision enough to spot the telltale signs: blurry edges and the cool draft in the air around him.
“I said, I’ve been practicing!” Julian huffed. The amount of energy he had this early in the morning was obscene.
Yadriel sat upright, pushing back the mass of dark hair that had flopped into his eyes. “Practicing?” he croaked.
Julian’s scowl was quickly replaced with a sharp smile.
He swung back and forth between his emotions so quickly, Yadriel was bound to get whiplash.
“Look!” Falling into the chair, Julian hunched over the desk and pinched his fingers around a crumpled-up ball of paper. It was one of Yadriel’s failed attempts at math homework from the day before.
“Look, look, look!” Face screwed up in concentration, slowly, he lifted the ball of paper. Julian turned to Yadriel, a triumphant grin splitting his face. “See?”
Julian’s eyes burned with wild energy. Yadriel was starting to think it was less up-all-night delirium and more just, well, Julian.
“Good job,” Yadriel grumbled, sitting up and rubbing at his temples, warding off a headache.
The ball of paper dropped back to the desk. Julian scowled. “I worked on that all night, man!”
“What? I said, ‘good job,’” Yadriel replied, thumbing through the notifications on his phone to make sure he hadn’t gotten any important messages. Nothing about Miguel. Worry dug into his headache. Had they really not found him yet?
“Tch,” Julian hissed between his teeth. He slumped moodily in the chair, propping his shoes up on the mattress. The white rubber of his Converse were dirty and cracked, and there was a large hole torn in the bottom of one.
When Yadriel moved to the edge of his bed and put his feet on the floor, he stepped on something sharp. “Ouch—what the—?” Yadriel’s eyes bulged when he finally took in the state of his room.
Well, now he was awake.
It looked like a bomb had gone off. Or maybe just a human hurricane named Julian Diaz.
“What the hell happened in here?” Yadriel demanded, picking up the unfolded paper clip stuck to the bottom of his foot. It was just one of maybe two dozen that lay scattered across the carpet.
“Got bored,” Julian said simply.
Yadriel shifted through the debris. Had he really been tired enough to sleep through all this? “Right.” His room was a little messy, sure, but it was organized chaos. The mess Julian had made was just … chaos.
“You got shitty taste in music, by the way,” Julian told him, his tone matter-of-fact as he nodded to Yadriel’s ancient iPhone that lay on the rumpled sleeping bag. The earbuds were dirty, and they crackled if he turned the volume up too loud. It had been a hand-me-down from his brother, and Yadriel used it to store his music, since there wasn’t enough space on his newer phone.
“No I don’t!” he said, feeling oddly defensive as he picked it up and stuffed it back into a drawer. His yearbook and old notebooks were on his unmade bed next to a Sharpie and more balls of paper.
Yadriel held up the tattered notebooks and glared at Julian. “Did you go through my stuff?”
Julian blinked. “Uh … what?” His ears burned red.
It was the guiltiest face Yadriel had ever seen.
“Don’t go through my stuff!”
“I didn’t!” Julian spluttered.
“You’re a terrible liar,” Yadriel growled and stuffed the notebooks back in their place on the shelf.
“It’s not like I had anything else to do,” Julian groused, kicking his feet up onto the bed.
“Don’t put your shoes on my bed!” Yadriel snapped.
“They’re ghost shoes, they can’t get your bed dirty!” Julian pointed out.
If Yadriel could’ve shoved Julian’s legs, he would’ve. But he had to settle on a death glare instead.
“So, what’s the plan, patrón?” Julian asked, unbothered.
Yadriel stood and went to the closet. “The plan is for me to go to school,” he said, digging around for a clean shirt. “And for you to stay here.”
“Wait, wait, wait—what?” Julian demanded, waving his hands. “Are you serious? Why are you going to school? We need to go find my friends!”
“I’ll look for them at school,” Yadriel said.
Julian gave him a withering look. “They’re not gonna be at school!”
Yadriel ignored him and tried to straighten up the mess. He grabbed his jeans off the floor and gave them a shake. There was some cemetery dust on them, but other than that, they were clean enough.
“Hey, are you listening to me?” Julian stood up. “I will lose it if you try to keep me here all day!” He held up a finger. “You wanna be haunted? ’Cause, swear to God, you ditch me here I’ll haunt you for the rest of forever!”
“You are being so dramatic right now,” Yadriel told him, shaking his head.
Julian groaned and smacked his palm against his forehead. “Look at me! Begging to go to school!” He collapsed onto the bed, his arm thrown over his face.