Ashes Learned Human Names novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Green Bracelet
At her hospital bed Rafael offers his family's emerald and asks for her bead. Paulina visits on camera, and Lucia finds the IV bag has been swapped.
Rafael Castellanos held his grandmother's emerald bracelet over the hospital blanket, in front of the whole ward.
"Lucia, I'm not asking you to be brave," he said. "I'm asking you to let me pay for every surgeon in Houston."
The bandage pulled across the left side of her face when she looked up.
"My grandmother wore this on her wedding day," he said. "Now it's yours."
He had a nurse, an orderly and six strangers listening, and he did not lower his voice.
"I want one bead off your bracelet in return. Just one, to keep."
"When they discharge you, we announce our engagement."
Lucia stared at the green stones in his hand.
The room tilted.
She knew this bed, this ceiling tile with the brown stain, and this nurse with the squeaky shoes.
She knew the next thing Rafael would say.
Last time, she had given him the bead, and within the week he was gone and never came back.
Last time, she was discharged to a dorm room that smelled of smoke, then lost her scholarship, then lost her name.
Last time, she died at twenty-five in a rented room, with an infection she couldn't afford to treat.
She held up her left hand and saw the thin wrist of an eighteen-year-old.
The date on the whiteboard said Wednesday.
Three days since the acid.
The woman in the next bed was watching a phone propped against her water cup.
On the screen, a girl in a white dress fell off a stage while another girl's hands reached for her arm.
"That's her," the woman whispered to her husband. "That's the one who shoved her best friend."
Four million views, Lucia remembered.
Her mother's rosary bracelet was still on her right wrist, wound twice, small crystal beads and a silver cross.
Rafael waited.
Lucia knew exactly who he was.
He was the grandson of the old woman she read to every Sunday for pay.
He was also the older half-brother of Gabriel Castellanos.
Gabriel was the campus golden boy who had held the library door for her all semester.
He was also the boy she had filmed slipping a pill into a girl's drink at the spring party.
Gabriel was the reason there was a video of her at all.
If she married into the Castellanos family, Gabriel would have to come through his own brother to reach her.
So she took the bracelet.
She slid one crystal bead off the string and put it in Rafael's palm.
His fingers closed around it, and his eyes filled.
"It's the lights in here," he said, and wiped them with his thumb.
He did not ask what had happened at the party.
He did not ask who had done this to her.
"I need my phone," Lucia said. "A nurse bagged it Monday. It's at the desk."
"Done," Rafael said.
"And nobody touches my IV except the doctor or you."
"Done," he said again, with no questions, and walked out to the desk.
She watched the door swing shut behind him.
The woman in the next bed leaned over the rail.
"Honey, a man like that won't stay engaged to the acid girl," she said. "Don't get your hopes up."
Lucia did not answer her.
Then it swung open, and Paulina Ibarra came in with her arms full.
Soft blanket, phone charger, a paper bag of tamales still steaming.
Paulina cried before she reached the bed.
"Lucy, I've been out of my mind," she said. "I haven't slept since Monday."
She poured water into a cup and held the straw to Lucia's lips.
"Don't read the comments, okay? I reported every single one."
Lucia drank.
The water tasted of nothing, and she remembered Paulina holding this same cup last time, with this same sad face.
Paulina was her roommate and best friend.
She was also holding her phone up in one hand with the camera light on.
"Everybody, she's awake," Paulina told the lens, wiping her cheek. "I forgive her. She's my best friend and I forgive her."
The woman in the next bed made a small, pleased sound.
Lucia looked straight into the camera.
"I'm awake," she said. "I remember everything. Every minute."
Paulina's smile did not move.
She tapped the screen, and the red light went out.
She set the tamales on the tray and bent as if to hug Lucia, her hair falling across the bandage.
Her mouth was at Lucia's good ear.
"Nobody's going to believe a girl with that face," she whispered.
Then she kissed Lucia's forehead and straightened up.
"Call me if you need anything, babe," she said at full volume, and left.
On her way out she had stopped beside the IV pole for a moment, to fix the tubing.
Lucia looked up at it.
A fresh bag was hanging there, with a fresh label.
She read it twice.
The chart on the foot of the bed said cefazolin, the antibiotic her doctor had ordered.
The bag said potassium chloride.
The pump clicked, and the line in her arm began to run cold.
She pulled the needle out of her own vein.
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend