Page 26 of Dirty

“Why?” I asked.

“Why what?”

“Why do I make you nervous?”

“Not sure,” he said. “Didn’t really notice it until now.”

To think I made someone as big and as tough as Cholo nervous made me smile inside. I slouched into the corner of the couch. “What’s your real name?”

“Adam.”

“Adam what?”

“Downey.”

“Downey? Is that Irish?”

He nodded. “Yep.”

“You’re Irish?”

“Half Irish, half Hispanic.”

I sat up. “Your half--” I started to say Mexican, and caught myself mid-sentence. “Your half Hispanic?”

Every muscle in my body tensed. I found the thought of it a little repulsive.

“Yep.”

I looked at him with disbelief. “Really?”

He folded his arms over his chest and nodded. “Really.”

I nodded toward him. “Mrs. Kelley says when we cross our arms like that it’s because we’re protecting ourselves. It means we feel vulnerable or insecure. Do you not like it that you’re half-Hispanic?”

Immediately, I realized he could be uncomfortable for many other reasons, including being half-Irish, and felt like an idiot for asking.

“You’re not shy, are you?”

I shot him an innocent look. “Sorry.”

He uncrossed his legs, but it didn’t last. “Who’s Mrs. Kelley?”

“She’s my counselor.”

He looked around the room. “Not particularly.”

“Not particularly, as in you don’t particularly like it that you’re Hispanic?”

“Half-Hispanic.” He reached for the bill of his hat and starting messing with it. “And no, I don’t care for it much.”

“Why not?”

“In school, the whites looked at me as a spic, and the Mexicans looked at me as white. No one really accepted me. That’s part of the reason I ended up fighting so much.”

“But it’s part of you. Without it, you’d be someone else. Can you imagine being someone else? That’d be weird.”

“I can’t imagine it now, no. When I was a kid, I imagined it every day.”