“Take some credit, Héctor!” she said, slapping him on the arm with the back of her hand. “You helped out Sal big time. We both did.”

Warmth spread through him, as his phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out to see a text from his mami:

No te preocupes mijo, pero tu abuela se cayó. It wasn’t a bad fall and she’s fine, but I’m coming to get you. besitos xoxox

Despite his mother’s request, a burst of fear hit him in the stomach. “Uh, my mom is coming to get me,” he announced. “Family emergency.”

“Go, go!” said Juliana. “I’ll see you soon?”

“I hope so,” he said.

Héctor popped back into his school, and the bell rang. He looked at his phone again: 9:34 a.m. Pre-algebra was about to start. He and Juliana had saved Sal’s library in a whopping zero minutes.

Héctor was overjoyed by this, but as he made for the front office, fear began to creep in. He hoped his abuela was okay.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Héctor did not like hospitals.

Truthfully, he didn’t know anyone who actually enjoyed them, but they always gave him the creeps. The main hospital in Orangevale felt so lifeless; whoever had designed it had barely used a scrap of color anywhere.

He sat at the end of Abuela’s bed, his phone in his hand. He kept unlocking it and then . . . nothing. He didn’t want to look at his unread messages in his old group chat with Tim and Sophia. A game might have kept him distracted while he waited, but he wasn’t in the mood. Abuela wasn’t even going to be here very long—her nurse had said that they just wanted to check one X-ray before releasing her—but each second stretched out and seemed to last forever.

Abuela Sonia had a gown on over her regular clothes, but one leg of her jeans had been pulled up, and bandages were wrapped tightly around her ankle. He’d never seen someone’s ankle so terribly swollen, and it worried him. This whole place worried him. His parents had told him that Abuela had just had a nasty sprain, and it wasn’t anything serious. Yet being here, in a place so clean and boring and clinical . . . it made him nervous. What if it got worse? What if the doctors had missed something?

“Héctor.”

He looked up to meet his abuela’s eyes. She looked so tired, but she still managed to raise an eyebrow in concern. “You doing okay over there?” she asked.

He fidgeted in his chair. “Yeah. I guess.”

Abuela winked at his mami and papi. “Give us a moment, will you?”

Mami kissed his forehead as she left, and Papi ruffled his hair. “Pull your chair up next to me, nieto,” said Abuela. “You’re too far!”