I knew Corabelle was walking across the stage and that they wouldn’t be calling my name. I wondered if she’d think of where I should have been, the people I would have stood between.

I drove back to the border about the time my classmates would be tossing their caps in the air. I waited across the street as Rosa locked up the farmacia, and this time I followed her a block before calling out her name.

When she turned, I saw something about her was different. Instead of looking at me with concern and patronizing patience, she actually seemed happy.

She ran down the street to me, but stopped a few feet short. “Gavin! You are here!”

I took one step toward her, and she lost her shyness, throwing her arms around me. I didn’t understand it, but just having someone who knew my name and was excited to see me made everything better.

“No hotel now?” she asked, glancing back the way we’d come, to the shabby place I’d called home that first week.

I shook my head. “I got a job in San Diego. I live there now.”

She smiled and led me farther down the street. “I live close. We go there.”

“You sure that’s okay?”

“I live with my brother, but he is not home.”

Something about her joy at walking with me put a little lightness in my own step. I followed her into the gap between the buildings and through the foyer I would later come to know so well.

The first time we trudged up those dirty stairs, I remember wishing I could do something to help her, get her out of these terrible conditions. But when we were inside her apartment with the colorful wall hangings and paper flowers, I realized she was happy there, close to work and making her own way.

I walked around her place, looking at the pictures and statues of the Virgin Mary, candles, and trinkets. She got two beers from her fridge, and we clinked the bottles together like we were old friends.

When I sat on the sofa, she perched awkwardly at the other end. I remember thinking that was an odd way for a prostitute, but she’d always had that innocent quality, even on the street, and of course, the other times we’d been together, nothing had happened. Maybe she didn’t know quite what to make of me.

I drank the beer and smiled at her, wondering what you said to a hooker you were ready to make a move on. I had zero experience. I hadn’t been with a single girl other than Corabelle, and we always made things up as we went along.

“Come over here,” I said to her.

She shifted over and laid her head against me like we had before. I thought of Corabelle again, her big night, probably no longer really caring that she’d lost the top spot to Charles, maybe not even listening to his speech. I wondered if she would give one after all. When Finn died, nothing else seemed to matter anymore. Little things like a commencement speech held zero meaning.

My mood plummeted and that ache I’d felt in the hotel on that first night threatened to overtake everything else. I couldn’t go back, couldn’t change things. I just had to charge forward.

I set the beer on the floor and pulled Rosa harder against me, turning her around so her legs crossed over my thighs. Her waist was small, and I let my fingers wander across her ribs. She had more give than Corabelle did before she was pregnant. I caught myself comparing them and forced myself to shut off the flow of thoughts.

Rosa wore a simple sundress with a tie in the back. I reached around and tugged on the bow, letting the fabric go loose around her. She looked up at me with big round eyes, her lashes heavy and dark. She didn’t wear a lot of makeup, but that was just for the farmacia. She’d been colored up when I saw her that first night. I was just catching her early.

I wasn’t sure if kissing on the lips was all right, so I aimed for her neck. Her throat was soft and hot, and now I could move faster, pushing the dress over her knees and spreading my hands over her skin.

Rosa shivered a little, and I remember thinking — she can play the part. But when I had the dress up and over her head, I realized she couldn’t be that experienced, she couldn’t have been at the game long. She was too earnest, held my gaze too long, and the way she welcomed me to her, seeming to really want me with her, kept bringing back the same feelings I had for Corabelle rather than what I’d expected with someone paid to be there.

I almost couldn’t do it. There was too much past in the room, and not enough distance. I couldn’t separate the sex from the emotion any more than I had before.

But Rosa got it. She knew it was hard, and she took control then, stroking my face and kissing my hair. She touched me like a lover would, not a stranger, and when her mouth met mine, I just let everything fall away, eyes closed, like I could be anywhere, like I could be home.

When she straddled me, I sank right into the passion of it, relieved to connect with someone. Only later, too late, did I remember the condoms in my wallet and that with this woman I had to protect myself.

Afterward Rosa curled against me like a girl rather than someone jaded about sex. And so I held her and let the moment go. The sounds of night life heating up drifted in from the windows, and I wondered if she’d take on someone else that night, more than one. A wave of revulsion washed over me, wiping out the tenderness. I sat her up and reached for my clothes.

She snapped out of whatever had her so sensitive, jumping off the sofa and dragging her dress back over her head. I didn’t want to pay her only the few dollars she’d asked for the other times, and so I laid an amount on her table that I thought was hopefully enough.

As I headed down the stairs, my anger at the whole situation threatened to boil over. I’d done this thing, broken away from my past. It was time to stop thinking about Corabelle and the life I’d left behind. I’d figure out a new future and a new path. If I wanted to rut into street walkers, I would. If I wanted to bet on pool, or get in bar fights, or be the asshole my father showed me I could be, then it just didn’t matter.

I wasn’t going to let any of the bullshit matter.

When I first opened the door out into the night, a couple guys looked at me like I might be an easy mark. But I was scrappier than they figured, and after a couple punches and a bit of blood on all sides, I felt initiated. I would come back to Tijuana again and again, and each time I’d piss off somebody different and live to tell about it. I’d see Rosa, maybe another girl, maybe two at once.

Nobody would tell me what the hell I ought to do. I didn’t owe anybody anything.

As I walked back to Bud’s, the anger of that night threatened to take over the control I’d reestablished since Corabelle came back. How many stupid things could I do in one month? Walk out of my kid’s funeral, get sliced by who knows what sort of illegal doc, then screw a hooker without a condom.

I’d checked out fine after, no bonus diseases, and they’d certified me as properly snipped.

But that was weeks later. That one time with Rosa was definitely in the window. Damn it, why hadn’t she protected herself?

But then Corabelle had been on the shot. Maybe I had jiz of steel.

I pulled out my phone and stared at the picture again. Surely it couldn’t be. I’d seen Rosa pretty often for the next few weeks, between rounds of drinking and raising hell in various bars, until I cracked the radiator block on the Camaro. I spent pretty much every dime getting it running again so I could keep going to work, since the night shift meant the buses were shut down.

In fact, everything went south after that. I had to pay tuition, then books. I eventually sold the car and bought a junker to cover the next quarter. Eventually I dropped to fewer credits because I couldn’t afford full-time tuition. Then even the junker had to go, so I walked.