His mom left the hospital for work the next morning.
He said, "Do you really have to work today? You barely got any sleep."
She shook her head, and brushed her hand through her son's curly hair. She looked into his eyes with her tender eyes, and communicated them. It was like she was saying, "If only I could."
She said, "While it's not like I haven't gone to work during the past two weeks, I haven't been enough..."
Alejandro remembered the bills they struggled with every month, and he couldn't help but worry about being homeless at the end of the week.
"And," his mom said, "I'd given up hope... I thought the last visit would be my last in a while. I didn't know how to pay for your hospital bills.... But, it's miraculous! The doctors say they've never heard of someone recovering as fast as you have. God truly does answer prayer! They said you can return home today since your broken shoulder is healing faster than normal."
Alejandro was silent. He couldn't ask how much it cost for her to pay for the last two weeks. They were on Medicare, but that insurance surely wasn't enough for all the hospital bills...
"I'll pick you up after work ends," she said, "sometime in the evening."
So, his mother left. He didn't know how to move forward except to get more powerful.
He thought to himself, 'I'll beat Alex and his friends so hard that they won't pick on me or anyone else ever again!'
Then, he sighed a big, long sigh.
"Too bad I can only get stronger at night..."
Then he berated himself for complaining. 'At least I have power'
He remembered the girl that committed suicide two weeks after her boyfriend spread pictures of her naked throughout the school. At that time in Alejandro's life, he went to a private school, and the boy's parents were rich enough to threaten the girl's family. Thankfully, the girl's parents were brave enough to talk to a journalist, and the boy was sent to juvenile detention. Random strangers even raised money online for a prosecutor. But... The girl couldn't be brought back to life, and the boy lived. Alejandro couldn't understand how a good God could let such terrible things happen.
He thought, 'Why me, God? Why not her?"
'But that's the past,' he thought, 'right....'
No one knew the answer except for God.
Then, he heard a knock at his door.
"It's the police. We're coming in. Just got a few questions."
Alejandro froze. He was strong, but he couldn't outrun a gun. He knew they wouldn't kill him in a hospital, but he had seen stories on the news and heard stories from the neighbors. He knew that there were officers who didn't care about your age when they shot. They only cared about the color of your skin. And though he knew they couldn't all be bad, just like all black people aren't good, he was afraid, from the marrow of his bones.