Things That Go Bump in the Night
Things That Go Bump in the Night
Episode: 4x06
Summary: When Roque can’t get to sleep one night, he discovers that he can’t keep his eyes closed anymore when it comes to Ivan and Julia.
Roque stared at the alarm clock on his nightstand. The red numbers glowed 11:17PM, which meant that he had been lying in bed for over an hour without sleeping.
The situation with Julia had gotten so complicated. For once, a smart, pretty girl was giving him the time of day, and his friends were making a mess of it. They seemed to forget that he didn’t have the same options that they did. Marcos, Vicky, Ivan and Carol took for granted that they were among the better looking kids at school, and no one seemed to know how Roque had found himself in league with them. If a cute girl like Julia also wanted to hang out with him, then maybe there was something special about him too.
Julia had been there when he thought the others had forgotten about Cayetano. She laughed at his bad jokes. She had risked everything to give them the answer to who had killed their friend. But none of that was enough for his friends to trust her. The poor girl had lost her father to the same psycho conspiracy that was behind the disappearance of Marcos’ parents, but she was crazy because she saw ghosts. She was an outsider to the group like Roque, and he was going to look out for her.
Roque resolved that he would keep fighting for her. She knew how he felt about her, and she had stuck around. She cared about him. It meant that he had a chance with her, and nothing was going to come between them. Not even Ivan. Roque turned over restlessly when he recalled Ivan’s comment that he was making a fool of himself over Julia. Ironically, Ivan was now making a fool of himself trying to hide that he liked her…
At first, Roque thought it was animosity. Julia’s séance had revealed that Ivan’s father had murdered Cayetano, and he was not taking the news well. There had been some bad blood between them before that particular incident, so this revelation didn’t help. Like when Julia had let out his secret hook-up with Vicky to prove that Cayetano’s ghost was talking to her. Before that, she had Ivan take the fall for Mateo’s stolen exam. Julia also didn’t along well with Carol, and this had caused some tense moments in the past. It made sense that Ivan and Julia would not get along.
Roque had foolishly imagined that spending time together would resolve the issues between his best friend and his potential girlfriend. He saw them as two very willful personalities that had to adjust to each other’s presence, like having two cats live in the same house. But the afternoon after Marcos was sent to the hospital, Roque realized that he had misread the entire situation.
When he watched them arguing, he couldn’t pretend not to see it anymore. Ivan was too on edge with her for it to just be about his father. That could only mean that he wanted her. It left a bad feeling in the pit of Roque’s stomach.
He had been aggressively defending her to the group, and now he had to fight harder to keep her from hooking up with his best friend. Even though Ivan denied liking her, Roque knew better. Ivan could be reckless and ruthless when he wanted something badly. The worst part was that Roque suspected that Julia wanted Ivan too. They were on a collision course and Roque had to stop it, so he made Ivan promise not to get involved with her. After that, Ivan became an even bigger bastard towards her. While it hurt to watch Julia being mistreated, it gave Roque the chance he needed with her. He was sure the tension between them would eventually wear out, but until then he would have to be patient.
Dinner earlier that night had been oddly quiet. Julia had sat on one corner of the table with Roque beside her, and Ivan sitting across from her. The two of them didn’t speak to each other that evening. There were a few unreadable glances, but nothing more. Roque wanted to ask they’d had another argument, but he didn’t want to restart a yelling match between them. Meanwhile, Vicky, Carol and Marcos had decided to give Julia the cold shoulder until they could figure out her role in the conspiracy. They had decided that she was more crazy than evil, and that was just as dangerous these days. Roque wasn’t going to change their minds without Ivan’s help, and he was the last person Roque wanted anything from.
Roque turned and tossed in his bed again to face Ivan’s bed. Would he keep his promise to not get involved with her? This time Roque was not alone in his restlessness. Through the darkness, he saw Ivan get out of his bed. He got dressed with some clothes that he had left hanging on his bedpost earlier that night. At the time, Roque thought he was just being lazy, not that his friend was planning a midnight escape. Then Ivan picked up something from the floor before he quickly left the room. It wasn’t unusual for Ivan to sneak off in the middle of the night, either to hook up with a girl or to smoke outside when he felt restless. It was best to leave him to his business.
As Roque lay in bed, he felt quite powerless over his life. He wasn’t smart like Vicky and Carol. He wasn’t good-looking like Marcos and Ivan. Of course, they didn’t take him seriously. Julia understood him, because people didn’t take her seriously either. That was why they belonged together. She was his friend and she understood him, and there was the potential for something more between them. He wasn’t going to let Ivan or Vicky or Marcos or Carol ruin this for him. They did not get to take away the one person who didn’t look down on him.
Roque couldn’t lie still anymore. He needed a smoke to take the edge off. He went to the window to make sure none of the adults were already smoking outside, because it would be two weeks in the stables if he was caught. As Roque surveyed the courtyard, two figures quickly dashed out of the building. He recognized them immediately. Ivan and Julia. Ivan and Julia were sneaking out together. And it probably wasn’t to do math homework.
He watched helplessly as Ivan started a motorcycle that was in the yard and Julia climbed on behind him. Where had Ivan gotten a damn motorcycle? Why was Julia even going anywhere with him? Nothing made sense. This had to be a dream. A very bad dream. But as Roque stared at their escape into the night, he knew that it wasn’t.
He collapsed against the wall as if he had been punched. How could Ivan do this to him? Julia must have had some actual mental damage to even get involved with Ivan. Roque shook his head as he held in a scream of frustration. No, he was the crazy one for thinking that Ivan could put aside the prospect of getting laid for their friendship. He should have known that Ivan didn’t care about anyone but himself.
Roque began pacing up and down the room, not caring if Marcos woke up. Ivan was hooking up with Julia tonight. But was it only tonight? They didn’t just happen to run into each other outside and stumble upon a motorcycle to escape on. They had planned this from before. That was why they were so quiet at dinner. They knew what they were up to and lied right to his face. He was such an idiot. All of the clues had been staring him in the face the entire time.
There had been too many moments when the two of them vanished at the same time. When Julia had asked if Ivan was over Carol, Roque had thought that she was looking for the reason why Ivan was especially ill-tempered these days. Looking back, she must have been trying to gauge her chances with Ivan. The horrible truth was that they were fighting because they were fooling around and had been hiding it from everyone. He could only imagine how the others would react when they found out. Carol and Vicky would be just as pissed as him. Suddenly, Vicky’s recent bad mood and accusations against Julia made sense. Vicky had been good friends with Julia, and then suddenly turned on her. She had probably discovered them. Who else knew and hadn’t told him?
Damn it, Roque wanted to punch Ivan in the face. There was practically a line of girls at school waiting for his split with Carol. Roque had only asked that Ivan not mess with one of them. Of course, that meant Ivan had to fall for the one he couldn’t have. And her? Julia liked trouble, and no one at school was a bigger magnet for it than Ivan. He had tried to push her away, Roque had seen it, which meant that she wanted him badly enough to ignore it. Even so, when and how had they put aside their differences to start hooking up?
This wasn’t fair. After all Roque had done for her, she had been screwing Ivan behind his back and she didn’t have the nerve to tell him. Everything felt meaningless now. The two people who mattered most to him had stabbed him in the back. He had never felt more used in his life. Roque needed a drink. He decided to break into the pantry wine and drink this whole disaster away. There was nothing else he could do until they returned from… Damn, he really wanted that wine in the pantry so he could stop thinking about this. He stormed out of his room and into the hallway, not caring if Marcos woke up.
As Roque walked downstairs to the kitchen, he kept trying to think how he could have stopped them. They knew how he felt about her. They knew and they didn’t care, they just wanted to be together. Roque cringed at that blow. Cowards. Since when did those two not have the guts to own up to their actions? They had hurt tons of people in the past, why from hide it now?
When Roque entered the kitchen, he realized that they probably hid it because cared about him, but not enough to keep their hands to themselves. He wasn’t sure which was worse - that they cared about his feelings or that they didn’t. He would let the wine decide. As he tried to figure out what direction was the pantry, it was clear that he couldn’t tell the stove from the refrigerator in the dark. The light would have to be turned on. Without thinking, he decided to risk Jacinta’s wrath and flipped on the light switch.
The door to the pantry was already wide open. Roque froze as someone emerged from the pantry. He was screwed.
“Roque? What are you doing here?” asked Elsa, who was dressed in a robe.
She sounded more like she had been caught rather than having caught him. But that impression changed when she crossed her arms in front of her and put on a stern look.
“Well? I’m waiting to hear why I shouldn’t have you in Saturday detention for breaking curfew,” she demanded.
Roque paused trying to think of a good excuse. All that came to mind was how unfair it was that Ivan hadn’t been caught yet, because that was how things worked for Ivan. That was it! That two-faced jerk was going to pay for everything.
“I was coming to tell Jacinta that Ivan is missing. And I think that Julia is with him.”
The excuse was so perfect that Roque almost pinched himself to know that it wasn’t a dream.
“What?” Elsa asked, very unhappy to hear this bit of news. “When? Where are they?”
“You don’t believe me? Check their beds,” said Roque, more firmly this time. “I have no idea where they went, since they hopped on a bike and drove off.”
He was going to retaliate against Ivan and Julia’s betrayal by returning the favor. They despised Elsa, and the feeling was mutual. She would make them pay for what they had done better than Roque could have. This was possibly a better resolution than the wine he had come for.
Elsa nodded. Of course, Julia and Ivan had found each other. They gravitated towards trouble like mice to cheese, and there were no bigger sources of trouble at school than those two. “And why would you tell on your friends?”
“They’re not my friends,” Roque spat out.
Elsa nodded again, her arms still crossed. She could guess what had happened and felt a pang of sympathy for the boy. “Fine. Now go back to your room. I’ll deal them, don’t worry… And you’re better off not getting involved with Julia. You’re not a bad kid.”
Roque nodded. “Yeah.”
Then he turned around and went back to his room, feeling somewhat satisfied with the outcome of his trip to the kitchen. He yawned as he got back into bed. They would get what they deserved for sneaking around, and Roque could stop worrying about if something was going on between Ivan and Julia. At least he knew where he stood with them now. They could spend the rest of the year in the stables together for all he cared.
This time as Roque lay in bed with his thoughts, listening to the things that go bump in the night, he had never felt more alone. The number on the clock didn’t matter, nothing mattered anymore. He had lost everything.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------A/N: Incredibly, a show with an over 70 minute run time was constantly jumping from Point A to Point D without exposition. For example, how does Roque come to the decision to tell Elsa that Ivan and Julia have left school? It's the middle of the night, and he supposedly doesn't know this is going on based on the last scene he was in. When he saw them leave, there had to be some kind of thought process that caused him to take a pretty drastic action of 1) leaving his room and 2) telling Elsa. Roque really sucked at planning things and was more of a reactionary, so it seemed out of character for him to come to the decision to seek out Elsa to tell her. I imagined that he left his room without intending to tell Elsa, but he happened to see her and the truth came out.