Esperanza initially looks up to Sally. She sees her as the kind of confident, sophisticated young woman she'd dearly like to be herself. Before long, she's hanging out with her and the two start spending an increasing amount of time together. Sally's a lot like Esperanza in that she too yearns to get out of the neighborhood as soon as possible.

However, Esperanza finds Sally's full-on sexuality and rampant promiscuity quite hard to take, and realizes that holding up her friend as some kind of role model is not a good idea. Over time, Esperanza sees another side to Sally's personality which she doesn't appreciate. When Esperanza sees a group of boys picking on Sally, she immediately intervenes on behalf of her friend. But instead of being grateful for Esperanza's assistance, Sally tells her to go home, which causes Esperanza no end of hurt.

Further betrayal can be observed when Sally and Esperanza go to a carnival. Sally tells Esperanza that the carnival's going to be a lot of fun, but that turns out to be anything but the case. While at the carnival, Sally tells Esperanza to wait for her. Esperanza duly does so, but while she's waiting for her friend she ends up being raped by a group of boys. If this weren't bad enough, Esperanza feels betrayed by Sally, who never came back. Esperanza was there for her friend when she needed her, but Sally was nowhere to be seen when Esperanza was in danger.