Wandering into the room, he shut the door behind him and cast his blank eyes on me. Even if he could mimic everything else perfectly, his eyes told the truth.
“I came to check on you. You’re my son, and I’ve always tried to make you feel like you mean something to me. If I wasn’t who I am, you’d still have turned out the same, Mateo.” My cheek twitched at that, but I couldn’t exactly argue about it. Up until a year ago, I didn’t even know Dad was a sociopath. I never, ever got the feeling he didn’t genuinely care about me, even though he’d never not pretended. Pulling a large envelope out of his inner jacket pocket, he held it out to me, and his gnarled, arthritic-bulging fingers gripped it loosely. “This is your out.”
“Right.” Suspicion thickened my tone, and I took the envelope to toss it carelessly onto my bed. Awkwardness stretched with the silence, and I swiped back my hair to send droplets down my back to sting my cuts. The thick, manila folder kept catching my eye, but I closed my eyes to hold back an exhausted sigh. “What’s going to happen now? I’m pretty drugged up right now, but . . . ”
“What do you mean? You can do whatever you want, Mateo. I assume that you don’t want to go back to New York. You don’t have to.” My brows rose, and my chest tightened as I sucked in a sharp breath. Goosebumps bristles down my arms, and my dad smiled reassuringly. “Carlyle will probably act like you never existed, but I doubt you’ll have a problem with that.”
“S-so, I can . . . I can just . . . ” Disbelief softened my tone, and an indescribably feeling gripped my heart tightly when my dad nodded firmly. “Good. That’s good.”
Stumbling a little to sit on the bed, I gazed blearily at the tiled floor, and the air rushed from my lungs. Covering my mouth to hide my smile, my hands and shoulders tremored, and that nipping cold that constantly hung over me finally lifted. My mind circled those words over and over again.
You can do whatever you want. Anything I don’t want to do, I don’t have to.
Wow. That was nuts. That wasinsane. Carlyle couldn’t order be around and step on my hand when I grumbled denial. He couldn’t send me to some shit-stain city to get me out of the way. To him, I didn’t exist anymore. I was a non-person.
A rasping laugh burst from my throat, my smile widening until tears squeezed from my eyes and my cheeks ached.
“Mateo! I go—” Lucy broke into the hospital room only to stop short when she noticed I wasn’t alone, and the large, paper bag in her hand rumpled loudly. “I-I . . . um . . . am I . . . I’ll knock again in a couple minutes.”
“No, come in.” Standing up, I gestured Lucy into the room, and she wandered in cautiously, eyes darting between my brother and father. “What’s in the bag?”
“Ooh, I wasn’t sure what you like, specifically, so I got a bacon burger, with extra bacon, and, um, yeah. Here.” Setting the bag on the foot of the bed, Lucy ducked her head, and my stomach gurgled greedily. “You’re bleeding. I’m gonna go get the doctor.”
“Yeah.” Pulling out a Styrofoam container, I popped the top to gaze at the mass of fries topped in cheese, bacon, and jalapeños. The next container had two burgers, and the third and final container was full of onion rings, and my mouth watered heavily. “You’re the best, Lucy.”
I tore my eyes off the food to smile at Lucy, but she looked so uncomfortable and sad under the thick crease between her brows. For a second, the delicious smell took the back burner, and confusion washed my chest as she gulped harshly. Lucy’s washed, fluffy, golden blonde hair swished when she nodded, and thick, red rings surrounded her eyes before she whipped around and walked out.
Rolling my jaw, I frowned at the empty doorway before turning back to the spread in front of me.All of a sudden, I’m not very hungry.
7
Lucy
“Mom stop yelling. I’m fine. I’m calling from a hospital because it was the only place I could find with a free phone.” Sliding down to sit on the floor, I held my forehead in my palm as my mom breathed fire in my ear. “Just stop yelling. I didn’t mean to worry you, but I had a lot to think about, and I didn’t want anyone trying to poison my opinion.”
The explanation was weak, but I was tired and couldn’t think of anything else. Leaning on the edge of the nurse’s station ominously, the guy who’d rescued us— not Mateo’s brother, but the other guy— pretended not to be monitoring what I said. Pulling my knees up at my mom’s astonished silence, I inhaled deeply, closed my eyes, and held my breath for a long second before continuing. “
“I’m gonna be home, like, tomorrow. Who’s been taking care of Marshal?” It was telling, how I missed my dog more than I missed anyone else. Of course, Ididmiss my family, but they’d be pissed and judge me and not bother trying to understand why I ‘went to think’. When Seth and I had been dating for about eight months, I’d wanted to break up with him over his fifty-fifty rule, but my mom convinced me not to.
Which was stupid, because she cheated on my dad, got divorced, then got dumped. It’s not like she knows good men, and that went for my dad, too.
“I have. You know how busy Seth is. He doesn’t need a dog that’s not his on his plate, too. You know, Lucillia, you’re so irresponsible not telling anyone and leaving your phone and everything! Something could’ve happened to you!” She flew into a rage again, and I held the phone away from my ear before she blew out my hearing as well as my sanity. “Everyone was so worried about you! Do you even understand what trouble you’ve caused? The police came to my work to talk to me about you being missing.My work!And you call out of the blue to say you were just thinking things out! Honestly, Lucy!”
My gaze drifted up to the guy watching me out of the corner of his eye— Theo, I think— and he scowled darkly. I could only shrug, since this was fairly normal, and I just had to wait for my mom to run out of steam. No amount of explaining was enough for her, and I knew that when I got home, she’d act like this conversation never happened.She’s good at that, ignoring the unsavory shit and pretending she was nasty sometimes.
“I went to a casino and won ten thousand dollars, so, obviously it wasn’t a total loss.” Theo snorted a laugh at my attempt to cut through my mom’s blind fury, and she sputtered a little as I put the phone back against my ear. “I stayed in a hotel and they accidentally double booked, so I got a room for free. I went to the casino just to pass the time, and I hit the jackpot on some game. It was just a decision, Mom, to just step back and look at my life and decide where it was going and where I wanted it to go. I felt like I had to, so I did, and I don’t regret it.”
I don’t know why I was explaining myself to my mom I could do what I want, when I wanted, and she wasn’t entitled to know about it. True, I was lying out my teeth, but Mateo’s dad gave me a lot of money- way more thanjustten thousand dollars. He even hugged me and thanked me, for why I wasn’t sure, but . . .
“You know, Mom, when Grandma died, she told me not to let anyone’s expectations of me get in the way of my expectations for myself. Even though I’ve lived there for almost ten years, I feel like I forgot what shereallygave me.” The fine hairs on my face prickled at the silence, and I rested my cheek on my knees to sigh. “I have to go, but I’ll be back around noon tomorrow.”
I held up the phone before she could speak up, and Theo snatched it to stick it on the receiver. Only then did I feel like I could breathe, and the anxiety gripping me in a vise relaxed as I leaned against the wall of the nurse’s station.
“That’s your story?” Shuffling to sit next to me, Theo rubbed his face with his mangled hand, and I stared at it unashamedly, almost in adoration, before he held it out. “A tire exploded while I was deployed and sliced my fingers off. It wasn’t so bad. My girl likes it.”
“Did you go in because you were told to?” Scrunching up my face at how insensitive my question sounded, I frowned when Theo shook his head.
“Honestly, I did it because I was poor, and they paid for college. I was gonna be an engineer, but I wound up in the infantry. No one ever told me not to. No one wanted me to, though, either. The only person that cares about your happiness is you.” Theo’s gruff voice scraped my ears almost painfully, and he shot me a grim smirk as he propped his bulging forearms on his knees. “Mateo’s not the same kid he was when I met him. It’s fucking insane, honestly. That little brat that threw a drunk tantrum for no reason, spent money like crazy . . . you know, I was his bodyguard, but I always felt like his fucking nanny.”
