I don’t know what to say or do other than to keep holding his hand and digging for splinters. Which suddenly doesn’t seem to bother him. Again, being nosy seems to block his pain receptors.
“You like us. A lot. I can tell. You’re doing the sad-eyes thing right now.”
“I’m not doing sad eyes,” I argue, even though I might be.
They’re certainly tired eyes after they interrupted my shift and dragged me through unnecessary worry to find him here. Banged up but basically fine.
“You ARE,” he says, pointing again. “Your eyebrows do the little tilt thing. Like you’re about to tell me you don’t want dessert, but you really do. And I definitely want dessert. I want creamy donut holes with the filling leaking out.”
I drop my head back with a groan.
“Dios mio.”
He shifts, trying to get more comfortable, wincing when his ribs catch.
“You don’t gotta run. We’re not asking you to move into our crib and pop out twins. We just like you. And miss you. And Mas is being all tragic and shit. He listens to Adele now. ADELE, Sof. ADELE! Do you know what that does to me?”
My breath catches on a laugh that turns into something suspiciously like a sob. Perfect. Great. Exactly what I need, feelings in the trauma bay. He squints, watching me like I’m a TV show he refuses to change the channel on.
“You crying?”
“No.”
“YOU ARE,” he accuses, hot, fast, and excited.
“It’s just sweat.”
“From your eyeballs? I’m not that dumb.”
I wipe my cheeks with the sleeve of my scrub top and dig out a stubborn sliver. He barely flinches.
“Shut up, Nene.”
He beams, triumphant. “Oh shit! You’re crying over us. See? You missed us. You LOOOOVE us. You want to have a thousand babies. Let us both jizz inside you, ah, all the creamy donut holes I could ever want and —”
“One more word,” I warn, raising the tweezers in warning, ready to stab them somewhere that will hurt more than his hand. “Say one more thing like that in here, and you won’t be eating Cinnamon Toast Crunch anymore.”
“But it’s my favorite,” he whines and then pouts, and I bring the tweezers closer.
He huffs and immediately locks his mouth with an imaginary key. Tosses it over his shoulder. I get two more slivers removed when he breaks the invisible mouth lock.
“I knew you didn’t hate us,” he loudly whispers, scratching lightly at the sheet over his leg with his clean hand. “I just thought maybe you forgot how good it felt. The three of us. I didn’t want you to forget.”
I close my eyes. The guilt is crushing. Heavy and hot, pressing under my ribs. I’ve had memories all week of us. Too many. Doing my charting at the end of my shift. Sitting on the train going home and folding laundry while Paco watches.
“I didn’t forget.” My voice wobbles, and I wipe the tears that didn’t fall on the back of my wrist. “That’s the problem.”
His smile turns slow and smug. “Knew it.”
“You’re ridiculous and smug. Too obnoxious and?—”
“And you love it.”
“Unfortunately,” I mutter, going back to his hand because it’s easier to deal with wood than with my own heart.
Another splinter. Then another. Each one is a tiny reminder of how far he’s willing to go for the people he cares about and how far I tried to run from that.
“You scared him badly,” I say quietly as I drop another bloody sliver onto the gauze. “Massimo. He was shaking like a leaf when I first saw him.”
