The curtain rustles.
“Em? Sofia?”
Massimo pushes the curtain over just enough to slip through. His face wrinkles in confusion until it dawns on him.
“X-rays?”
I nod. “They’ll bring him back once they decide the mailbox didn’t win.”
His mouth twitches. He lets the curtain fall. The little room shrinks, just the two of us and all the things we haven’t said. I offer him the chair near the wall while I fidget on the stool. Slowly, he sinks into it, a little too far as the cushions have seen better days.
His gaze flicks to my face. Lingers. My cheeks are still hot. My eyes probably look like I lost a fight with my own emotions.
“Everything okay?”
He stares at me.
Tan eyes going soft and wrecked all at once. Hope, fear, and relief flicker across his face. My stomach flips because I think I want to stop avoiding it. Stop needing space. Stop being so damn independent when someone, two guys in fact, are offering me a place to be taken care of. How nice would that be?
“I need to say something,” I start, and stop when he drags the hinges up to drag his chair closer. Then drops it, sits down, legs open, elbows on his knees like he’s trying to hold himself together with posture alone.
“Okay,” His voice is rough. Just like it’s been all week. “Hit me.”
“I don’t want to hit you, Papito.”
He just waits, doesn’t remark one way or the other. I stare at my hands, flexing my fingers like maybe the words are stuck in them.
“When I said I needed space, it wasn’t because you were too much. It was because I was scared I wasn’t enough.”
His eyebrows knit like I’ve started talking in Spanish. “What?”
I keep my eyes on my hands. Easier than looking at his face.
“I gave everything to my ex. That’s what you do when you marry. I worked myself half to death so he could ‘try things’. New jobs, new scams, new ways to lose money we didn’t have. I believed every apology. Every promise. Until I was broke, he was gone, and I was left with all this debt and an eviction notice. It was a mess. I was a mess. It took time for the divorce to go through because he didn’t want to be served, and they couldn’t find him.”
My jaw clenches. I force it to relax and look at him. He’s angry. Hands rolled into tight fists, pushed together. As if wanting to strike my ex, but unable to.
I continue, “I told myself never again. Never let a man be the difference between having lights and sitting in the dark. Never let someone that close again. They will use it against me. Take everything from me. So, I got really good at pretending I was okay and handling it alone. Sending money home to Mami. Paying my bills. Digging myself out of debt. I never wanted to trust or depend on a man again. No help. No weakness.”
He’s watching me like he’s afraid to breathe too loud. To say the wrong thing. But he’s waiting for me to get it out. I like that about him. Like that, he’s patient and lets me take all the time I need. Respecting my wishes for space was similar despite all the voicemails he started with ‘sorry for calling, I know you want space, but I . . .’
“And then you and your brother show up in the ICU. Chaos kings. Demanding and larger than life. Commenting on DSLs and my curves. At first, I wanted to slap both of you. Maybe smother your brother with his own pillow.”
“We all want to do that.” He snorts, humorless and knowing.
“But the more I got to know you both, more so you than him. I realized you were good men. Wouldn’t hurt me.”
“Not a chance.”
“I don’t know why, but I thought sending you out to get food would deter you.” He gives me a soft smile, but it’s kind of sad. “But it didn’t, and you showed up with a ridiculous amount of it. Sitting in that garden talking, and the way you handled my ex, I knew you were different. Not because you wanted to have sex. It seemed more than that.”
“It was more. Sure, it started off that way. I never lied to you about that, but for me, it grew into something more. And I didn’t want to stop it.”
His hands loosen from fists into a loosely clasped position in front of him. Still hunched over, leaning on his knees to stay as close as he can to me without touching.
“With your stupid fancy car, the rides to and from work. I felt like someone. Felt special.”
“You are special, Sofia. So special.”
