“Man, I’m sorry you had to go through that. That must have been tough trying to make friends when you didn’t feel accepted by anyone.”
I shrugged. “As I got older, and grew more aware of how shitty things were at home, I did everything in my power to not remember. My dad wasn’t exactly helpful in teaching me anything about myself. If it weren’t for Javi and Seb, or our neighbor Luz who took care of us after school, I wouldn’t have any real knowledge about my culture. Hell, I think I learned more about it in high school Spanish classes than from my own father. So…all that to say, I know it’s super fucked up but I felt like an imposter embracing the parts of myself that didn’t match my outward appearance. I was desperate to feel a little bit ‘normal’. And that meant hiding part of who I was whenever I wasn’t at home.”
I took a deep breath, pausing to take in the sight of the mountains through the trees.
“And now, I just want to forget it all. The only thing really keeping me tied to that part of myself was my brother, and he’s gone. So, I just…yeah. Like I said, I know it’s fucked up, and privileged and all that shit, but now I like to pretend that I am and always have been Emory Crawford.”
Enoch nodded thoughtfully.
“So, you don’t like it when I use your name?”
I shook my head immediately. “No. I…I like it when you say it. I do miss some parts of myself that I’ve left behind and you, my name, I missed it.”
Enoch smiled. “Good.”
I smiled back.
“So, you don’t think you’d ever teach your kids Spanish like Sebastian?”
I was tripped up by the question. I hadn’t thought about a future where I had children outside of my marriage with Theo. And those children definitely wouldn’t have been learning Spanish. At least not from me.
“Sorry,” Enoch muttered, continuing along the path. “I shouldn’t assume you want to have kids.”
“No,” I cleared my throat. “It’s fine. You want kids, right?”
“Only if it’s with you.”
I rolled my eyes, but he captured my hand in his, intertwining our fingers, looking down at me.
“What about you?”
I shrugged. “Under the right circumstances, yeah. But that shipped sailed. I’m not fit to be a mother.”
“Why not?”
I sighed, my thumb absently circling the back of his hand.
“For starters, if anything ever happened to my child, I couldn’t live with myself. There’s too many dangers in this world on top of everything else I add to the bag of fuckery.”
“You mean the people who’d hurt you?”
“Yeah. Them. And I don’t deserve it. Not after everything.”
Enoch tugged my hand to stop us once again and I looked up at his serious expression.
“You’re forgiven, Shy.”
“Not for everything.”
“Yes, for everything.”
I gave him an angry glare, and his lips thinned in a frown.
“Do you not want to be forgiven?”
My lips parted with an automatic response, but no sound came out. Of course I wanted to be forgiven. I didn’t enjoy being miserable. I just didn’t deserve it.
Enoch studied my gaze while I sorted through my conflicting thoughts.My eyes bounced around the empty trail before landing back on him.
