Two hours later at dinner with Julien and Karim, Luis told them about the visit.
“Oh good. I also received a text from Detective Sarris a few minutes ago that they have an officer posted at your apartment tonight,” Julien said. “If you want to go there tonight and get some of your things, I think it would be safe for us to do so.”
“Oh.” Luis hadn’t considered he’d get access to his apartment so soon. “Uh, yeah. I’d like some things,” he said, even if the idea of going there made his nerves rise up.
An hour later they were in the car and heading toward his apartment.
Karim had insisted on taking a back seat, so Luis for the first time was sitting in the passenger’s seat. His hands fiddledwith his new phone. He’d spent a good chunk of the day downloading all of his data and signing into all of his accounts, and it was a huge relief to have a phone again.
“Where should I park?” Julien pulled him back to the present as he turned into Luis’s apartment complex.
“Oh, right, yeah any of these,” Luis gestured. Julien parked and they got out.
Sure enough, on the other side of the parking lot, was a clearly marked police car. Luis still couldn’t help looking around nervously.
“It’s going to be okay,” Julien said, stepping up beside him. “Karim would never let anyone hurt you.”
Karim was suddenly at his other side, radiating menace. Luis ducked his head with a hot, pleased flush of gratitude.
Still, Luis’s feet were heavy as they started to climb the stairwell toward his apartment. No one was in his apartment, but a part of him still dreaded opening the door and finding his mother there again. His breathing went unsteady, his palms sweaty.
Key in the lock, Luis pushed the door open slowly.
The light was on. He never left his lights on.
“Someone’s been here,” he said.
Karim pushed past him, taking the lead. “I don’t hear anyone inside, Julien?”
But Luis was seeing the evidence all over. A book that had been on the counter that was now on the floor. His laptop was open when he always closed the lid. One of the drawers of his entertainment center was ajar.
“No one’s inside,” Julien confirmed.
But his bedroom light was on. Luis started in that direction, heart pounding. Had his mom been here again? Waiting for him?
He paused at the threshold of his bedroom. He knew before he even saw it what she’d done.
He stepped into the room and found the guitar stand empty.
She’d been trying to take it the last time she’d been here, and Luis had interrupted her. She’d come back to finish the job.
The cruelty of it cut him deeper than he expected. He had no way of knowing if she’d taken it before or after the church, but it felt like revenge for his escape. One last way for her to make it hurt since he’d slipped her control.
“What’s wrong?” Karim asked at his side.
Luis sniffed. There were silent tears dripping down his cheeks. He stumbled over to the bed, dropping down on it, a rush of white noise in his ears. His shoulders heaved, and suddenly he was sobbing.
Karim, who’d followed him to the bed, wrapped his arms tightly around him. Julien appeared in the doorway, concern writ all over his face. Luis couldn’t get enough air into his lungs to speak, he just clung to Karim’s shirt, burying his face there.
The waves of it crashed over him. The sickening cruelty, the viscous vindictiveness.
She’d never loved him, he realized in that moment. His mother had only ever wanted to change him, remake him into her own ideas of who he should be. Erase the things that made him,him.
And when she was confronted with the reality of who he was, all she wanted to do was to destroy him.
What kind of a mother was that?
No mother at all.
