No words will ever express my gratitude.
“I’m glad he told you, but it’s a time I don’t want to relive. We’re not going to discuss it now, or ever. I know Nate feels the same.” Her voice dipped with quiet finality. “I can tell by your expression you’re bursting with questions. But Maddie, it’s history, something we buried a long time ago, and I have no plans on digging it up. Him telling you, that was for you, and now that you know, you need to let it go for him.”
“I understand,” I lie. “It’s exactly what Nate said.”
I hate that they’ve had years,—no, decades—to process this, and now I’m left holding onto it all alone, with no one to vent to.
She leads me upstairs toward Leo and Nate’s room, and within seconds, she hands me a pile of clothes. “I washed them years ago, so excuse the musty smell.” She winks, and I balk at my own clothes piled high in my arms.
Well, the USC sweatshirt is Nate’s; he gifted it to me,or I stole it from him duringhis senior year, but the rest are mine.
“Change. I’ll meet you in the hall. Javi is probably done with our tea by now.”
I change quickly, resisting the urge to snoop around the room.
At a glance, it looks identical to when we were younger, with the addition of pictures of Claudina scattered around the room.
Which isn’t surprising; she’s one fiercely loved little girl.
I step through the threshold, then pause, coming face to face with Camila’s bedroom door.
“You okay?” Rosa’s voice is soft.
“No. Nothing about today is okay, Rosa,” I snap, but quickly shake my head, chastising myself. “I’m sorry.”
For an itty-bitty thing, she has a firm grip when she pulls me into her side. “Do not apologize to me. Let’s go, we’ll tackle that door another day.”
We walk in silence downstairs to Rosa’s favorite room, where the family typically gathers on Sundays.
Despite the massive six-floor townhouse and their net worth, the Moraleses’ house still feels warm and inviting, just as I’ve always remembered it.
Javier’s worn leather chair, which he’s had since I was a teenager, sits in the corner. Claudina’s toys spill across one side, and you can barely see the custom wallpaper on the adjacent wall because it’s covered in a collage of beautiful pictures of all the people she loves.
Including me.
I’ve missed it here.
“Maddie Grace.” Rosa doesn’t pour our tea. She turns to face me as we sit, brows drawn. “What’s bothering you?”
“Nate…” I pause to get my thoughts together.
“Not Nate. What was that look I saw upstairs?”
I hesitate, shocked she can read me so well. “There was no look.”
“You forget I raised five kids. Now tell me what that was all about.”
God, my body can’t take any more crying. I’m going to dehydrate from producing so many tears.
I bite the inside of my cheek, but it does nothing to stop me from unraveling the truth.
“I miss Camila so much; I think about her constantly. I stare at her picture beside my bed every night, wishing I handled things differently, wishing I could have given her more of me.”
“More of you?” she asks, affronted. “You gave her your everything. You were her best friend, her sister.”
“I asked for space,” I croak. “I wasn’t there when it mattered. I did that to us.”
The weight of Camila’s passing has never eased inside my chest, and I feel the pain constantly.
