“What do you want, then, Kamila?” he asked, tossing his pencil on the table, where it bounced and rolled toward my feet. “I’m tired of this, I’m tired of pining for you day and night, watching you sleep with another guy. And not just any guy, my goddamn brother, whom I happen to adore.”
Those words pierced my heart. “What’s the solution, then?” I asked.
“There isn’t one,” he replied calmly. “And you know why?”
I waited, and finally he replied: “Because you don’t even know what you want. Do you think I don’t watch you two, that I don’t see how you look at him? How he makes you laugh. Hell, I can hear you across the hall when I’m in my room. Deep down, I know you deserve that, I know he can offer you so much more than I ever could.”
“Don’t say that, Thiago.” I moved closer to try and touch him, but he raised a hand, keeping me at bay.
“There’s something broken inside me,” he admitted, hisexpression completely sincere. “And there always will be. That’s just who I am. Call it fate, but I’m just someone who can’t run from my past.”
“We all have our demons,” I told him.
“It’s not just my demons, though. I have my whole family’s demons. And my guardian angel isn’t strong enough to keep them away.”
My eyes filled with tears when I realized he was talking about Lucy. She would always be the shadow he could never outrun. A shadow cast over all of us: me, Taylor, their mother—but Thiago most of all. He would never get over it. And I wished with all my heart that her shadow wouldn’t destroy us, but it was always there, looming.
I walked to the other side of the room, and he watched me in silence. I waited a moment and finally spoke: “Do I really have to blow up these balls?”
Without looking at me, Thiago said, “Yep.”
