I don't deserve this. I don't deserve her. I don't deserve the way my heart still reacts to her name like it's the only thing that ever made sense.
And that's what breaks me.
Not the fact that she loved me.
The fact that I knew it was real and still chose fear over it.
CHAPTER 10
RAUL
…16 years old
"Isn't that your dad's car?" Diego asks as we cut across the yard.
We just came from the park, sweat still drying on our skin, the sound of the ball and our voices still hanging in the air behind us. We'd been talking business, talking plans, talking like the world ahead of us was something we could actually control.
Now my stomach drops so hard it feels like a shove.
"Fuck. What does he want?"
We push inside and the house greets us like a held breath. Dad is at the table with a bottle in front of him, slouched in his chair like he owns the weight of the whole room. I think I'd be more startled if he were anywhere else.
Then Aunt Val's voice cuts through the halls.
"Diego! Raul!"
"Comin', Ma," Diego answers, but his face changes before he even finishes saying it.
Her voice is coming from our room.
My feet slow. My pulse doesn't.
We round the corner and find her crouched under my cot, one arm buried in the shadows beneath it. She pulls back with something clenched in her fist.
Fuck.
She stands and opens her hand. A bag of pills spills into the light.
"Whose are these?"
It's only a few stragglers from the last batch, but my mouth goes dry anyway.
Diego looks at me once, quick and sharp. "They're mine."
"Mijo," Aunt Val says, disappointment heavy in her voice.
"No, Aunt Val," I blurt out. "They're mine."
"Raul. Is that true, Diego?"
"I mean —"
"Yes," I cut in before he can finish, before he can make it worse. "It's true. I'm sorry."
"Ernesto!" she calls, and the name lands like a warning.
Dad appears in the doorway a second later. Aunt Val holds the bag up between two fingers like it's something rotten.
