“Elena got Leti to talk, if that helps.” Diego shakes my arm fromthe front seat, jolting me back to consciousness. “We’re gonna find out the truth eventually. You might as well tell us what happened.”
I stare at Andrew, but he doesn’t look at me. His gaze is focused out the windshield.
“I’d say I’m sorry for punching you, but we both know I’d be lying,” I say. “Still, there was a better way for me to tell you how shitty you were acting toward your sister. She didn’t deserve any of that, and you should’ve known better. But I knew better too. I shouldn’t have punched you. That’s not me. That’s—”
“Your dad,” he answers, because of course he would remember. Even though I’ve told Andrew everything about that day and afterward, I still have no words for the way my father’s face contorted in anger the first time he saw me hand in hand with another man or the way he’d sneer at me every time he saw me afterward.
He never hit me, but I can’t say he never wanted to. I was an adult, but I was still his child. It was one line he wouldn’t cross in the twisted moral code he’d written for himself. Never mind that it only ever made sense to him. Which is why when my uncle defended me, when he called out my father for turning away his own blood, my dad decided it was acceptable to take a swing at him instead. Not that he got very far before my uncle shut that shit down, but still.
My hands turn to fists that shake at the memory, and I could kick myself for being no better than my father. For turning around and doing the same thing to my best friend.
“It’s no excuse,” I say, because it’s the truth. “If you want me to move out, I understand.”
“Don’t be stupid.” Andrew lets out a grunt as Diego turns into the hospital parking lot. “You’re not moving out. I’m the one who gave you a concussion. I should be begging you to forgiveme.”
“You were defending yourself, and it was an accident,” I tell him. “What I did was on purpose.”
“As sweet as this moment is, Julian here should probably get his head checked out,” Diego says, pushing open the car door. “Can you walk?”
“I’m good,” I say. “Let’s go.”
After we get checked in, a nurse at the front desk lets us know it might be a while before a doctor can look me over. All this waiting does is give Andrew and Diego more chances to interrogate me.
“She’s the one you told me about, isn’t she?” Andrew asks after a beat of blissful silence in the waiting room. “The one you’re in love with who hated you at first?”
“Yeah.” I let out a long sigh. “She is.”
“And you knew she was my sister?” he asks. “The whole time?”
“Almost the whole time,” I say. “I met her four years ago. One of her classmates set us up, and we went out. It was the first time I’d ever been on a date. I was nervous and stupid and ate an entire basket of nine-dollar truffle fries that she paid for.”
“She hated you for four years for eating her fries?” Diego lifts a brow before thinking better of it. “Wait, that does sound like Leti.”
“No,” I tell him. “She hated me for one day before forgetting all about me. We ran into each other back in April at my cousin’s party and she had no idea who I was. And when we matched on a dating app back in August, she still had no clue. She had no memory of who I was until we went out for the second time, only she didn’t realize it was the second time until I ate a sushi roll off her plate.”
“She got flashbacks, huh?”
I cut Andrew an unamused look.
“What happened after that?”
“She ended the date early,” I tell him, then wince at the memory of what came next. “But as soon as I got back home, we ran into each other in the parking lot and she accused me of stalking her.”
“Yikes.” Diego grimaces in sympathy. “Bet it didn’t go over well with her to learn you guys lived in the same building.”
“Or that we work at the same school.”
“And the hits keep coming.” Andrew huffs a laugh. “She must’ve given you so much hell.”
“More like the other way around, if you ask her.” I smirk to myself. “Not that I could help it. I was…intrigued isn’t a strong enough word. A masochist, maybe. Interacting with her became the best part of my day, even when I was nothing but a nuisance to her.”
“Very romantic of you.”
“Your sarcasm hurts, Andrew.”
“You’re really in love with Leti?” he asks, expression all skepticism. When I nod, he says, “She’s not at all who I would’ve picked for you. She’s too—”
“Watch it,” I warn him. “Remember how we got into this mess in the first place?”
