I scrambled up and went after her. “Abuelita, wait,” I said, reaching for her hand, but she shook me off.
“Good-for-nothing bastard putting his hands on my granddaughter again! My granddaughter of all people!” She unleashed a stream of curse words, voice shaking with rage. I tried to block them out, tried to pull her back, but she was on a warpath. Small, furious, absolutely unstoppable.
She reached Papa’s office door and threw it open without knocking.
My father stood in the middle of the floor with a file in his hand. He looked up, startled.
She walked right up to him, her hands balled into fists.
“What is wrong with you!?”she yelled in his face. Then she whirled and grabbed me, pulled my hand forward to extend my bare arm. “Look at this! Look what you’ve done!”
He glanced at the growing bruise for a second, indifferent, before looking back at his mother.
“Samuel, she’s a twenty-year-old girl! You don’t run her life!”
He slammed the file onto the desk with a crack that made me jump, my breath catching at his anger. “Don’t you tell me what to do withmydaughter, dammit!”
My abuelita didn’t flinch. She stepped into his space and shoved his head back with a single, decisive hand. Small, wrinkled, but unyielding. Then she let loose. The Spanish came in such a rapid flurry that it was hard to keep up—though I could see from my father’s enraged face that he caught it all. He roared back at her, throwing out his hands in wild gestures which my abuelita only matched.
Heart hammering, I hurried out of the room. There was nothing I could do now; best to just get away and hope my father didn’t take out his anger on me again when she was through with him.
Of course, he would. He always did.
I retreated to my bedroom and closed the door, twisting the lock into place.
My whole life felt like a mess. My parents, my father especially, Abuelita who tried her hardest with the best of intentions. As I lay on the bed, the faint sounds of shouting filtering to me down the long hallway, I cried.
God, I wished I had the courage to call Tristian.
Just to hear something steady.
Something real… something that wasn’t… this.
Chapter six
Tristian
The hospital air always smelled the same: a sterile cocktail of bleach and lingering grief. I walked through the sliding doors with my head down and my fists clenched tight enough to turn my knuckles white. It had been three days since I’d seen my mother. Three days of barely holding it together and being one shove away from snapping someone’s neck. She was the only reason I bothered to wake up in the morning, the only reason I didn’t let this city swallow me whole.
The staff knew me. More importantly, they were afraid of me. As I moved through the lobby, the low hum of conversation died instantly. They tried to look busy, tried to keep their eyes on their clipboards, but I felt their stares like needles in my back.
I yanked my hood down, exposing my face, and snatched my visitor’s pass from the desk. No one asked for my ID.
In the elevator, I hit the button for the sixth floor. As the doors slid shut, I leaned my head against the cool metal wall and let out a sigh.
I hadn’t heard from Ingrid since dropping her off last night. Still no texts, no calls, nothing. I thought there’d been something between us, thought she could feel it too, but not a word from her. It had been bothering me enough as it was, but even more here, in the hospital. Something about her was intoxicating, and I needed that now more than ever, in this dark place.
She was so damn innocent, a stark contrast to everything I was. With everyone else, I was brutal, a man made of sharp edges and uncontrolled anger. But with her? I couldn’t do it. There was something about her that made me want to be a shield.
And she needed that, by the sound of that call from her father last night.
The elevator chimed, and I stepped out into the silence of the long-term care wing. My father was a bastard, but he was a wealthy one; he’d paid enough to ensure my mother’s room was in the quietest corner of the building. I spotted Margaret, an old nurse who had become a fixture in our lives. The only person in this building who didn’t look at me like a threat. She looked up and offered a sympathetic smile that actually reached her eyes.
“How are you, Tristian?” she asked softly.
I shrugged, the weight on my shoulders growing heavier. “Could be better.”
She nodded, beckoning me toward the room. “She just woke up about thirty minutes ago. She’ll be very excited to see you.”
