She bites her bottom lip. “Alex is a good kid, too.”
I nod. “But you’re still worried about Mattie hanging out with him.”
“I’m worried about Mattie and every boy on the planet,” she says on a sigh.
I put down the mug and turn to her. “Does she know what happened to you?”
Just like that, the color leaves her face. “What do you mean?”
I lean back against the sofa cushions. We might be here a while. “On the trampoline you said birth control doesn’t work for women in your family, right?”
She blinks and nods once. “Right.”
“And you said you’re not a virgin,” I say, this time more carefully. “Right?”
I watch Millie swallow. “Right.” The word is barely audible.
“So, th—”
“I got pregnant,” she blurts, leaning forward and setting down her tea. A splash of dark liquid sloshes over the side of her mug onto the coffee table. “Shit—”
Millie moves to clean it up, casting around for a towel, but I reach out a hand to stop her.
“Leave it. Tell me what happened.”
Her eyes are on the spreading spill, but her hands clench at her knees. She breathes for a moment, not speaking.
“I got pregnant last spring.”
Last spring?I say nothing, but it feels like I’ve been punched in the jaw.
“I lost the baby in June.”
“Jesucristo,”I cover her clenched right hand with my left. Pain and loss tighten the lines of her face and wash away the bloom of her color. “I am so sorry, Millie.”
And then it hits me. June. Her parents died in May.
“Oh, my God.” I say it aloud in English. Slowly. And in Spanish to myself.Dios mío.Begging God to listen. To comfort the woman I love. To spare her suffering. To make me worthy of her trust. “I… I…”
But there aren’t words for this. So instead of making senseless noise, I pull her into my arms, and she falls into me, surrendering. Her body shakes with sobs. Heartbreak spills out of her, and it’s like torture. Because there’s nothing I can do. Nothing.
I don’t need to ask. I know she’s dealt with this alone. All of this. Anger burns through my skull and across my shoulders. Because there’s a man out there who left Millie to manage alone. I’d pay money for ten minutes with him to show him what it’s like when life kicks the shit out of you.
Millie cries in my arm, her small frame shuddering with each breath. When I key in on this, the anger leaches out of me. Because if there had been a man who deserved her then, he’d be holding her now instead of me.
The thought leaves me hollow. I think back to the moment I first saw her. Sitting behind me at the soccer field. I couldn’t stop looking. She pulled me like the tide. She would have still been the one to answer the door that day I showed up with her mother’s plans. I would have still been the one she hired.
I would have still seen her. Maybe not every day. But enough. Enough to admire her. Enough to want her. Enough to fall for her, and she’d be his.
Damn.
I will make it up to you.
“Te lo recompensaré,”I whisper into her hair. And for a moment, I think I’ve gotten away with it, telling her what’s on my mind without her knowing, but she sniffles twice and pulls back.
“You’ve got to stop doing that,” she says, her voice husky with tears.
“Doing what?” I give her my best innocent look, but she just wipes her eyes and glares.
