Page 70 of Read With Your Heart

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“Lena, you’re gonna have to talk to me some time,” I holler at the bathroom door of the cheap ass motel room I’m renting while I’m here in Chicago. I hate it here. Hate this room. Hate this situation.

When I found my sister at her friend’s house, it wasn’t a pretty scene. I scrub at my face as I recall losing my temper over the way she left and then losing my shit at her admission.

Hector Ortiz.

I went ballistic and for good reason, but after everything settled in, I wanted someone to talk to, and that someone was Tricia. Only, I’d walked out and hadn’t called her for days. I recognize the error of my ways now. What I don’t know was how to rectify things. How do you call the woman you love and ask her to help you understand your life when she basically hates you?

I rented this room once I’d arrived in town, and the time is approaching two weeks. Dixon was pissed that I skipped out when he was ready to give me a chance to show off my work. Tricia’s pissed I tore out her heart. And my sister is pissed because I won’t leave her alone.

For days, I’ve been reprimanding her.

How could she? And with Hector? At only seventeen?

She has reminded me I’m the pot calling the kettle black, and I pulled the it’s-different-for-boys card. Wrong thing to say. I’m finding I’m doing that often lately.

I sit on the edge of the nasty blanket over the lumpy double bed and stare at the bathroom door.

“Lena,” I call out to her again. “Just tell me what you want to do.”

What does she want? What does she want me to do? I’m pretty certain her response would be she wants me to go to hell. I hang my head, covering my face with my hands as my elbows lean on my knees.

“You know, that’s the first time you’ve asked me that?”

My head pops up, and I find my sister leaning against the doorjamb. With her tough exterior, she could be just another saucy-mouthed girl on the block, hanging with the wrong crowd and doing the wrong man. But she’s smart, and I don’t want her on the street like me.

“So answer the question,” I suggest, keeping my elbows on my knees and clasping my fingers together.

“I want to go to college. I want to do what kids my age do, not be a mother. Not yet.”

I sit up straighter. “Okay.” She’s already mentioned adoption. It would crush Mami if she ever found out, but Lena and I both agree it might be best for her if our parents don’t know the truth. Maybe in time but not now. Of course, we’ll have to swear Lys to secrecy as well. “What do we do?”

“What we, Leon?”

I point between us. “You and me. How do we go about this adoption thing? And how do you still graduate from high school?”

Lena stares at me. “I can’t go back.” Her voice drops as does her head.

“You need to finish high school, Lena. I’ll stay with you.”

Her head pops up. “I plan to finish school. I mean I can’t go back to Elk Lake City. And I can’t ask you to stay.”

“You’re my sister, Magdalena.”

“And you’re my brother, Leon.” Her sassiness retorts, but there’s something deeper to her snark. “I don’t want you to give her up.”

I stare at my sister. “Le—”

She raises a hand to stop me. “You love her, right?”

I swallow back the truth, not ready to tell my kid sister how strongly I feel about Tricia.

“All I wanted was for him to love me,” she whispers. I do not want to hear this, and something in my expression must tell her to stop. If she kept the baby, I’d never be able to look at it without thinking about the father and what he’s done to my family.

“You should go back,” she tells me. For the first time, she’s not screaming it at me but keeping her voice calm.

“Lena, I’m not leaving you here alone.”