Page 29 of 50 Ways to Win Back Your Lover

Her attention snaps to me. “Did your mom know?”

“Not a clue. Remember Staci Wilcox?”

“Your dad’s secretary?”

The seemingly sweet woman who’d come by the house with wine and magazines for Mom, books for me, and sports gifts for my brothers. “Turns out her real name’s Grace Balsam, and she acted on behalf of the cartel in North America, managing some of their affairs. She’s the one who brought my dad into the fold, molded and trained him.”

Delilah’s eyes are saucers. “Seriously? She seemed so nice and quiet.”

And my dad seemed like a regular middle-aged accountant, not a mastermind criminal earning dirty money. “When the trial happened, like, a year and a half into WITSEC, Dad’s testimony took her down. It also sent Victor Becerra’s son to jail.” Luis Becerra, known hit man and drug lord. Great company, my father kept.

Delilah gives her head an incredulous shake. “I remember something about a trial. Vague news stuff.”

“The proceedings were held in closed court to protect the witnesses, so you wouldn’t have heard details about my dad or Grace, but you might have heard Becerra’s kid was killed in jail later. After that fallout”—my gut still clenches remembering those terrifying days—“Becerra made it clear he planned for my father to suffer the same fate: seeing his kids murdered. WITSEC became more intense after that.”

“Jesus.” She searches my face. “Do you still talk to him?”

“Dad?” The grunt I make is pure loathing. “None of us do. Haven’t seen or talked to him in ten years. We stayed together as a family for the first six months leading up to the trial. It was the shock more than anything, I think. All of us functioning in a daze—navigating WITSEC orientation at a designated Safesite until they set us up in Houston. Once we had our IDs and understood what our lives had become, Mom lost it on him. Kicked him out. We were all pretty relieved to see him go.”

“I can’t even imagine.”

I don’t want her to imagine. I don’t want her to endure a fraction of the pain I experienced. “We made it through. Except Desmond. He’s the most messed up these days.”

“He’s not a lawyer at some fancy firm, driving a Porsche and rubbing it in your face?”

I love that she knows the old Desmond would have revved his Porsche engine with a shit-eating grin, but thinking about how far from that guy he is deflates me. “He didn’t finish his classes. Works at random bars now, disappears for stretches of time. He even has a man bun and a horrible collection of bad tattoos.”

Her mouth drops open. “Desmond has a man bun.”

“And he drives a rusted yellow Camaro.”

“No way.”

I spin my beer, moving my thumb through the condensation. “He was gonna propose to Sadie. I saw the ring and everything. Then, at the Safesite orientation place, I found it in the trash. He just loved her so much. Losing her sucked the life out of him.” I lift my eyes to Delilah’s, unsure whether she can read my pain. I’m talking about me now, not Des. Bleeding my heart is easier like this, pretending my pain belongs to someone else. “He barely made it through each day. Obsessed over social media, freaking out when Jake would take his computer away. He didn’t know losing someone could hurt like that. I think it broke something inside him, irrevocably.”

I don’t bother swallowing past the Everest-size lump in my throat. Delilah has a couple of tears on her cheeks. She doesn’t wipe them away.

“He was a mess,” I go on. “Couldn’t stop imagining how hurt Sadie was. He didn’t eat. Barely slept. He looked like utter shit and couldn’t even—” Draw. I was about to say draw, but I don’t. I keep playing this game of It’s Not Me, It’s Des. “He loved Sadie more than anything in the world, and when he lost her, he lost his light. Struggled to make new friends. He couldn’t figure out how to be happy without her. He’s living his life now, getting on the way we all do, but he’s not the same. He misses that light in his life.”

Delilah dashes at her face, then puts her beer down on my coffee table and rubs her hands down her jeans. I don’t know if she’s reading the true meaning behind my words—I lost my light. I’m not the same without you—but when she focuses back on me, I see the little girl who yelled at me to get off her land. Fierce Delilah, full of fire and emotion.

“Sadie loved Desmond more than anything in the world too,” she says. “When she lost him, she spiraled, could barely eat or sleep. She didn’t know loving someone could hurt so badly. She was a shadow of the person she was, and she didn’t want to get out of bed. She didn’t want to go on with her life.”

“Delilah.” I cave forward, plunk my beer on the floor before I drop it. Hearing from others that she suffered was brutal. Hearing it from her?

I want to scream or vomit or upend my furniture, punch the pink wall. I’m furious at what she endured, the time we lost, the fact that we have to share our emotions through secondhand stories because everything else is too damn hard. Did she try to hurt herself because of me? Did she do something drastic to make the pain stop?

I search her wrists, her arms. I see no telltale scars. “Whatever you went through, I’m so sorry.”

Her shoulders droop. “It’s not your fault, E. It’s neither of our faults.”

“I know, but I’m the one who vanished. Even though my father did this, it feels like I’m partly responsible.” Wherever we go from here, I’ll replay my verbal lashings today. Exist with barbs of guilt scratching under my skin.

Furrowed lines sink between her brows. “You know how I knew your wild story wasn’t a lie?” When I shake my head, she rubs at her frown lines. “You always felt so much growing up. When someone got hurt or their dog or cat died, you got this devastated look on your face like someone reached into your chest and ripped out your heart. When I broke my horse figurine, you fixed it, even though we hated each other. No matter our history, you couldn’t stand seeing me upset. I used to think you were an empath, like your mom used to say about your birth—that you had this ability to absorb other people’s emotions. But I decided you were just the best person I knew.”

Her last line inflames this deep missing of Delilah in my life, makes me ache to move beside her on the couch, wrap her in my arms.

Her gaze drops to her knees. “You were never good at hiding your emotions when we were kids, and you’re still not. You absorbed everyone’s anger today like you deserved it and didn’t once defend yourself. These past years, I built you up in my head, imagining you cold and callous. But I saw how much those words hurt you, and I knew. This isn’t a game to you. What you went through hurt you deeply, and you took that backlash like the old E would have, like it was your penance.”