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While I didn't give a crap about who was watching, Sam stopped abruptly when he realized we weren't alone. He dropped his eyes and shook his hand out, the hand he’d hit me with. "Stay away from me, Matias. Just stay away from me."
His words were like a knife being thrust into my chest. But that didn't stop me from stepping in front of him again as he moved to open his car door. His keys were in his hand, so before he could react, I plucked them out of it and then grabbed his arm in a firm grip. "Hate me all you want, Sam." I propelled him to the passenger side of the car as I continued with, "You're going to have plenty of time for that because I'm not going anywhere."
Once we reached the opposite side of the car, I yanked the door open and waited. Sam's eyes held mine. They glittered with anger and hurt. I tried to search for the right thing to say, but I knew there was no such thing. I waited for him to fight me, to argue with me.
But there was no more arguing, no more words of anger and pain. It was all there in his eyes though, loud and clear. Sam simply turned away from me and climbed into the car. And I knew then that this really was it. That I'd lost him.
I'd lost him, but I had no one but myself to blame.
Chapter 20
Sam
"Night, buddy," I said to Ryan one final time as I closed the door to his bedroom enough that the light from the hallway wouldn't be shining directly in his eyes as he fell asleep. Ryan waved his hand at me drowsily. Despite the evening's events, I knew he’d be out in no time.
To say the drive from the Barretti townhouse to the home where Ryan had been attending a classmate’s birthday party had been tense was an understatement. I hadn't spoken a word to Matias, just like he hadn't spoken a word to me. I'd managed to put on a mask of calm when we’d picked up Ryan and I'd shown all the appropriate levels of excitement as he'd told me about the party. But as I'd gotten his wheelchair in and out of the van, I'd been frantically looking around for a stranger to come out of nowhere, gun drawn. Thankfully, Ryan hadn't picked up on any of my tension. He'd been curious about Matias’s presence, but after I'd explained that Matias had just stopped by to say hi, he hadn't asked any more questions. I figured he'd remembered Matias from our movie night a couple weeks earlier. I'd been worried that Matias would be a trigger for Ryan since he’d been there the night Blake had attacked my family, but Ryan hadn't seemed to recognize Matias on movie night. Tonight had been the same.
As I stood just outside of Ryan's door to make sure I didn't hear him calling out for me, my body began to shake violently. All the fear and confusion and hurt came roaring back in an instant. I was tempted to go back into Ryan's room and lie down next to him just so I would know he was safe, but I knew that would just confuse my little boy. He was finally getting back to the point where he was feeling more and more comfortable being away from me, and I didn't want to jeopardize that in any kind of way. The mere fact that he'd been willing to attend his friend’s birthday party was proof that his meetings with the child psychologist were helping.
But now it was all at risk because Matias hadn't been up front with me. In truth, I still didn't even really understand what was happening. I knew it was something I would have to talk to him about in more detail, but the ordeal of going to Declan Barretti’s home and thinking that Matias was dead somewhere only to have him walk through the door like he'd never been gone had worn me out mentally and emotionally. Then he’d had the audacity to let me start apologizing to him for having dared google his name out of concern.
I pulled in a deep breath and tried to get control of my runaway emotions. I was eager to talk to Elliot to make sure he was okay, but without my phone, I was out of luck. The reality was that Ronan was right. I needed to wait until Elliot was back in Seattle before talking to him about what was going on. My son had called me a few days earlier to tell me that he was flying with Cruz to Miami so Cruz could say goodbye to his dying father. Knowing what I knew about the relationship both Cruz and Matias had with their father, I knew it would be an emotional time for Cruz. He would need all of Elliot’s attention to deal with what was happening.
