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“Don’t touch me.”
“Please don’t say that.”
“Then don’t do it again. I’m not sure if I should even be here.” I whispered to myself, searching his face for an answer, before turning away.
“Here? You’re right, you shouldn’t be. Where you are is because of me, emotionally, mentally. I challenged you to be honest… living vicariously through the idea that someone—people like you and I—could actually be free from our past. I always thought you weren’t ready for what I had to say, and I thought I could mold you into the person I knew you were inside—someone who could accept me unlike anyone else ever had. But now I may have been wrong. Maybe it was something we needed to do together, not one person at a time. You just wanted to show me how much you cared, and I let you down.”
My shoulders dropped as I shut my eyes.
“That’s all I wanted, Alejandro,” I muttered. “I just wanted that chance to be there for you… and you robbed it from me.”
“I know. I fucked up. I fixed what I had to, and I knew it had a cost. But now, I’m afraid I broke something else in the process.You,” he confessed. “If I’m going to make this right, then it starts with honesty. It starts with meeting the expectations I had for you. I can be honest, Gemma. I can be open.”
I looked away, uncomfortable with the idea of forgiving him so quickly. Why was he so difficult to read? Admittedly, it was impossible to tell if he was acting and that was hard to ignore, especially since we were in a theatre.
“If you’re so willing to be open, then tell me right now… where have you been?” I finally asked, expecting the truth.
Alejandro took a deep breath, indulging in a pause I knew he needed. “I’ve been in L.A. I had to meet with Lina and my agent to develop strategies for when my father went live on T.V. My whole team and I have been on damage control, in the talks with press to combat the things he said, which you need to know, first and foremost, are completely untrue… Lina wants me to file a suit for defamation, but it’s not worth the trouble anymore.”
“Anymore?” I asked, his admission sounding nefarious.
His face remained stern.
“He’s safe, Gemma,” he assured, as if my suspicion became too much. “He just wanted to tear me down. He got that. He has everything he ever wanted now, and in return, I have his silence.” I could see the tension in his broad shoulders relax, lowered in the admission that clearly made him uncomfortable to discuss. “He’s back home. He won’t bother us.”
“It was never him who could bother us, Alejandro. It was our inability to trust one another that was the problem, always has been. I wish you let me help.”
Alejandro shook his head.
“Letting you help meant bringing you into Miguel’s world, and it’d be far too triggering for us. I know how you feel about thunderstorms, Gemma. They’re frightening, they’re loud, they’re everything that makes you want to hide away. Miguel is my thunderstorm, and as much as I wanted you there, I’d never let that man have access to the only light in my dark life.” Alejandro stared down at my feet, the tips of my heels meeting his boots.
“Your past is a part of you…” I replied, “but it doesn’t define you.” I placed my finger under his chin and raised his eyes towards mine. I knew it would be hard for him, but I had to ask the question, I needed to know how honest he was willing to be. This was his chance, his opportunity to show me the best he could, not through one of his explosive reactions, but through his words. “Alejandro, why did your father say those things about you… what happened?”
He looked past me, his firm grip reaching beside my shoulder. My back pressed against the wall as I looked up, watching as his thumb ran across the silver plaque with his mother’s name.
“It starts with her…” he answered, “Alma Marquez.”
I looked back up at the photo, at the face I knew I’d seen before. “I’ve seen her…” I admitted, “she looks just like—”
“Natalie,” he agreed. “I know…” He opened his palm to me, an invitation to take a chance and follow his lead. Hesitantly I accepted, placing my hand into his as he slowly, carefully, began to lead me into the dark hall that I originally avoided. “That’s why we’re here, to tell you about my past. About how it led up to everything I ever did. About Natalie…”
Chapter37
Gemma
Ihated to admit it, but once Alejandro laced his fingers with mine, I felt safe again. He was willing to show me his truth, his tenderness as gentle and as calm as his melancholy eyes.
“At your mother’s house, you had asked me if I was ever afraid of becoming something that I couldn’t control. Do you remember that?” With his free hand, he slowly pulled back the thick crimson curtain, guiding me inside.
“I do…” I reluctantly rested my head along his bicep, having no sense of direction as we took the first step to a set of stairs. Was this his Met, a culmination of dark halls, leading to the equivalent of my Latchkey Rose, a painting I showed him that represented all my grief? I was so scared and vulnerable then, and now, somehow, it started to feel the same for Alejandro.
“Similar to you, I never wanted to become the same dark cloud I grew up with. I feared it, still do,” he said as we ascended, hearing the distant laughter of children. A new light took shape at the peak where we climbed, its glow split by another curtain. “For me, this was my father. His disease, his pain, was something less hereditary, but bred in a home that I hated more than anything in the world.”
“His disease?” I asked, his nodding head assuring me with the faintest of outlines.
“Being with him, thinking of him, was always like walking in the dark. I’d already felt completely shut out, as if I didn’t exist at all, or worse, like I only existed for him to despise.” We took our final step as he pulled the curtain aside. “But not Alma, she was my light.”
A cast of theatre lanterns revealed a hidden amphitheater, whose size was far larger than the tiny lobby would suggest. We were in the balcony, staring down towards a wooden stage, its dilapidated charm painted with Greek gods and olive branch wallpaper. Below were a few excited children, their chatter shushed by parents who attempted to corral their belongings.
