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"You don't want to see me hurt," she says in a small voice.
Slowly, I raise my eyes to meet hers.
"Really? Was that some kind of test?"
She quickly shakes her head.
"Of course I don't want to see you hurt, Noelle. And youknowit."
"Then why…" she asks the question in a whisper.
My ears perk up as I wait for her to continue.
"Why won't you accept my apology? Why… Why won't you forgive me?"
I squeeze my eyes shut as a wave of discomfort assails me.
"Noelle," I start, but I stop myself as I realize my anger from earlier is resurfacing. Taking a deep, steadying breath, I open my eyes as I give her a direct look. "You don't understand, do you?"
She gives a tentative shake of her head.
"How can I forgive anything when I don't know what happened? How can I accept your apology when I don't know the truth? When I don't trust you totellme the truth?"
"But… You hate to see me hurt," she says hurriedly, reaching out and grabbing my shirt. "This hurts me more than anything, Raf. I can't bear it," she breaks off on a sob. "I can't bear it…"
"How do you think I feel, Noelle?" I ask her in a serious voice. "Can you honestly not understand how I might feel? What if the roles were reversed? What if I raped you while you were on drugs? What if you had no recollection of it but suddenly you found out you'd had a child? That I took your child away and he's now dead?"
She swallows hard as she breathes harshly, her chest rising up and down as her sobs quiet down.
"I…"
"You wouldn't be able to forgive me either, could you?"
When she doesn't answer me, I rise up, pursing my lips as I head to my own room. Remaining here would only be more torturous.
Yet as I'm about to go out the door, she finally speaks, truly surprising me for the first time.
"If you raped me, I could forgive you. If you abused me, I could forgive you. But I wouldn't be able to forgive you for taking my child away from me."
The last bit is barely audible, yet it's there.
"I would forgive you anything but our child…"
The woman who confessed to killing her own child is telling me she'd never forgive me for the same thing.
"Then you know how I feel," I tell her before I'm out of the room.
If that's the only thing she would never forgive, how the hell did she do it.
Unless… There is more to the story. Theremustbe more to the story.
Vlad was right. Noelle isn't like Bianca. She feels empathy, just as she feels guilt. And despite all evidence, I highly doubt she would ever be able to do anything to her baby.
Maybe soon I'll have more pieces of the puzzle to make sense of this whole mess.
I fall asleep still thinking about her words, and my dreams are anything but calm.
The following morning after we take our breakfast, I finally tell her why we're in Mexico.
