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“I love you,” I whisper as the car speeds away from them, “parasiempre.”
THIRTY-NINE
VICENTE
“Hierba Mala” by Reyko
I squeeze my eyes shut at the sound of glass breaking inside the house. Kat cringes beside me, her anxious eyes flying to the open doorway of the home my sister and her men shared only hours ago. She sighs when she sees her brother, Romero, down another tumbler of tequila.
Fuck, I know this is going to come back to bite me in the ass, but if I don’t do something before he and Alvaro are wasted, I’m positive they’ll do something even more reckless than finding comfort at the bottom on a bottle.
“I think you should go down to the pool house, Kat,” I tell the tearful girl beside me. “Shit isn’t going to be pretty up here for a while.”
“He’ll kill you when he finds out you helped her leave. They both will.”
I take her face in my hands, stroking her cheek and catching a tear with my thumb.
“No, they won’t,mi ángel. They’ll want to, but they won’t.” I kiss her forehead and urge her up. “Go on, I’ll come find you later.”
I watch her walk away, her worried eyes casting a glance in my direction when she walks down the pathway that takes her out of sight. I wonder if she’ll look at me the same way when she finds out what I've done.
I sit there for a while longer, staring at the cold water in the pool as I listen to the curses inside the house and blow out a heavy breath when another crash reaches my ears. Was it only five months ago that Vicenta and the guys were swimming happily together?
I am the cause of this. Not because I helped my sister get away for a bit, but because I am the one who killed our mother. It was my bullet that entered her heart as my sister bled in my arms. It was a knee jerk reaction, an instinct to protect my sister…it just happened to be my own mother that stood at the end of my barrel.
“You helped her leave, didn't you?” Alvaro’s tired voice interrupts my thoughts, making my insides twist with remorse when I hear the desolation in his voice.
“Yeah, man.” I turn and look at him over my shoulder. “I love you guys like brothers and I know you two are it for her, but she will always come first for me. She needs space right now, from all of us.”Mostly from me.
When she finds out what I’ve done, she’ll never forgive me. I’ll lose my best friend forever.
Alvaro wears a white long sleeve shirt and black sweatpants, the letter my sister wrote crumpled in his hand. He rubs the rosary hanging around his neck as he takes a seat, sighing and letting his gaze travel to the cold waters of the pool.
“Do you know where she is?”
I don’t answer, I just stare at him, waiting for his eyes to come back to mine. When they do, I nod.
“But I won’t tell you guys where she is. If you force your presence on her, she will leave for good. No one wants that, not even me.”
He drops his gaze, rereading the letter as Romero yells for Javier. I let him bark his orders to find my sister; he never will unless I let him. Darío went above and beyond to make sure our little meet-up house was off the records and completely unknown.
“She hates us for what happened.”
Yes, but that’s because she doesn’t know it was me.
“I think she started out that way, but my sister is stubborn, not stupid. I think she feels guilty being happy. She feels like she’s the betrayer for loving the two men who—”
I can’t finish the sentence.
“You blame us too.”
I look back up at Alvaro, staring at him for a moment, hating how he believes it was him and Romero who killed our mom.
“No, man, I don’t. I blame myself.”
I should tell him the truth. I should confess my sin, but I don’t have the courage to do it. I can’t say it out loud just yet.
“My mom was sick, and she desperately needed help, but we didn’t know that until it was too late. Vi knows this as well, she’s just never been good with emotions.”
