Page 59 of In a Perfect World

Chapter 30

Kairo~

It was Thursday evening, and after admitting defeat, I’d left work after lunch, my mind not in the right place to even leave my damn house.Triana’s arrest was all over the news, and her brother and Sonia were making some pretty loud waves, leaving me to feel more useless than I’d had before.

I also realized that I wasn’t the victim in this scenario, but that didn’t help with how I felt.Trying to focus on what Triana was going through didn’t stop me from feeling like complete trash, and I was fairly certain that the feeling was never going to go away.

Like an idiot, I also had my television stuck on the news to hear anything and everything that was going on with Triana.Since there was no way that Sonia would tell me anything, the television and internet were my only source of information, which wasn’t much more than my father had already told me.

With my head in my hands, I sat on my couch, wondering if it was possible to make this right.If my father wouldn’t help me, I needed to think of another option...any option, really.It also didn’t help that her parents weren’t a possibility right now.While I was certain that they were worried about her, with their relationship being what it was currently, I might only make things worse if I reached out to them.Truth be told, her brother was the only other person that I could think of that might help me, but fuck...I could only imagine how that conversation would go.

Just then, my phone rang, and even though I didn’t feel like answering it, hope was a motherfucker, and every time that my phone came to life, I prayed that it was Triana.Even though I knew that it wouldn’t be, that didn’t stop me from hoping that it was.

Grabbing my phone, I didn’t recognize the number, which had my heart pounding furiously in my chest, my palms immediately slick with hope and more hope.

With my lungs tight in my chest, I answered the phone.“Hello?”

“Kairo Booker?”

“Yes, this is he,” I rushed out, my voice sounding like someone was sitting on my chest.

“This is Tomasco Medina,” the man said, and the tightness in my chest just got worse.“Sonia gave me your number.”

“Yes...of course,” I stammered.“What...what can I do for you?”

“Look, I’m calling because my sister is more important than my opinion of you, and Benicio Cortez is refusing to take my calls,” he said, getting straight to the point.“You’re the only option that I have left, and I figure it’s the least that you can do for what you did to my sister.”

“I know,” I quickly rushed out.“I never should have left her alone-”

“I’m not talking about leaving her to fend for herself,” he said, cutting me off.“Triana’s very strong-willed, and I have no doubt that all of her choices were her own.I’m talking about making her believe that there could ever be something real between you two.Love aside, you knew that a happily-ever-after could never happen between you guys, yet you led her on to believe that it could happen, and she fell for it because of what all she was already going through emotionally.You exploited a hurt, lonely, rejected girl, and if that doesn’t make you the biggest asshole on the planet, then I don’t know what does.”

“I did not exploit Triana,” I automatically denied.“I fell in love with her and-”

“And made her believe in something that wasn’t possible,” he snapped, cutting me off again.“I don’t have a problem with you falling in love with her because she’s a very easy person to love.Yeah, no...my issue is that you should have suffered that shit in silence.Being Alvin Booker’s son, you never should have gone back to the creek.”

There was so much that I wanted to say, but I was also wise enough to understand what was at stake here, and pissing off Tomasco Medina further was not going to help Triana.What happened between me and his sister didn’t happen as coldly or irresponsibly as he was making it out to seem.I loved his sister, and I was still going to love her fifty years from now.

So, ignoring all that he’d just said, I asked, “How can I help?”

“I spoke to Triana earlier, and she told me that she hadn’t gotten arrested crossing the river,” he said, surprising me.“She had explained how she’d been scoping out the fence from underneath a sand cliff when two border patrol agents grabbed herwhileshe was on Rancher Hills land.”