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I have zero words. Where to even start when I can’t get my own brother to accept the fact that I’m here and need to speak to him. He won’t let his guard down for two seconds. I’m his sister, for God’s sake, and he’s acting like I mean nothing to him.
Bodhi clears his throat in that moment, and then he utters two words.
“Mateo Chavez.”
Eli’s head all but whips to Bodhi, eyes hard and accusing. I can see his jaw muscles flexing with every clench of his teeth, like it’s an actual effort not to say exactly what he’s thinking right now.
“What do you know about him?” Eli asks, careful not to let his emotions slip through the cracks of his carefully crafted mask.
“Not enough,” Bodhi says.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Eli asks, and it seems as though we may finally have his attention.
His eyes find mine again, and it’s like he’s seeing me in a whole new light. His eyes search my face, tracing over every bruise and scrape before settling on my broken wrist.
“Did… did he do this?” Eli asks in a voice so calm and so quiet that it has the hair on the back of my neck standing on end.
“No… not him,” I say.
“Who?” he says, practically demanding a name.
“Listen, this will be a lot easier if we can start from the top. Fewer questions I think,” Bodhi says.
Eli draws in a deep breath before gesturing for Bodhi and me to explain.
And so, we do.
“It all started after you were sentenced,” I begin, recounting the day that Mateo showed up and threatened me.
I told Eli about the debt I had been paying off. He gripped the edge of the table so hard that I thought it might break in his hands.
I glanced up at the clock and saw that we only had another forty-five minutes, and a lot to tell. Details would have to wait for another time.
Bodhi explained how we met and how he came to be involved in all of this, skipping over the development of our relationship. It wasn’t important to the story, and I doubt my brother would care to hear it.
“I always felt like she might have been hiding something from me, but I knew how headstrong she was, so I put it off on that for a while,” Bodhi says.
“Headstrong?” Eli cuts his eyes to me, and I catch the smallest twitch at the corner of his lips. “I think you mean stubborn.”
“That too,” Bodhi chuckles before continuing. “It wasn’t until she opened up about you that I learned about Mateo. Little did Keaton know that I have my own issues where he’s concerned.”
He tells my brother all about that day. How Tommy had mentioned the other driver buying drugs off of one of gang members in The Cast, and how the driver responsible for the accident that resulted in Tommy’s death had been tested and found to have those same drugs in his system.
“He was banned from racing ever again, but I still lost my brother that day. Somehow, it never really felt like justice was served,” Bodhi says.
He doesn’t like to talk about it much, but I know how hard it is for him to accept that this guy walked away with what appears to be a slap on the wrist, while he would never get to see his brother again.
“You can’t think like that,” Eli says, shocking the both of us. “Don’t get me wrong. I know the kind of hate you feel toward that guy. His choices cost you your brother. That’s an unforgivable act. But one he has to live with every day.”
Eli shakes his head, and I wonder what he’s thinking about.
“It’s not something easily done, but if you can, you have to make peace with this guy. Not for him, but for yourself.”
I glance at Bodhi out of the corner of my eye, and watch as he swallows the pain, pushing it down to be dealt with another day.
“You can’t carry that shit around with you for the rest of your life and expect to be happy.”
Bodhi nods, acknowledging that he hears Eli.
