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Swollen eyes search my face. “What?”
“How did it feel to have someone wrap their hands around your neck and squeeze until you couldn’t breathe? Did it feel like your lungs would burn? Like they might—” I pause, then say, “Pop.” He flinches when I accentuate the P, but I keep going. “How did it feel to have someone there when you woke up in your home, in your bed where you should be safe?” I cock my head to the side, plain curiosity on my face. “Was it scary? Did you try to scream, but they wouldn’t let you? Did you try to fight, but they were stronger? Did they hurt you so badly, you ended up in the hospital?” My words soften even more, something hateful and monstrous leaking from the core of me as I smile a spiteful smile. “Do you have nightmares, Antonio?”
“Fuck you, Ne.”
“I feel nothing for you, Antonio, because you’re the reason that I know what all that feels like.” I spit. “Go away and don’t come near me again.”
“Just call them off,” he begs tiredly.
“I already told you I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The door to my parents’ house flings open and my dad—my very blue-collar dad, who wears floral shirts because it makes Mama giggle and watches reruns of M.A.S.H for fun comes running out in socked feet, swinging an orange blown glass vase he’s hated since my childhood. Mama isn’t far behind, but at least she has a cast iron frying pan.
“You get away from her!” Dad yells. “I’ve already called the police. You’re not welcome here, hear?”
Antonio is already backing away, still holding his ribs. “Please. Tell him I’ll never contact you again. Tell him!”
“Go on, now!” Mama shouts, but Antonio is already at a car I hadn’t noticed across the street. He slowly lowers into the driver’s seat, and without buckling up, speeds away.
Dad shakes the vase, yelling obscenities I’ve never once heard him utter, much less roar them down the quiet street he’s lived on since before they had me. When the car disappears, his shaking hand lowers the vase and he turns to me, teasing, “Well, kiddo, I was really looking forward to breaking this thing over thatpissant.” He shrugs. “Looked like someone worked him over good already, though.”
Mama snatches the vase. “Give me that thing.” She shoots him a glare. “You’ve always hated this poor vase.”
She starts to strut back up the walk in a huff when she turns, catching Dad’s silent admission of her accusation before she mutters, “Inside, Nevaeh. Quick now.”
I do as I’m told, because Mama doesn’t get that tone often, but when she does, I know better than to question it. Questioning it could get me a swift kick in the pants.
Inside, Mama says, “I called Kane.”
My eyes pop wide. “You what?”
Hers narrow into a pointed glare. “I called. Your. Husband.”
“Why?”
“Because that man—” Mama’s hand whips to the front door. “Was nearyou!”
I know in that moment, when Mama’s lips quiver, that Dad told her everything. I’d been ten shades of livid when Kane told me he’d told Uncle Miguel and Dad about Antonio and the whole mess. But he’d kissed me and—ahem—fucked me until I got over it.
My face softens. “Mama.”
“Don’t Mama me, Mija.” She shakes the vase at me. “How could you not tell me?”
“I didn’t want you to worry.”
“It’s my job to worry!” She’s still shaking the vase and Dad’s watching her with a little too much hope that the thing might just shatter after all.
I give him a pointed glare but say to Mama, “I didn’t want to take the risk that—if I involved you—” I stop talking and nibble my lip. Mama stops shaking the vase, waiting. “I was afraid that he’d hurt you if I involved you and I was already just—so hurt, Mama.”
“Oh, baby.” She tugs me into her chest, shoving the vase at Dad again who catches it—just barely. “It’s not your job to protect us, Mija. It’s ours to protect you.”
I don’t realize a few tears have slipped free until Mama swipes her thumbs under my eyes, holding my face in the palm of her hands to study me. “Come,” she says softly. “I’ll make you some cocoa.”
Sugar.Just the thing the doctor ordered for a brutalized, haphazardly put back together again, heart.
twenty-seven
Nevaeh
