Page 148 of Love Unwritten
“I’m sure you have some questions.”
“You don’t owe me any explanation.” The one he gave Nico was sufficient for me.
“It’s not that.” He scrubs a hand down his face. “I want to talk about it with you.”
My heart does a little skip. “Okay.”
He stares out at the ocean, his jaw clenching and unclenching with each deep breath. “You know how long it took Nico’s mom to notice my habit?” He says the last word with a sneer, and my mouth stops working temporarily.
“Nico was two years old already,” he says when I don’t speak.
“That is…” A very long time.
“Pathetic.” His gaze swings from me to the stars.
The fact that it took years for Hillary to notice that gives me so much insight into their marriage. I hadn’t shared many meals with Rafael back at the house, so I didn’t pay much attention before, but once we got to Hawaii, I started picking up on the clues.
First, I noticed how he would ask waiters for specific serving sizes and be very purposeful about which meal he chose, which would have made him look like a hard-ass if it weren’t for his extremely generous tip and the simple thank you he wrote at the bottom of every receipt.
Then, he kept saying he was full after every meal, only to eat the small leftovers on Nico’s plate. He didn’t look happy about it. In fact, he appeared pretty damn miserable, which was the biggest glaring sign.
“She thought I was just hungry because of my workouts and all the physical labor I did at work.” He doesn’t look at me. “She didn’t even ask me why. Didn’t care to.” A shaky breath follows. “If anything, she was annoyed.”
My bottom lip quivers, but I ease the tightness in my chest with a joke. “Well, it doesn’t bother me.”
“No?”
“Nope.”
He releases a heavy breath before speaking up again. “My parents didn’t have a lot of money. Whatever they earned was quickly spent on booze, gambling, and whatever made my mom happy that week. Sometimes, because of their irresponsibility, we didn’t have enough money for food, so I learned to not let anything go to waste.”
Our dinner sits in my stomach like a lead block.
His eyes dart away. “It became a habit, or a compulsion, as my therapist said. Some kind of trauma response, and one I can’t control despite having more money than I could ever spend in a lifetime. I didn’t know my limits when I was younger, so when I first moved to Lake Wisteria, I would eat to the point of making myself sick, which then triggered that same fear of my aunt and uncle getting tired of my issues. I was convinced they would wake up one day and decide they were done with me.”
“How old were you?” I ask in a neutral tone despite my heart aching.
“I was only a little older than Nico, and I had seen so much shit in a short amount of time. I was a mess.”
“You were a child.”
He glares at the sky like he wants to yell at it.
“Did they know how bad things got with your parents?” I ask.
“No. My uncle and his brother weren’t on speaking terms before his death, so they weren’t aware of the situation until they got the call about me needing a new home.”
“Oh, Rafael.”
He can’t look me in the eyes anymore. “They drew their own conclusions based on a medical chart and a couple of questionnaires, but they never pushed me to open up.”
He clenches and unclenches his hands a few times before speaking again. “I got away with avoiding the topic for a year, but it wasn’t like I could hide my nightmares or compulsive behavior. Then one day, I overheard my aunt and uncle talking about how they were thinking of sending me somewhere to get help.”
His breath, like my own, comes out shaky. “Lake Wisteria is a small town, and I had heard of a couple of kids in school who went away because they had issues, so I panicked, thinking my aunt and uncle were getting sick of me.”
An invisible vine covered in thorns wraps around my heart and gives it a squeeze. “They just wanted to help you.”
“I realize that now, as a grown adult with a kid of my own, but back then, it felt like my whole world was ending.” Rafael’s despondent smile makes my chest ache.