Page 73 of Tainted Blood
No chance.
I can just imagine Santi’s reaction if he found out I’d be hanging with a load of frat boys for the foreseeable. We may be separated right now, but the black SUV that’s permanently parked outside my apartment tells me I’m gone, not forgotten. His presence is still tightly wrapped around me, all the way from New Jersey.
“I’m not sure college is for me, Ella. Not after…” I trail off with a hapless shrug.
Isn’t it strange how you divide your life into subsections? Major events have the capacity to carve up your soul into the past and present.
“Will you at least think about it?”
“Sure,” I lie.
She gives me a look. She knows a blasé concession when she hears it.
“So, pizza’s out. How about gluten free Chinese?” She holds up the takeout brochures again.
“Sounds good,” I say, heading for the door. “I’m going to lie down. Give me a shout when dinner arrives.”
“But you haven’t told me what you want yet!”
“Chow mein. Anything. Not fussy.”
My bedroom is an even worse place to wallow in. Wherever I look, I see his face. Four blank walls seem to offer up the space for extra detail, too... Like the way he rakes his hand through his hair when he’s pissed at me. How the light reflects off his face first thing in the morning. How he looked when he told me he loved me, as if it was a revelation to him that a bad man could feel anything other than bad things.
Sometime later, I hear my door open.
“I’ll be there in a minute,” I mumble.
“Wouldn’t bother, food looks terrible,” comes a deep drawl. “I brought you something else instead.”
“Pápa?” I turn so violently all my bedsheets get tangled up in my legs.
Flicking on a side light, he leans against the far wall and crosses his arms, crowding out the space with his massive frame, his thick black hair framed with shadow, his dark eyes fully focused on me.
This time around, our silence is a dance of compassion—spinning words left unsaid into steps that I finally understand. I won’t find comfort in his arms, like I do in Ella’s. Instead, it’s here in his presence. Just like it was there in a warehouse, a couple of weeks ago, when he formed a truce with his enemy in order to rescue me.
“W-what are you doing here?” I stutter, sitting up.
“I heard you were home.”
Home.
But this isn’t my home, either.
“How are you feeling, mija?” he asks.
Broken.
“Better.”
He grimaces. “Christ. You’re an even worse liar than your mother.”
There’s a second pause—an empty space just begging to be filled with another confession.
“I killed a man.”
As I say it, I hold my breath, expecting the same reaction that I got from Santi. Instead, his head drops, as if the weight of my admission is a heavy crown to bear.
“You seem angry with me,” I whisper.