Page 8 of Violent Attraction
A few seconds after my knock, the door opens just slightly. Enough for Isabella to see who it is through the small crack.
The eye that I can see is red and her face looks pale, like she hasn’t seen the sunlight in a while.
“Santiago?” Her voice comes out low but it’s enough for me to hear the surprise in it.
I never actively seek her out. The one other time that I did, was a few days ago when I walked by and saw her crying all by herself.
“Hi,” I give her a little wave.
“What do you want?” Maybe she thinks Leo or my mom sent me to check on her, because me being here is really out of character.
“I brought you something,” I hold up the bag that’s in my hand.
She looks from the bag to me, her eyebrows bunching up in confusion.
“What is it?”
“Um,” How do I tell her? “Can I come in and show you? I don’t think you will want to open it out here.”
She is a little hesitant but soon the door opens wide enough for me to walk in.
I close the door behind me and place the bag on her bed, waving for her to open it.
Again she’s hesitant, like she thinks the bag holds something that will explode, but after a few seconds, she walks over and opens the bag carefully.
I stand back as she opens it. When I hear a gasp, I don’t know if I should be happy or afraid of her reaction.
“Where did you get this?” Isabella turns to me and I see fresh tears running down her face.
I swallow the lump that is forming in my throat.
How do I tell her that it was my father that found her mother’s body in the parking lot of the fabric store? That it was him that got the call from her security team that she was gunned down and was the first person on the scene?
How do I make the words come out that my father found the bag of fabric that was purchased by Rosa to bring back to her daughter? The same bag I was holding onto until I found the right time to give to Isabella.
“Um,” think Santiago. Think. “My dad found it, and I kept it to give it to you. I can take it back, that way it doesn’t make you sadder than what you already are.”
Of course, it’s going to make her sad. I just gave her a bag full of fabric that her mom purchased for one of their projects.
Isabella looks at me with wide eyes and when I see the tears escaping her eyes faster than they were seconds ago, I start to panic.
Way to go Santiago, you made the girl a blubbering mess.
I’m about to excuse myself, so that she can cry in peace, when she throws herself at me. Her arms go around my waist and hugs me tightly, like she’s gasping for a life vest.
For a second I have no idea what to do, like I’ve never hugged a person before. Eventually my brain and body finally communicate, and I wrap my arms around Isabella's small frame.
“I didn’t want to make you cry,” I say to her, my arms holding her just a little tighter.
“They are happy tears, not sad ones,” Isabella pulls herself away from my arms and goes back to the bag of fabric sitting on her bed.
“Happy?” I watch as she picks up a bundle of floral fabric.
She nods. “I thought that I lost this piece of my mom forever, and then you brought me a small part of her back.”
“You were going to give up something that you loved because she died?”
As long as I have known Isabella, she has always liked to make things with a sewing machine. It’s something that she is really good at. Her giving that up would feel wrong.