The pain filling her eyes disappeared.
Fiery anger took its place.
Jerking back, she slapped my hands, knocking them away from her cheeks. “You know nothing about me or my pathetic life,” she hissed, eyes narrowing. “So do me a favor, cabrón, and don’t pretend as if you do.”
“I know enough.”
Silence, followed by her heavy breathing filled the room. Teeth clenched, she looked ready to clock me.
Not that I blamed her.
“Yeah?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest. “Then tell me why you think that I, a junkie puta, should continue to live a life I never intended to when every day my soul pleads for the pain that torments me to end.”
Before I could second-guess what I was doing, I wrapped a strong arm around her back and pulled her into me.
Her frail frame slammed into my hard one, and I held on tight, refusing to let her get away.
It was a bullheaded move to make, but at that moment, I just wanted her to understand what I was about to say.
And part of me wanted to hold her.
Real bad.
Placing my right hand on her chest, atop where her broken heart lay, I lowered my face, hovering it inches above hers. Gazes locked, I waited to see if she would stab or punch me.
She did neither.
“This right here,” I said, feeling the mighty beat of her pulse bleed into my hand, “is why you should keep going even when your exhausted soul cries out for relief. Because, trust me, sweetheart, despite the shit that is ravaging your will to keep fighting, your heart is beautiful.”
A momentary silence fell over the room.
Then, wide-eyed, she looked at me like I’d sprouted two heads and started dancing the funky chicken. “Are you drunk?” It was not a question I expected her to ask. “Because if not, dios mío, you truly are loco! You think my heart is beautiful?”
A humorless laugh slipped past her plump lips. “Well, I have news for you, pendejo, my heart is anything but!” Shaking her head, she took a step back, pulling free of my hold. I could see her walls rising once more, intent on keeping me out. “I knew I shouldn’t have let you come close, that I shouldn’t have—”
“I am not drunk,” I interrupted, eyes narrowed. “I haven’t had a drink in over seven years.” I pulled my keychain from my pocket and dangled my sobriety chips between us. “I’m sober, and from here on out, I always will be.”
Her mouth gaped. “You’re an alcoholic?”
Though innocent and devoid of malice, the question was still cutting. The shame I felt over what I’d been would never abate, no matter how many wrongs I fought to right.
“For a long time I was,” I answered, refusing to cower from my sins. “But alcohol wasn’t my only vice. I spent the same amount of time gambling and placing bets I had no business making.”
Chest heaving, her free hand, the one not holding her knife, went to her hip. “Is that all?” Attitude on full display, her jaw ticked. “Or do you have some more titles you’d like to throw at me? How about an asesino? Are you one of those too?”
Not hardly.
Then again, my past actions had made me a murderer in a sense. After all, I’d killed parts of my son that no matter how badly I wanted to revive, I couldn’t. Not to mention what I did to my mother.
Do. Not. Think. About. It!
“No, I’m not a killer.” I paused, forcing my throat to work as I swallowed. “But some would say that what I once was, and what I’ll never be again, is worse.”
Eyes narrowing, her shoulders tensed. “What were you?”
Trepidation flooded my veins as I took a ragged breath. “A piece of shit father who beat my only son.” A tear, one that I didn’t deserve to cry, slid down my cheek. “For almost his entire childhood, I was an abusive drunk who took my rage out on my boy instead of getting help like I should’ve.”
The anger I’d felt while cleaning Carmen’s wound-covered arms was nothing—and I mean nothing—compared to the fury that blazed in her eyes at my confession.
“You bastardo!” she screamed, lunging forward. Hands fisted, she slammed them against my rock-solid chest, one after the other, repeatedly. “How could you?”
It was a question I asked myself every day.
And one I had no answer to.
As I’ve said before, I had a bad childhood, and I’d been through more shit than most could fathom, but it wasn’t an excuse.
If anything, what I’d endured and survived as a kid should’ve been the fuel I needed to ensure that my son had a better, easier time growing up.
But that’s not what happened.
And it was all my fault.
“Why?” she screamed as she continued to hit me. “Why would you hurt him?” Her infuriated voice echoed off the basement walls, reverberating through the otherwise silent room. “You tell me why before I rip your throat out!”
It wasn’t the threat, one I was convinced she’d follow through with, that broke me.
Instead, it was the unending tears that cascaded down her cheeks, along with the insurmountable hurt morphing her beautiful features, both of which were for my boy, someone she’d never met but still hurt for.
I’d been right about her.
Her reaction to my sins confirmed it.
Securing her bony wrists in my firm hands, I stopped her angry fists mid-strike. “I told you,” I whispered, uncaring of the bruises I could already feel forming on my chest. “I told you that your heart was beautiful.”
Confused, she stared up at me with red-rimmed eyes, shoulders jerking. “What?”
“Every feeling that plagues you, tearing you apart from the inside out on behalf of my abused son is proof that your heart is good.” She froze, her entire body stilling. “If you were dead on the inside, if your heart was as ugly as you implied minutes ago, you wouldn’t feel any of that.”
Her eyes widened.
It was the only sign she gave that my words had hit
