Not by a long shot.
Desperately needing the answer that my soul sought, I continued. “If I gave you the chance, would you break them down to reach it? Because a part of me wants to trust that you can save me, that you can help me heal, but…”
I shook my head, losing the battle to keep my unstable emotions under control. “I’m scared.” Body trembling, I paused. “Scared that if I let you all the way in, which is something I’ve never done for anyone else, that you’ll do the opposite of what I need and destroy what remains of my heart. If that happens…” The words hurt to speak, yet I found the courage to speak them anyway. “Then what small amount of light is left in me will fade.”
After pulling his hand from my chest, he cupped my face, pouring his warmth into my icy skin. “Nothing in you will fade. Not as long as I have a single breath left in my body.”
His words were spoken with such conviction that something in my chest broke free, making it easier to breathe, although my mind was screeching for me to be cautious and not believe a single thing he said.
People couldn’t be trusted.
That was a fact.
“If you truly mean that, then promise me,” I cried as I circled his wrists with my clammy hands. “Promise me that you’ll tear them down and fight to fix what’s been broken for almost two decades.”
He started to speak once again, but I still didn’t give him the chance to get a word in. “I am begging you.” I wasn’t ashamed of it either. “If you truly believe that I’m more than just a junkie whore, please help me.”
His hold on my face tightened, yet I felt no pain. “For the last damned time, you are not a junkie whore. What you are is a victim, but that is about to end too.”
The ember of hope I’d felt come to life before flared, burning brighter. My nails dug into his wrist, nearly lacerating his skin, but he didn’t flinch. “Si?” Voice growing hoarse once more, I paused. “And how will it end?”
Dropping his forehead to rest against mine, he inhaled. “It ends with me saving both you and your girls.” Sliding his hands down the sides of my throat, he massaged my tender flesh. “I told you that I would be your salvation.” Moving to the left, he then pressed a soft kiss to my cheek. “I meant it.”
Relief hit me like a freight train.
Hard and fast.
“I want to save you t-too,” I stuttered in between gasps for breath. “That’s if you’ll let me. And maybe, just maybe, we can erase our sins together.”
An emotion I couldn’t read flashed across James’s face as his gorgeous eyes watered, filling with unshed tears, just like my own.
“You don’t need to try, sweetheart.” I didn’t know what that meant. Thankfully, he explained. “You started saving my soul the moment you purposely slammed into me and lifted my wallet. And that’s all there is to it.”
It was the last thing he said before softly pressing his lips against mine in a kiss that went straight to my head and chest, searing his taste into my frazzled mind and carving his place into my jackhammering heart.
For what I suspected would be all time.
I was beyond exhausted.
Limbs heavy with fatigue, I sat on the bed, riffling through an overfilled medical bag for ointment to clean my busted cheek, a flimsy white motel towel covering my damp, but now squeaky clean body. It was the same one James had wrapped around my trembling frame after helping me out of the bath minutes before.
Worried I’d fall a second time, he’d remained right outside the nearly transparent shower curtain as I sat in the tiny tub and scrubbed my skin and scalp nearly raw with a scratchy washcloth and plain white bar of soap that smelled of baby powder.
The scent clung to me like a second skin, reminding me of mi hermanito. The painful memories it stirred up only caused me to cry more.
I miss you, Alejandro…
Without you, it’s hard to breathe.
Needing to think of something other than the ever-present pain that swarmed my heart each time I thought of my beautiful little brother, I looked at James and whispered the very first thing that popped in my fried brain. “I watched you with him, you know.”
I cringed.
How estúpido could I be?
Of all the things to say.
Looking up from the medical bag he’d been riffling through in search of the cream he’d insisted on applying to my busted cheek, James pierced me with his curious gaze, burning grande holes in my profile. “You watched me with who?”
Anxiety increasing tenfold, I winced as I tried—keyword, tried—to run the black, wide-toothed comb he’d handed me minutes before through my messy, tangled hair. “Hendrix,” I replied, dropping my arm in frustration. “I watched you with him. More than once.”
Lips pressed into a thin line, he sat down next to me on the worn-out mattress. “Patience, sweetheart,” he said, nodding toward the pronged torture device I held in my shaking hand. “You’ve got to have patience.” I almost rolled my eyes. Patience was something I’d never possessed. Quick to become frustrated, I’d been popped with a shoe more than once as a child for such a thing. “Give me the comb and turn around.”
Chewing the inside of my cheek, I silently slipped the cheap plastic into his hand without argument. Turning in place, I gave him my back and waited for the torture-fest I knew was coming to begin.
Only, it never did.
A shudder coursed through me as James slipped the comb into the messy mop I called hair and detangled each knot with such gentleness, proving just how tender he could be.
Lids sliding closed, euphoria swirled around me as he continued to work through the strands, wrapping my chilled skin in its warm embrace.
“Where did you watch me with my boy?”
Popping open, my
