But she would also never let them see her break.
This would pass. Tonight would pass. She just needed to hold on for now.
“I'm sorry,” a voice whispered from next to Carmen and she turned around to see Hunter, no longer laughing about the spilt wine but whose face had gone white and completely drained of blood. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I’m sorry. I—”
Carmen stared at him in confusion as the apologies kept tumbling out of his mouth uncontrollably, audible enough only to her ears as arguing ensued over the rest of the guests.
Some of them were more than eager to rip Carmen to shreds; others just wanted the dinner to go by without any disturbance and were asking each other to shut up; and the rest just continued with their meals, blissfully ignorant.
But Carmen drowned them all out. She got rid of the noise and focused on what mattered.
“Hunter? Why are you apologising?”
He squeezed his eyes shut and clasped his hands together in an attempt to stop the trembling. “I was supposed to—I’m supposed to—I came here because—God, I’m so sorry.” He opened his eyes and tilted his head towards her, his blue eyes filled with so much anguish that it shot daggers right at Carmen’s heart. “I was supposed to be strong for you,” he admitted quietly. “But I can’t. Everything is so loud. And I... I don’t know.”
And she understood. Carmen understood.
Because while the others sat there, trying to pull at Carmen’s strings and unravel her, they were also breaking Hunter. After all, Sophia hadn’t only been Carmen's mother, had she?
All of them were so buried deep with their hatred and disgust for Carmen that they didn’t see their words were killing one of their own.
So she reached out and slipped her hand into his, squeezing gently. “I’m not your burden to carry, Hunter. You’re not supposed to be strong for me.” She blinked once, offering the tiniest of smiles. “But we can be strong for each other.”
The tremble in his hands slowly subsided, and he squeezed back, wordlessly telling her that even if everything else went to shit and blew up in their faces tonight, they still had each other. She wouldn’t have lost all her family.
“—was her fault!” Ethan Rutherford, Cole’s father, thundered as he glared at Aunt Bea. “Our dad must be shaking in his grave,” he spat. “Knowing you brought his daughter’s killer to sit with us at the ta—”
“Shut up.”
Hunter’s voice was low and could be easily drowned out by their uncle’s roaring, but it still rose above the noise with that subtle get demanding undertone that nobody but Hunter Donoghue could pull off.
Carmen realised that, right now, maybe he needed to be that ruthless boy she’d seen walking down the school hallways. Maybe the only way he knew to fight back was to become the person he was fighting.
“What?” Ethan Rutherford raised a brow.
“I asked you—told—I told you to shut up,” Hunter said indifferently, his eyes on their older relative but his hand still in Carmen’s.
“Don’t you speak to my dad that way,” Cole snarled.
Hunter snorted. “Like I give two shits about what you want.”
“Watch that mouth of yours, boy,” Viola said sharply, glaring at Hunter. “You speak to my son with respect!”
“You always let your mother do your talking for you?” Hunter cocked his head, never breaking the stare-off with Cole.
But that smirk on Cole’s face only turned sharper. “At least I have a mum, Hunter. You, on the other hand...” He let the words hang and even though Carmen saw no change in Hunter’s exterior, she felt his hand tighten around hers. “You lost both, didn’t you? Which person loses both their chances of having a mother, seriously? It’s like some horribly written joke. But maybe it’s just you. Maybe you tend to bring in a whole lot of bad karma just like how you dragged in that stray with you tonight.”
“She’s not a stray!!” Hunter snarled, eyes flashing as he yanked his hand out of Carmen’s grasp and stood up from his seat, slamming both palms against the tabletop, the sheer force of the gesture sending a shockwave that rattled every little thing on the table.
Carmen’s breathing faltered, beginning to feel the panic at how things could start spiralling out of control.
“She is as much a part of this family as I am,” he continued, the tone of his voice more restrained, that flash of anger subdued for now. “Same blood that runs through her veins runs in mine. In yours. In anybody’s born into this family.”
Viola gasped, as if hearing something inhumane spill out of Hunter’s mouth. “Same blood?” she spluttered, looking horrified. “Same what? Do not compare my son to that piece of filth. My boy is pure. Good. He doesn’t have tainted blood. He doesn’t have a rapist’s blood in his system!”
Only seven minutes had passed. Her dad was still outside, still on the line with the hospital.
But Carmen was feeling the life drain out of her now, and she didn’t know how much longer she could keep up the nonchalance.
Tainted blood.
Carmen’s skin felt heavy now, and there was bile rising up the back of her throat. What was that emotion which was currently burning through her? The feeling that made the hair on her skin rise and had her throat in a tight fist and made her stomach churn. What was that? Self-loathing? No.
Disgust. It was disgust.
Carmen no longer felt like she was home in the body that she came in. “Tainted”.
She was going to be sick.
It was loud sobbing that snapped Carmen out of her downward spiral within those milliseconds. Beatrix was crying.
Carmen watched
