Fat Girl (40 page)

All the grief I feel for her, for our unborn baby, and for the ones she may never have builds in my chest. A gruff noise escapes my throat. I haven’t cried since I was a kid, not even when Cayo died. But here in the dark, with the storm raging outside my window, holding the woman I love, scalding tears pour down my cheeks.

MY EYES OPEN TO A purple dawn peeking through a gap in the blinds. The taps of rain sound like fingernails drumming a glass surface.

The storm is over.

Mick sleeps on his side, snuggled into me. For all our past intimacies, this is the first time we’ve slept together. I incline my head to see his face. He looks peaceful; the demons at bay for now. His breaths are deep and even. His heart is thumping quietly beneath my palm. One of his muscular legs is wedged between mine, and his arms still circle my waist. He didn’t let go.

A jolt of warmth flows through me as I recall the passion with which he took my body last night. It was raw but not emotionless. Rough but only in the best possible way.

He saw my tears and apologized for not being tender when he selflessly set his own grief aside to give me nothing but tender, loving care. Soothing me through my anxiety attack, holding me while I wept, and encouraging me to open up about things I’d kept locked and secret for far too long.

I bared myself to him in every sense of the word. Stripped naked, body and soul. But that was under the cloak of darkness. Not in the light of day. Everything is different in the light of day.

Carefully untangling our limbs, I flip back the covers and inch to the edge of the bed, feeling a delicious soreness between my legs. Not to share a bed again with Mick is a dismal thought.

As my toes gain the floor, he grumbles in protest. I pause and glance over my shoulder to see Mick sweep his arm across the sheet. When he comes up empty, he frowns but doesn’t wake up.

I tiptoe over to the dresser where I saw my keys—right next to the blue velvet box, with my engagement ring inside.
It was all I had left of you.
Pangs of regret batter my chest like a boxer’s mitt. I pick up my keys and creep to the door. There, I turn to glance at Mick lying amid the rumpled sheets, a sliver of dawn slanting across his beautiful form. Then I silently leave because that’s what you do with a man you can’t have. You leave before you fool yourself into thinking that you can.

I walk across the hall to the guest room and change into my own clothes, which are still cold and wet. I pull a sheet of paper and a pen from my bag. Steadying my hand, I write a note:

I swipe at my tears before they fall to the paper
.
I fold the note and take it to the kitchen, where I find my phone and the full mugs of mocha still on the counter. I dump out the cups in the sink and place the note against the coffeemaker.

In the foyer, I step into my high heels and at the last minute think to check the alarm system. The flashing green light tells me he didn’t reset it. I ease open the door with a sad breath and quietly close it at my back.

Leaving a big chunk of my heart behind.

AFTER I SHOWER AND CHANGE into fresh, dry clothes at home, I email Lena to reschedule my appointments for the day and send Lexie and Jordyn a text inviting them over tonight. Now that I’ve told Mick and the worst of it is over—I didn’t break into pieces, largely due to him—I want the other people I love to know.

Two hours later, I arrive in Springvale. It’s still raining. The landscape is familiar, but I don’t feel any connection to the town. My only tie is to the Torreses…and Mick.

I drive by the blue house where he grew up. From the outside you’d never guess at the dark violence that went on behind those doors. There are toys on the front lawn and a pink bike. Maybe happier memories are being made there now.

Another hundred yards down, I pull up to the white wooden house I lived in from fourteen to eighteen. My breathing is fast and shallow. Not much has changed. A fresh coat of paint. Blinds instead of curtains hang in the window that used to be my bedroom, where Mick gave me my first kiss. He was my first everything.

The rock garden I planted with the girls is still thriving, and the weathered cedar swing still hangs above the porch, suspended by metal chains. Papa T would often smoke his after-dinner cigars out here. I’d sometimes keep him company, not minding the smell the way Mama T did.

I step out of the car, breathing in the damp air, and I nervously smooth my hands over my black pants and herringbone blazer. I considered dressing more casually, but business attire gives me that added layer of composure, or at least the illusion of it.

As if she’d been waiting for me, the door swings open, and Mama T comes running out. Just the sight of her, a little older, a little plumper, and a little grayer, has my tears falling before she reaches me.

“Oh,
mi preciosa
.” She takes my hands and stands at arm’s length to get a good look at me. “My beautiful daughter is all grown up.”

“I’m sorry, Mama T…so sorry for everything.”

“Hush,” she says, hugging me tightly. “You’re here now and that’s all that matters.”

I bask in the comfort and security of her embrace. After my mother died, Rita Torres didn’t just hold me while I cried. She worked it out with Child Protective Services to take me home. No one had ever done anything so kind and generous for me. As much as I held back, afraid to let myself love my new foster family, I still knew then that this woman would always be there for me. I wish I had let her be there when I needed her the most.

“What a pair we make.” She pulls back with a wet smile, lighting up her lovely, lived-in face. “Blubbering on the walkway in the rain.”

“There’s so much I need to tell you,” I say around my sniffles, “so much I need to explain.”

Hooking her arm through mine, we head toward the front door. “I’ll put on some tea and we’ll talk.”

We spend the morning doing just that. We grieve for the baby we never knew, for the ones I’ll likely never have, and for all the lost years. She takes me to visit Papa T’s grave site, so I can say a proper good-bye.

When we return, Mama T makes us lunch. She fills me in on Gabi and Maria. I stare in disbelief at the pictures of the little girls I knew at three and eleven years old, respectively, now young women. Gabi in her senior year of high school, living with Victor and Isabelle as a show of independence. Maria married with three children of her own. I peer into their sweet young faces, and it hurts my heart that I’ll never have that.

Mama T tells me the family has kept up the tradition of Sunday brunch, rotating locations, and invites me to Maria’s for the next one. I’m not sure yet how Victor’s going to respond to me or if I’ll be ready to see Mick again in a matter of days, but I nod in agreement because of how much it means to her.

After putting the photo albums away, she brings me up to speed on the local gossip and who’s doing what. Malcolm Peters is still the sheriff, only now he lives in a mansion up on Sunset Hill. A gift from Mick for pretense I would imagine. Maybe to keep the media hounds from sniffing out a story.

J. T., my high school tormenter, hasn’t amounted to much. No surprise there. Molly, the closest thing I had to a girlfriend, is still single and works at a Chicago TV station as the producer of a women’s talk show. And Johnny Tyler, the holy terror I used to babysit, is now a pastor.

“God help us,” I say, and we burst out laughing.

“Johnny grew up well,” Mama T assures me. “But sometimes I remind him of his antics when he’s being all serious and pastor like.”

“Remember the time he was seven and locked me out of the house when I went to pay for the pizza delivery because he said he was too old for a babysitter?”

“I do.” She chuckles. “You called from a neighbor’s in a fit, and I came over with Vittorio and Micah as reinforcements.”

“While you and Victor tried to reason with Johnny through the front door, Mick scaled the house as though he were Spiderman to get to the open window on the top floor.”

“Lord,” she says and presses her hand to her chest. “I thought he was going to crack his fool head open.”

“So did I.”

“That boy would have done anything for you.” Her wise eyes touch mine. “He still would.”

A bittersweet warmth pumps through my veins, and I swirl the Diet Coke in my glass. “Mick would do anything for the people he cares about.”

“True.” She nods thoughtfully. “But it’s different with you. He called before you got here.”

I take a sip of my drink. “That’s why you were expecting me?”

“Uh-huh. He knew you’d keep his secret about the girl—the one you saw him with—and he wasn’t about to let you take all the responsibility. He pegged you right. You didn’t tell me that part.”

“It wasn’t for me to tell.”

“You’re as protective of Micah as he is of you. You still love each other, and yet I can see you’re fighting it.”

“Mick and I will always share a special bond, but anything more between us isn’t possible. We’re not the same people we once were. We live in completely different worlds. It wouldn’t work.”

“Bah. That’s your fear talking,
mi hija
, not your heart.”