Chapter 11
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
AFTER
The city stretched out below me, bathed in the fading afternoon light. Atty had stopped by after work and finally met Steve. They were still in the gym, talking about my test results and performance.
Meanwhile, I stood on the terrace, staring at the view, forcing myself to endure this conversation.
“Have you been taking your medication?”
I resisted the urge to sigh. “Yeah, Mom. Everything’s fine, I promise.”
“That’s good, muneco.”
My jaw tightened at the endearment. Of course she wanted something. Nothing new. Even if she asked nicely now, it still stung.
“Yeah,” I breathed out. The sun was dipping lower, city lights flickering on one by one, scattered like falling glitter.
“Are things okay with Atty?”
“Mh-hm.”
“And school?”
“Classes are hard. Fast-paced. But it’s going okay.”
“Okay.” A pause. Then, “There was something I wanted to ask you.”
There it is.
“What’s that?”
There was a soft click of a door closing on her end. She cleared her throat. “I was thinking about having everybody over. For September.”
My brows knit. “September?”
“Yes. You’ll be done with classes, won’t you?”
“Probably,” I said, still unsure where this was going.
“I was thinking it would be nice if you could all be here for the Mass.”
“The Mass?” I echoed.
“Your father’s Mass. It’s been four years since he passed, but I thought it would be nice to do it for his birthday. Celebrate his life.”
More lights flickered on, a slow cascade spreading across the skyline.
I exhaled. “Who’s everybody?”
“Your sister and your brothers.”
I arched a brow. “Matias and Diego said they’d come?” They hadn’t even shown up for the fucking funeral. Not a call. Nothing. And now they were coming to celebrate my dad’s birthday?
She hummed. “Diego hasn’t answered, but Mati said he’d try to make it. And Lana is excited about seeing you. I didn’t tell her you said yes, just that I would ask.”
My gut twisted with guilt. Ilana had been trying to reach out again—texting more often, asking about my life. But not like Mom. She seemed genuinely interested and never asked for anything in return.
Still, my mountain of trust issues kept me holding her at arm’s length. Even though I knew what I was doing, I couldn’t make myself stop. I didn’t know how to meet her halfway, how to reciprocate her attempts.
So guilt it was.
I let my chin fall onto the cold metal banister, the surface oddly comforting.
“So, will you?” she asked. “You should bring Atty too. I’d love to finally meet him.”
I closed my eyes, forehead pressing against the rail. Perfect. Just what I needed—to relive that whole mess in the middle of…whatever this was. Me, asking Atty to come with me to Seattle.
I shook my head. “I don’t think he can come, but I’ll try to make it, Mom.” At the very least, I should try for Ilana. And for Dad too, I guess.
“That’s great, muneco.” She sounded genuinely excited. “You can meet Marco’s kids—they’re going to be visiting too.”
Of course they fucking would. Classic her. Slip in a hangout with her boyfriend and new family after I’d already agreed.
“Sounds like fun.” I mustered about as much enthusiasm as I could fake—which wasn’t much.
“It’s going to be incredible, you’ll see. Talk to you later!” she chirped.
I hung up and took a couple of slow, steadying breaths.
Was it always going to feel like this? I’d spent so much time trying to make this relationship work—dug through it with Samuel, tried to let go—but every conversation with her yanked me back to stage one. My chest ached.
I rubbed at it absently, then reached for the medallion around my neck.
Four years?
A soft knock sounded behind me.
“Hey.” Atty’s voice was a low rumble that cut through my thoughts.
I turned and offered a faint smile. “Hey.”
His eyes swept across my face, serious. “Steve just left. I didn’t want to interrupt your call.”
“Did you have a good talk?”
He slipped his hands into his pockets. “Yeah. It was fine.”
“Good.”
We stood at opposite ends of the terrace. Something about the air between us felt familiar—like déjà vu, heavy and unspoken.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
I shrugged. “I was. That was my mom on the phone, and…you know. Talking to her always puts me in a weird place.”
He shifted his weight. “I know.”
“Do you want to go out?” I was hoping it would alleviate some of the tension.
“I was actually going to ask if I could jump on the treadmill. Had to go in early this morning and missed my run. I won’t be long—I’ve got a change of clothes here.” He nudged his thumb toward the gym.
“That’s fine by me.” My fingers combed through my hair. “I’ll play for a bit while you do.” Yeah. That was it. I just needed to let it out.
He tilted his head. “Drums?”
I nodded and crossed the space to him. Reaching for his hips, I kept it slow, giving him space to back off if he wanted to. He didn’t. The second I was close enough, he wrapped his arms around my neck and drew me in, our bodies flush.
I looped my arms around his waist and breathed him in.
“Go get fit,” I quipped after a quiet moment of letting myself be held by him. Then I stepped back, catching the way his eyes lingered. Searching, always searching.
“I’ll be in my room. If I’m still playing, just tap my shoulder if I don’t answer, okay?”
He nodded, and we drifted apart.
Inside my room, I closed my eyes and tried to do the thing Samuel always insisted on—stand in the feeling. Even if it was uncomfortable—just stay in it. Feel it.
I wasn’t sure I was doing it right. That familiar ache in my chest crept in again, sharp and unplaceable, too close to guilt.
Then something worse hit. That instinctive twitch, like I was reaching for something I didn’t have. My hand moved on its own, halfway to my pocket before I stopped it.
No.
I scrubbed my palms down my face, pinched the bridge of my nose, and held in a breath before letting it out slowly.
Nope.
Dropping into a crouch, I gripped my hair, eyes squeezed shut.
It fixes nothing.
It only makes things worse.
Stop telling me it’s going to fix it.
I shook my head hard and stood, slapping my cheeks to shake it off. My eyes locked on the drum kit in the corner.
Samuel’s voice floated back to me, soft and certain: Give it another path.
Yeah, I could do that. Cravings were normal. I couldn’t freak out every time the thought crossed my mind. It was going to happen. I just had to give it a different way out.
I slipped on my headphones, grabbed the sticks, and queued up the first song that hit hard. I needed something loud—something that would drag me out of my head and bleed this feeling dry.
This was okay. Hell, you could even argue it was healthy.
Smells Like Teen Spirit. Darker than my usual picks, but it felt right today. The moment the opening drum pattern kicked in, it hit like muscle memory, sharp and real.
Let it go, Noah. Just let it all fucking go for once.
My dad was gone. I knew that. I could even handle it better now—I knew how to be sad, how to sit with it. But sometimes, it still felt like I was pretending. Like the real pain was just behind the curtain, waiting to be let out.
Somehow, while I bottled it up, all those tears had turned to screams. They’d evolved—matured—twisted into something that lived in every corner of my brain. Rage. Resentment. They wrapped around my bones like a second skin.
But they weren’t real. Just a Band-Aid. A patch slapped over the real wound.
The grief.
It felt intangible and impossible to deal with. Why did it still hurt this much? Why did every mention of my dad drop me into that black hole?
I slammed the sticks against the kit, throat raw as I screamed along with the lyrics. I poured myself into every beat, every crash of the cymbals, trying to outrun the thoughts chasing me down. I couldn’t undo the past. But I wasn’t going to let it own me anymore.
I wasn’t going to take this out on Atty.
And I sure as hell wasn’t going to take this out on myself.
I didn’t need it.
What I needed was to let it out. All of it. Just for now. The rest, I’d deal with later. Maybe in another brutal therapy session. But not now. Now, I needed this out of my system.
My arms burned, but the ache was satisfying—earned.
Every precise hit sent shockwaves up through my wrists, into my elbows and shoulders, a full-body vibration that pushed me harder.
I locked into the rhythm, timing tight, memory guiding every motion.
Sweat slicked my neck and back, my shirt clinging to my skin as I ran the song again. And again. And again.
I wouldn’t stop until it took up every inch of me, until there was no room left for anything else.
In the chaos, my voice mingling with crashing cymbals and thundering bass in my ears, the calm finally came.
I didn’t need anything else right now. Just this.
The sticks blurred in my grip. The vibration from the snare and toms traveled through my forearms, buzzing through the joints, numbing my fingertips. My back curved into the groove, my core tightening to stay grounded as I played. I wasn’t just keeping time. I was the time.
This song had a way of keeping you locked in until the very last note, the very last word. I paused, finally, to catch my breath, muscles trembling. I had no idea how many times I’d gone through it.
Panting, I stilled one of the cymbals with my palm—and jumped at a dull thud behind me.
I yanked off the headphones and turned in my seat. I always kept my back to the door when I played—less distraction—but now I had no idea how long he’d been standing there.
Atty leaned against the door, chest heaving beneath a damp T-shirt, his cheeks flushed from the run. His pale-blue eyes were wide, lips parted, and his brows, those thick, expressive brows, arched slightly, like he was seeing me for the first time.
“Sorry, have you been there a while?” My throat rasped, raw from pushing it too hard. I cleared it, but he kept staring at me like I was an alien who’d just crash-landed on Earth.