32. Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Two
Emily
A t breakfast, Amir stares thoughtfully into his cereal. “Trent’s not going to watch me while you’re on your trip?”
“No,” I say. “Grandma has planned some fun things for you two. Trent has a lot going on with work right now.”
“That’s why he moved out…” Amir stirs his cereal, but I can tell he’s still processing the sudden change in his life.
Trent had been here since April, and while I always considered the impact my relationship with Trent would have on Amir, I never expected everything to blow up so spectacularly. Trent is being so stubborn in a way I’d never anticipated.
It also means that I’m back to barely holding my life together.
All the threads are clenched so hard in my hands that I’ve been in tears almost every night.
Trent has been right about people around town—many of them haven’t been nice.
Some of them have treated me as though I’m some poor, wounded thing, and others have treated me as though I should have known better—but in every case, those people are assuming Trent is guilty.
And it makes me so, so angry.
“Someone at camp said Trent was arrested. Is he in jail again?”
Amir’s comment makes my heart stop.
“How was Trent in jail before?” Amir sets down his spoon and focuses on me.
“When Trent was a teenager,” I say, carefully, “he made some bad choices, and the police caught him making those bad choices.”
“This time too?”
“Some people Trent knows made some bad choices, and the police wanted to know whether Trent knew about those bad choices.”
“Did he?”
“No.”
“So Trent’s not in trouble?”
I turn away from him to stare into the sink.
“He shouldn’t be.” The truth is, I don’t know the status of the investigation.
He hasn’t been charged with anything, but I don’t know if that means he’s been cleared yet either.
Last Maggie heard, there were still some lingering questions, but she didn’t know exactly what those were.
“So I can tell Marcus he’s a liar?” Amir says.
“You’re probably better not to talk about it at all,” I say.
“I can’t let them tell lies. That’s wrong.”
“You can tell them it’s not true, but I wouldn’t sink to calling other people names in response.”
“But it is a lie.”
“He was misinformed, and he told you the information someone else probably told him.”
Amir slumps back in his chair, and I can see the same sadness reflected in him that I feel in myself. Part of me resents Trent for leaving me to explain all of this to Amir, but I also understand he’s got a lot on his plate right now. It’s a silly way to feel, but I can’t help myself.
“Can I call Trent later?” Amir asks. “When I get back from camp?”
“Sure,” I say, and I vow to text Trent at some point today to tell him it’ll be Amir calling and not me calling to fight.
I’ve always been more of an in-person fighter than one to do it over the phone anyway.
“Now, if you’re done with your cereal, go get dressed and pack your bag for camp.
I’ve got your lunch in the fridge when you’re all set. ”
“Okay,” he says, and he scrambles up the stairs.
“Knock, knock,” my mother says as she enters the kitchen door.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, grabbing Amir’s bowl and dumping the leftovers before slotting it into the dishwasher.
“Lovely to see you, too, dear,” my mother says, sliding into one of the kitchen chairs.
“You know I didn’t mean it like that. But it’s really early. I didn’t ask you to take Amir to camp, did I?”
“No, you didn’t. But I think that’ll probably be what will happen.”
“What do you mean?”
“You should sit down.”
I slide into the seat across from her, and she reaches out and scoops up my hands, bracing them with hers.
“What I’m about to talk to you about is highly confidential, and it would get quite a few people in trouble if it were to leave this kitchen.”
“Okay,” I say slowly, my pulse jumping into gear.
“Trent’s lawyer came to see me last night.”
“Oh no.”
“Trent is okay, but he’s being a very silly boy. Perhaps noble is a better word.”
“What do you mean?”
“The holdup to closing their investigation into Trent revolves around security footage in his shop.”
Immediately, I can feel heat rising into my cheeks, and I’m tempted to tug my hands out of my mom’s. But this is a familiar pose, one she uses to deliver tough news that she thinks one of us will struggle with. She already knows.
“He deleted some footage?” I’m guessing. Trent never told me, but I can’t imagine him keeping it, letting anyone else see it.
“That’s right,” my mother says, her tone gentle. “But he’s refusing to give the name of the person he deleted that footage for.”
I tug my hands out from hers, and I cover my face, tears springing to my eyes. “It was me. It was us.”
“That’s what I thought,” my mother says.
“I saw the way he was looking at you near the end of Victoria’s birthday, and I wondered why I hadn’t seen it before.
But I think that’s the first time we’d all been together in a while.
” She leans back in her chair. “I was a little surprised, though. I thought something had happened between him and Lila.”
“That was a misunderstanding,” I say.
“And this?” she asks.
“I love him,” I whisper. “Like really, really love him.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” she says, and she rounds the table to draw me into a tight hug. “What is it about these Castillo men?”
I let out a watery laugh into her shoulder.
When I think I’ve got myself together, I step away, and my mom rubs my back in comforting strokes.
“I can take Amir to camp,” she says, “but if you want to help Trent, I would go down to the police station and out yourself. He won’t do it. His lawyer said Trent would rather let the unresolved footage hang over his head for months than tell them who he was with.”
“His stubbornness was cute when it was helpful to me,” I say.
“It’s a bit self-destructive, which is a little concerning for my gentle-hearted girl.” She searches my expression for a beat. “You’re not worried?”
“He’s cut ties with me right now,” I say. “He’s convinced that his reputation is damaging to my career.”
“But I get the sense that his presence buoyed up every other aspect of your life the last few months.”
“Yeah,” I say, wiping away tears. “I feel like myself again.”
“Do you think you two will get back together?”
“I want to.”
“This is my motherly advice, which you’ll probably ignore.
He needs to go talk to someone about how heavily his past is impacting his perception of the future.
Is what’s going on now bad for him professionally?
Yes. Challenging for you professionally?
Probably. Does it mean he needs to abandon you and Amir to protect you from that?
My personal opinion is that he doesn’t, and that what he’s done is damaging in a different way than if he’d stayed.
We can’t protect the people we love from everything . As much as we might try.”
“We pick our battles.”
“We do.”
“I want to fight for him,” I say.
“Then your first step is going to the station and brandishing the sword of your knowledge.” She mocks pulling out a sword and swooshing it around like a lightsaber.
“You’re ridiculous.”
“Grandma,” Amir says from the doorway, “are you pretending to be in Star Wars again?”
“It’s our favorite way to battle, my little Obi Wan.”
Amir giggles and goes to the fridge to get his lunch. He stuffs it into his backpack and then looks back and forth between me and my mom. “Who’s taking me?”
“It is I,” my mother says, bowing to him. “I hear we’re spending a few days together when your mom goes on a trip.” She ushers him toward the door.
“Yeah, but I wish I was still hanging out with Trent. We were going to build my Lego set.”
As he goes out the door, my mom turns to blow me a kiss, and then they’re gone, chatting. At least I know that Mom can handle Amir’s curiosity and confusion about Trent. It’s not the first time she’s had to explain the unexplainable to Amir’s curious mind.
Gathering myself together, I brace myself for the visit to the police station. I’m going to be unbelievably embarrassed, but if it gets the police to close their investigation into Trent, then I can handle the heat.