Chapter 36
Thirty-Six
KIERAN
I pull Cisco to the side before we reach the others.
I can’t hold it in any longer. I want someone else to know how I feel; I need someone else to know it’s real.
In hushed tones, I make him promise not to tell anyone.
I trust him; he isn’t a blabbermouth like Bo, or an asshole like Jaime.
Out of everyone, he’s the only one I really get along with.
I tell him everything. About my dreams, about the paintings. About the nights in the studio, and our first time in the villa. How I told Isabel I love her, and proved it.
Cisco stands there, brows lifted. “Oh, wow. Wow.”
“I need your help, man.”
“Natalia’s not going to be happy about this.”
I know she isn’t. But I can’t find it in me to care. She has nothing to do with any of this. “I need your help,” I say again.
“With what?”
“I want to take Isabel on a date. A proper one,” I say.
“But I know she won’t want to arouse suspicion if we’re the only two not at home, so I was hoping—well, I was wondering if you and Chiara might want to make plans with us?
And then separate so we can go on our own dates?
And return home together?” It’s the perfect plan.
Chiara’s the closest to Isabel, so no one would question if they went to hang out together.
Cisco can make some excuse about wanting to see some of the brutalist architecture in the city—a subject I know bores everyone—so no one else will want to come. No one else but me.
Cisco looks hesitant.
“Please,” I beg.
“You really like this girl?”
“Cisco, I love her. So much. I’m thinking about moving here. To be with her.”
“Are you serious?”
“Dead serious.”
“Your moms will let you?”
I shrug. I don’t want to think about that right now. “I’ll figure that out when I get there.”
“And work? Are you planning to get a job here?”
“I’m thinking of getting in touch with some galleries to showcase my work.” I’ve thought this through. I don’t care what it’ll take. I’ll work in corporate, damn it. For Isabel, all of it would be worth it.
A smile stretches on Cisco’s lips. He pats me on the shoulder. I know what he’s thinking: this is new for me. I’ve never been in love and he knows it. He’s tried to get me laid a hundred million times before to no avail. He knows as well as I do how real, how momentous this feeling is for me.
“My man,” he praises. “Okay. I’ll talk to Chiara. But you do understand I’ll have to tell her what happened, right?”
“She won’t tell the others, will she?”
“No, no. Keeks isn’t like that.” Cisco’s eyes focus behind me. He nods and I glance back to see what he’s looking at. Sitting there, behind the glass doors in the living room, is Isabel, staring blankly at the piano.
“Go get your girl, lover boy,” he says. “Leave Chiara to me.”
* * *
My heart pounds when I step back into the house. Isabel looks up, but she doesn’t smile. Something’s wrong.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
She sniffles. She tips her head back and fans her face.
“Sab—”
“Excuse me.” She rushes to the bathroom. I race after her, standing outside the door when she shuts it in my face.
“What’s wrong?” I call out.
The door flies open. Isabel’s eyes are red, her nose runny. “Be quiet,” she says. “Someone might hear you.”
No one’s here. I push her into the bathroom and step in after her, locking the door behind me.
“Tell me what’s wrong, baby.”
She swipes at her eyes. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”
“If there’s an it, then it isn’t nothing.”
She chuckles bitterly. Tips her head back again. “It’s stupid. We don’t have to talk about it.”
I cup her face. Her dark hair scrunches under my palms. “I love you,” I say. “Let me in. Let me be here for you.”
My heart breaks when she bursts into tears. I sweep her into my arms, holding her close.
“I feel so pathetic,” she sobs. “I don’t understand what I’m doing wrong.
I don’t know why I’m still here. I want to go home.
I don’t want to leave you. I don’t understand why they hate me.
I don’t get why every time I feel like they start liking me, something shifts and I’m back in the gutter again.
I’m so tired of being on the outside looking in.
I’m so tired of feeling like the odd one out.
It’s like nobody wants me here, but then I start telling myself it’s all in my head, that it’s a matter of perspective and I’m just making myself out to be a victim.
I feel like such a loser, because why do I want to be friends with them, still, after everything?
Why—why do I feel so special when Natalia is nice to me?
Why do I want her to lay down her armor and just like me?
Why can’t she just say sorry? Why can’t we just move on? ”
Her words shoot out of her like silver bullets, piercing me straight in my soul. I can tell she’s carried this with her for so long. I don’t know what to say, but what I do know is I can be here, with her, for her. I can sit in this hurt with her, help her shoulder its burden.
I press a kiss to her forehead. I stroke her hair.
The weight of my own guilt crushes me. I should’ve said something, spoken up more all those times they were mean to her.
I know what it feels like to die by a thousand cuts; I hadn’t had an easy go at it growing up either, having preferred the comfort of my sketchbooks and crayons over running out in the playground with the rest of the other boys.
It taught me to shut up, to be grateful when people actually include me.
But fuck. Why should anyone be grateful for scraps of kindness?
Shouldn’t we all deserve to go, to be where we are wanted? Where we’re loved?
“I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry,” I whisper.
Isabel pulls away from me to swipe at her face. “It’s not your fault. It’s—”
“I should’ve said something. I let them do that to you. I let them treat you like that.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t expect anyone to put themselves in the line of fire to stand up for me.”
“Well, you should. You deserve that much and more.” I cup her face and kiss her. Her lips are salty from her tears.
“I just—” she chokes out. I hug her again.
“I know, baby. I know.”
I let her cry until she runs out of tears and her breaths even out. When she shifts, I pull back, hands on her shoulders, eyes scanning her face for any more signs of hurt.
“They’re probably going to wonder where we are,” she says.
“Fuck that,” I tell her. “Me and you. Let’s go out. I—” Shit. I should’ve asked her first. “Don’t get mad at me. But I asked Cisco for his help, so we can go on a date.”
Her eyes widen. I rush to explain the situation to her, and to my relief, she relaxes.
“That—that sounds really nice,” she says. “Maybe you can even meet Rocío?”
I nod. “But dinner—I want it to be just us. I want to take you out. Spoil you real nice.”
I like that my words make her blush.
“Okay,” she says, sniffling.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, okay.”
Another kiss to her forehead. “Go and get ready. I’ll wait five minutes before I step out of here.”
She laughs and kisses me on the lips. “I love you,” she says.
“I love you, too.” In fact, I couldn’t be more in love.