CHAPTER 14 #2
“But that doesn’t mean you’ve gotta do what they say,” Diego added.
“Which part of you wants her more?” Ricky asked, his head shaking after it appeared through the top of his T-shirt. “Doesn’t matter. She can’t—”
“What?”
“We’ve been through a lot together,” Ricky said.
“Yup.”
“That’s worth more than how much you…”
“Want her?” Diego chuckled. “In case you didn’t notice just now, I want you too.”
“Yeah, but in the same way?” Ricky’s expression was vulnerable before it hardened beneath a scowl. “Forget about Mindy. I’ve got something for you.”
“What?”
Ricky swallowed. “Get dressed.”
Diego didn’t move.
“Hurry up!” Ricky insisted. “Before I chicken out.”
What the hell was he talking about? Diego stood and studied him while putting on his clothes. Ricky couldn’t hold his gaze.
“All right. Now what?”
Another swallow. “I think I found the suicide note.”
A jolt of adrenaline hit Diego. “Are you serious?”
Ricky nodded. “Remember the baby book you showed me?”
Diego stared, his heart thudding. He’d never flipped through the ridiculous thing.
Of all the places he had searched, that wasn’t one of them.
He hauled ass to his mother’s bedroom and tore open the nightstand, which was filled with old family photos that never saw the light of day.
Neither one of them wanted to subject themselves to the pain.
When he turned around, Ricky was standing there, ogling the surroundings like a tourist. His mother’s room was the opposite of his own.
Diego kept his personal space sparse. His mother had built herself a nest she could retreat into.
A lush bed, old dressers, tons of clothes…
The curtains were always drawn. The walls barely visible beyond the clutter, like a padded cell.
“Where?” Diego demanded, tossing the book onto the bed before tearing through the pages.
“At the very back,” Ricky replied.
“What’s it say?” he asked, unable to wait.
“I’m not sure.”
“Then how do you know it’s the note?”
“I um… It just seemed like…”
Diego reached a sequence of blank pages. “I don’t see anything!”
“It’s between the last two pages. That’s why I thought it might be…”
He flipped to the end and stared. Then he shoved his hand inside the cellophane and pulled out an envelope, his pulse picking up when he recognized his father’s handwriting on the front.
Diego had seen countless examples when poring over the ledger in his dad’s old office, hoping to find some secret hidden there.
“Are you gonna read it?” Ricky croaked. “Maybe you shouldn’t.”
“Are fucking kidding me?” Diego sat on the bed and carefully removed a single sheet of paper that he gently unfolded. He could hardly get his eyes to focus. He’d wanted this for so damn long! Diego took a deep breath that caught in his throat as he began reading.
Marti,
By the time you read this, I’ll already be dead.
Unless I managed to screw it up, in which case you’ll probably finish the job for me.
I don’t want you to be angry. Or sad. Even though you’ve taken so much from me.
I’ve lost my entire family. Diego isn’t my own.
I’ll never be able to look my brother in the eye again.
Not without wanting to kill him. I can’t go home to Texas knowing what I do now.
Worst of all is losing you. I tried to be a good husband.
I know my moods are hard to deal with sometimes.
I haven’t always been the best provider, but I never would have cheated on you.
I don’t know where we went wrong, but there’s no fixing this.
I’ve failed as a husband, as a father, as a man…
I’m ashamed. You’re better off without me.
So is Diego, but I need you to promise that you’ll take care of him.
He might be my nephew, but I still love him like he’s my son.
Don’t tell him the truth. My brother is a monster.
He always has been. I don’t want Diego to go looking for the father he never knew. I want him to remember me.
I love you and always will,
Lorenzo
Diego felt woozy as he tried to take it all in, his eyes darting around the page to confirm what he’d just read.
Diego isn’t my own.
Don’t tell him-
-cheated-
-my brother-
“What the hell is this?” he growled.
“I’m sorry,” Ricky said, reaching for him with a trembling hand.
Diego knocked it away. “You knew?”
Ricky’s mouth moved. “I wasn’t sure if… I was worried that—”
“Shut up!” Diego roared. “Let me think!”
He focused on the letter again, the words a malicious virus that made the inside of his skull feel hot, like he was getting a fever.
His dad wasn’t his dad. Who the fuck was then?
An uncle he’d never heard of? Except he wouldn’t be Diego’s uncle but his biological father.
He let go of the letter so he could press two fists to each side of his head, which felt like it was going to explode. “Nrrrrrrgh!”
“Are you okay?” Ricky asked, trying to touch him again.
Diego shot to his feet and saw red. He wanted to hurt someone or destroy something. He needed a target!
-cheated-
-monster-
-kill him-
“Diego?” Ricky whimpered.
“You can’t be here,” he growled.
Ricky opened his mouth to ask another question. Diego grabbed him by the shoulders and spun him around.
“You’re leaving.”
“I won’t! You need—”
Diego picked him up under the armpits, finding release in the physical exertion, but it wasn’t enough. He set Ricky down by the front door.
“Put your shoes on.”
“I don’t want—“
“Do it now!” he ordered, punching the wall next to the door, his fist denting the drywall.
Ricky stared in shock. Then he squatted and hurriedly pulled on his shoes. “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said. “That’s why I waited. I couldn’t decide— I knew what you would want but—”
“You did the right thing,” Diego grumbled. “Now you’ve gotta go. You can’t be here for this.”
Ricky stood again. “For what?”
“I don’t know!” he snarled. Diego grabbed his car keys.
He marched down the outside stairs to where his car was parked, but there was no way he could give Ricky a ride home.
Not without leaving a trail of carnage in his wake.
“Here.” He shoved the keys into Ricky’s hand. “You know how to drive. Now go!”
Ricky shook his head. “I want to stay with you.”
Diego raised his hands, his fingers clutching, like he intended to strangle him.
Ricky shied away.
“I’m not asking you again.”
Ricky opened the car door. The Trans Am. Joyriding, his father doing donuts to make him laugh. Except he wasn’t his father. Who was he then? And what did that make him?
“You aren’t going to kill yourself, are you?” Ricky asked, standing with the open door between them.
Diego laughed maniacally. “You really think I’d do that? To anyone? After everything a suicide put me through? Not in a million years!”
“Good.” Tears welled up in Ricky’s eyes. “Because I love you.”
Diego was almost too dumbfounded to respond. “You don’t know who I am. Even I don’t. Now go the fuck home!”
He stood there and watched the Trans Am pull away. Then he went upstairs to the apartment above the auto shop. Diego retrieved the letter from his mother’s room and took it into his own, where he read it once more, and it finally became clear who to blame.
-you’ve taken so much from me.
From them both, because everything Diego was, his entire identity, was wrapped up in a lie.
The man he had idolized for so long, the torch he had carried since his death, all of it meaningless now.
Diego pocketed the letter. Then, with no one around to hurt, he finally unleashed the anger.
Diego attacked the walls, pummeling them over and over while roaring like a wounded beast, the pain his only catharsis, especially when it became so intense that his fists were all he could feel.
By the time he collapsed onto the floor, exhausted, his knuckles were bloody and swollen.
Even that wasn’t enough. He began to sob, hammering the floor while doing so, until he finally rolled onto his side and curled up into a ball.
He wasn’t aware of how much time passed.
Only that his thoughts wouldn’t stop racing, the entirety of his being aching inside and out.
Diego had been here before. There was only one way to deal with it, but not yet.
He had to remain sober, so he could get the rest of the answers he needed.
After that, he’d welcome oblivion. Not completely, of course.
He meant what he’d said to Ricky. Diego wouldn’t kill himself.
No matter how much pain he was in, because he knew that wouldn’t put a stop to it.
Instead all that hurt would spread to other people. Multiplied. Indestructible.
The front door opened and closed. Diego raised his head. Then he pushed himself up, swiping the letter once on his feet. He lurched into the living room like a zombie, his mother’s happy expression faltering when she saw him.
“Have a nice time?” Diego asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
“Oh my god!” Marti breathed, already moving toward him. “What happened to your—”
“Hands?” He raised the letter.
She froze. Then her face hardened with determination. “Come to the kitchen. Rinse them off. We’ll put an ice pack on—”
“What the hell, Mom?” he demanded, his voice cracking.
She shook her head while huffing in air. “Now you know.”
“Yeah. Now I fucking know! Even though he didn’t want me to. I guess Dad—” He choked on the word. “I guess Lorenzo thought I’d blow my brains out too.”
“You won’t,” she said, her tone insisting just as much as it pleaded. “You can’t!”
“No. I wouldn’t do that to you. Even though you deserve it. You killed him, Mom!”
“You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Yes I do!” Diego marched over to her. “You screwed around with his brother, and it killed him. It’s your fault he’s dead!”
She cracked him across the face. Marti wasn’t a small woman. There was tremendous force behind the slap. Enough to make him see stars.
“Shut your mouth!” she snarled, her entire body trembling. “You do not know what you’re talking about.”
“I do now!” he said, laughing humorlessly.
“The secret is out, so you might as well tell me the rest. Was it worth it? Huh? Did you get knocked up and seduce Lorenzo so he’d take care of you and the baby?
I’m guessing you didn’t want to stay with my real dad because he was a monster. What the hell does that mean anyway?”
“We’re not having this conversation,” Marti said, shaking her head adamantly.
“Fine by me!” he shot back. “I don’t care if you ever speak to me again. In fact, I’d prefer it that way!”
He returned to his room and pulled on his boots, his hands protesting with the effort.
Then he grabbed his leather jacket and was struggling to get it on before he remembered who it belonged to.
Not his father. The stupid thing was too small anyway.
Diego ripped it off again and tossed it aside.
The inferno burning inside him would stave off the cold.
“Where are you going?” his mother asked as he strode across the living room to the front door.
Diego didn’t answer. He went down to the garage, got on his Harley, and tore out of the parking lot, wanting to put as much distance between him and everything that he used to believe in. Diego wasn’t sure who he was, or where he was going. Only that he didn’t want to be here.
Where, then? Ricky would have too many questions.
He didn’t want Mindy to see him like this.
Omar’s life was too charmed for him to understand.
That only left one person. Diego rode hard, the blistering wind numbing his stinging knuckles.
He parked alongside a curb in front of a suburban home that was broken despite appearing perfect from the outside.
He pounded on the front door, his chest heaving.
Cameron looked puzzled when answering the door and downright concerned when seeing the look on his face.
“I need somewhere to crash,” Diego huffed, bracing himself for rejection. Or more questions. He wasn’t sure at this point which would be worse.
Cameron took a deep breath and opened his mouth. Then he shut it again and nodded. “Yeah! Of course. Come on in.”
Diego was shaking as he followed him inside, the door closing behind them, sealing him off from the madness of the world.