Chapter Twenty Two
Cece
The lock turns beneath my hand, and for one stupid second I just stand there with my palm still wrapped around it, heart pounding so hard it feels like my whole body is trying to warn me before I even open the door.
I know who it is.
Of course I fucking know.
Nobody else pounds on my door like they’re trying to fight the damn thing. Nobody else says my name like that either, all rough and desperate and too familiar, like hearing it from him still has the right to do something to me.
Puta madre.
I open the door anyway, and there he is.
Revel, pretty lying boy, St. Clair.
Soaked through, black shirt plastered to his chest, rain running down his jaw and disappearing beneath his collar.
His hair is darker from the water, one cheek already bruising, there’s a split near his mouth, and both of his hands look like hell.
For half a second, every thought in my head disappears.
My stomach drops so hard it almost hurts.
“What the fuck happened to you?”
The words come out before I can stop them, pure instinct, and I hate myself for it immediately because concern flashes across his face like he caught me caring.
Then I remember the empty chair.
The cold food.
Mami trying not to look worried.
Four calls straight to voicemail.
Seven. I’ll be there. I promise.
All that hurt comes rushing back so fast it burns.
I grab the edge of the door and shove it toward him, but his hand catches it.
“Cece.”
“Ay, no. Absolutely fucking not.”
“Mama, just—”
“Do not call me that.” My voice cracks, and that makes me even angrier. I shove harder against the door. “Get your fucking hand off.”
He doesn’t.
He’s not forcing his way toward me, but he’s holding on like letting that door close might be the end of everything.
“Please.”
The desperation in his voice nearly gets me.
Then I see myself sitting at Mami’s table again, checking my phone while everybody pretends they aren’t watching me get stood up.
“Move, Revel.”
“I need you to let me explain.”
“You had five fucking hours to explain.”
His jaw tightens, rain dripping off his face while he looks at me like I just punched him.
Good.
Let it hurt.
“I couldn’t.”
I laugh, sharp and ugly. “Qué conveniente.”
“Cece—”
“You promised me.” My voice breaks completely this time and fuck him for making me say it out loud. “You looked me right in the fucking face and promised you would be there.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t get to say that like it fixes anything.” I shove at the door again, tears already burning behind my eyes. “I sat there like a fucking idiot waiting for you while my mom kept telling me you wouldn’t just forget me.”
His whole expression changes.
“Cece, I swear to God—”
“I believed you. Trusted you.”
That shuts him up. For one second, all I can hear is the rain.
I shake my head and push the door again. “Get out.”
His hand stays braced against it, but whatever fight was in his face disappears.
“Mama…”
“Don’t.” I wipe angrily beneath one eye. “You do not get to disappear on me and then show up here looking like this expecting me to melt because you’re hurt.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
“Then what the fuck are you asking?”
His eyes lock on mine.
“One minute.”
I hate how wrecked he sounds.
I hate even more that some stupid piece of me still wants to give it to him.
“Si me mientes,” I whisper, voice shaking, “I swear to God, Revel, I will never forgive you.”
“I’m not gonna fucking lie to you.”
I stare at him for another long second, then loosen my grip on the door just enough for it to swing inward.
Revel steps inside, dripping rainwater across my floor, but he doesn’t move any closer. For once, he seems to understand that pushing me right now would be a spectacularly bad fucking idea.
I back away until there’s a few feet between us and fold my arms tightly across my chest, partly because I’m pissed and partly because if I don’t hold myself together somehow, I’m pretty sure every emotion I’ve spent the last five hours choking down is going to spill out all over the place.
“Okay, so talk.”
His chest rises with a slow breath, water still running from his hair down the side of his face. He glances toward the door behind him like he’s making sure it actually closed, then looks back at me.
His jaw tightens. “I didn’t ignore you.”
“Really?” I gesture toward him with both hands because apparently looking like he got jumped in an alley is supposed to magically erase the entire night.
“Because from where I was sitting at my mother’s house, watching dinner get cold while everybody waited for you, it felt a whole fucking lot like being ignored. ”
Something in his expression cracks.
“Cece—”
“You said—” My voice comes out sharper than I intend, but once I start, I can’t fucking stop. “You promised. You looked me in the face and promised me you would be there. That you would always be there, and like a fucking idiot, I believed you.”
“You weren’t an idiot.”
“Don’t.” I point at him, eyes already starting to burn. “You do not get to walk in here and tell me how I’m allowed to feel.”
His hands curl at his sides, busted knuckles flexing before he forces them open again.
“I couldn’t text you.”
I laugh, but there’s nothing funny in it. “Right.”
“I mean it.”
“Then explain it, Papi, because whatever the fuck happened better be incredible.”
He stares at me for a beat, and for the first time since he walked through the door, the stubbornness drains out of him.
His shoulders drop slightly, his eyes flick toward the floor, and when he speaks again, his voice sounds rougher.
“I got arrested.”
The anger inside me stutters.
I blink. “You what?”
“I got arrested.”
My gaze immediately drops to his hands again, then travels back up over the bruise spreading along his cheek and the cut near his mouth. Suddenly all the blood and swelling I was too furious to process starts fitting together in a way I really don’t fucking like.
“What the fuck happened?”
Revel drags a hand over the back of his neck, then winces like even that hurts. “I stopped at the store before dinner. I was getting flowers for you and your mom, and wine. I spent twenty minutes standing there wondering what the fuck you’re supposed to bring when you meet your girl’s mother.”
Despite myself, my chest squeezes.
“Revel.”
“I saw someone there that I didn’t expect to ever see again.”
The way his voice changes makes my anger pull back another inch.
“Who?”
He looks at me then.
“One of my old foster dads.”
Everything in me stills.
I knew Revel grew up in the system. I knew he bounced from house to house, never staying anywhere long enough for it to really feel like home, and I knew that somewhere in all of that, he and Lena ended up with the same foster family.
That was how they met, how they became whatever they are now—more like siblings forged out of the same shitty circumstances.
“From when you were a kid?”
He nods once, jaw tightening as his eyes drop away from mine. “Yeah. The last one. The house Lena and I were in together.”
Something about the way he says it makes my arms loosen from around myself before I even realize I’m doing it.
“Okay…” I take a small step closer, watching the tension gather through his shoulders. “And what happened?”
Revel looks away.
Not casually either.
His whole face changes, like whatever he’s about to say is something he’s spent years keeping shoved somewhere deep enough that he wouldn’t have to touch it.
And somehow, that scares me more than if he’d just answered.
“He used to hurt her.”
My stomach drops. “What do you mean, hurt her?”
Revel doesn’t answer right away, and he doesn’t really have to because the look on his face tells me enough before the words ever come. His jaw is locked so tight it looks painful, and when he finally speaks, his voice is lower, rougher.
“Things no adult should ever fucking do to a kid. I knew enough back then to know something was wrong. I told caseworkers, teachers, anybody who would listen, but nobody did enough. He kept getting away with it while everyone treated us like we were just fucked-up foster kids making trouble.”
All the air leaves my lungs.
“Jesus Christ.”
His gaze drops to his hands, to the split skin and swelling across his knuckles. “Tonight, I saw him standing in the middle of a grocery store buying fucking bread, like he got to have this normal little life after everything he did to her.”
His fingers curl slowly into fists again.
“And then he admitted it.”
I stare at him.
Revel lets out a humorless breath and shakes his head.
“Didn’t even fucking flinch. He called Lena a liar, called her names, then finally admitted what he did like it was nothing.
Like she was nothing. No regret, no shame, no fucking remorse.
Just this smug look on his face like he’d gotten away with it once and he’d do it all over again if somebody gave him the chance. ”
Something cold settles under my skin.
Revel’s eyes lift to mine, and there’s nothing soft in them now.
“I snapped.”
My gaze drops to his hands again. “So you beat him.”
“Yeah.”
“How bad?”
His mouth twists, but there’s no humor in it.
“Bad enough security had to drag me off him and the cops put me in a cruiser.”
For a second, neither of us says anything, and all I can think about is Lena, Revel at thirteen, and some sick fuck standing in a grocery store years later acting like none of it mattered.
Then the rest of the night starts clicking into place—the calls, the unread messages, all that silence. It all starts making sense.
“Why didn’t you call me?”
His eyes lift to mine immediately. “I only got one call, and I called Lena.” His jaw tightens. “Cece, I’m sorry, I just—”
“Shh.” I step closer and put my hand against his chest. “It’s okay.”
He looks at me like he’s waiting for the part where I get mad.
“I mean it, Papi. It’s okay. I get why you called her.”
His shoulders drop a little, but the guilt is still all over his face.
“I had to tell her he was back,” he says quietly. “I had to be the one to do it.”
“I know.” I rub my thumb over his shirt once, softer now. “And you were right.”