Chapter Ten
CHAPTER TEN
“Do you regret it?” Felix razed me with a stare so devastating it would haunt me forever.
Winded, I turned my cheek deeper into his palm, my hair falling into my face. “Of course not.”
“Then what is it?” I didn’t rush to fill the silence with the truth. It sounded too pathetic in my own ears. “Belmira.” His thumb swept tenderly across my cheek. “I need you to let me in.” That was the exact opposite of what I was going to do. “Give me something to work with here.”
He wouldn’t understand, so what was the point? I mean, really, what was I going to say? “Hi, I’m Belmira Diamantina Silva Tavares. But that’s a mouthful, so you can just call me ‘Bel’ with one ‘L.’ You might remember me as the girl who couldn’t remember you at all. But guess what? I’ll remember you forever now.
“My middle name? Yes, it means ‘Diamond,’ but no, pressure didn’t turn me into anything special. I crack under it. In fact, if you listen closely, you can hear the shards breaking now. I was born on October 14 th , 1977, in Fall River, Massachusetts. My best friend, Tina—do you know her, too?—anyway, she said I have daddy issues, and I’m beginning to think she’s right. But truthfully, it’s my mommy issues troubling me the most. I’ve never voted before. I really wanted to last election, but Ma wouldn’t let me go.
“When Princess Diana died last year, I cried on and off for two days. I understood her a little. The isolation. Feeling trapped in your own thoughts, in a life you don’t love. Sometimes I think about dying, but I don’t want to be dead per se. I just want the quiet I think that would come with it. The peace. I get car sick if I sit in the back seat. I’ve always had a weak stomach.
“Fall is my favorite time of year. I hide the library books Tina signs out for me. When I was a little girl, I really wanted a Rainbow Brite doll. I’m terrified I’ll marry someone who doesn’t make me feel like you do. Not that I think this is love or anything close to it because that would be crazy—right?”
Sighing, Felix released my cheek, my body growing cold. He drew his hips back, wetness streaking my thigh, emptiness filling the void. Silently, he peeled the condom off, knotting it. Patting around, my fingers met the tissue box, and I tugged a few sheets free. Handing a few sheets to him, he accepted without acknowledgment, wiping at himself before depositing it into the wastebasket alongside the condom he’d wrapped up. The uncomfortable tension strained, the silence awkward and loud, but neither of us made any move to leave.
“I’m not afraid of your ma,” he announced. The jingle of his belt resounded as he tucked himself back into his pants and worked the zipper and button closed while staring at me. “If that’s what you’re worried about.” Determination hit his eyes, and he rubbed the corners of his mouth as though deciding on something. “I can deal with it. She can’t be that bad.”
“Bad” implied someone could still reason with her, and Ma was the definition of a lost cause.
I was so dumb. I’d really thought I’d be able to, what? Have a one-night stand? No, worse. Have a one-night stand without getting my feelings involved?
“No, you can’t.” I couldn’t deal with her, and half my DNA was hers. I didn’t need one of those free-for-the-first-three-minutes psychic readings from a late-night infomercial to see our future clearly. Felix would tire of the rules and then the secrecy. He’d never be able to call me. I’d ignore him in public. Tina would act as our go-between. I’d never make eye contact with him because the heft of Ma’s stare would burn while she watched to see if I returned his effort.
And God forbid if someone caught me with him and word got back to her.
My stomach knotted. I didn’t even want to consider that.
The inevitability of the “it’s you, not me” spiel stared right back at me. There was no winning here. No out. I’d accepted that.
Or at least, I thought I had. I shouldn’t have led him in here. Shouldn’t have even looked his way. I should have… broken my own heart first. So maybe I regretted it a little.
Defeat plagued me, and with numb acceptance, I shifted on the desk. Time to go. Averting his stare, my sticky thighs squeaked against the hard surface as I slid forward, forcing myself to stand on weary legs.
My equilibrium spun, the room moving on me. I reached out, grasping at nothing to keep me upright, my weak ankles wobbling in the heels.
His hands shot out to steady me, the strength of his touch voltaic like a new set of batteries, my balance returning. Felix looked me over carefully, grasp tightening around my biceps. Every time he touched me, it made everything worse. My lungs cinched up. My eyes burned. My stomach roiled, and a sour taste filled my mouth. I didn’t want gentle. I wanted to be berated because I didn’t know what to do with this . No one had ever looked at me the way he did.
I tore out of his hold, trudging toward my discarded dress.
No more touching. No more eye contact. I’d crack.
Stepping into the garment, I brought the velvet to my waist, feeding my arms into the sleeves, reaching for the slider of the zipper, but the teeth caught on the velvet halfway up. Flustered , I tried to tug the obstruction free, but it made it worse. This was the last thing I needed right now. If the chain broke, if I pulled too hard, if I—I lost the thread of my thoughts, the stretch of Felix’s shadow swallowing mine. He said nothing, his calm touch clearing my frantic hand away. The zipper came undone, and he shifted the slider upward, sealing me in.
I opened my mouth to thank him, but he spun me around by the shoulders, lowering his head to mine, the fire waging war in his stare singeing me in place. So much for calm. “Why can’t I?” he asked lowly, his forehead puckered in annoyance. “You don’t know me well enough to tell me what I can’t handle.”
“You just fucked me,” I hissed, losing the long leash on my temper. “I know enough.”
“I did just fuck you,” he echoed with a cocky grin erring on snide. “You practically begged for it.” My spine grew taut under the reminder, the urge to look away gaining steam, but I refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing he was affecting me. That was exactly what he wanted. “I can still taste you, too.” Felix leaned closer, eyes flicking between mine. “So, I’m going to let you in on a little secret…” My chest heaved, my frustration wavering as I rooted in place, waiting. “You were the best fuck I’ve ever had.” I stopped breathing. There was no way that was true. “If you think I’m gonna let you run off scared, you’ve got another thing coming, Belmira.” One of his hands left my shoulder to cradle my face. “Keep trying, though. It makes the rest of this interesting.”
I didn’t fight him when his firm mouth scraped mine. No, I flexed on my toes, needy and achy, deepening the kiss because I hadn’t learned. I surrendered under his lips. Held on a little longer until it hurt too much to. “I will run,” I whispered, peeling myself away from him. “It’s safer for the both of us.”
I’d force him to see I wasn’t worth the effort if I had to.
Felix released a short laugh, shaking his head. “No, it’s safer for you .” I flinched, a response evading me. He towed me back to him, banding an arm around my body. “Make me understand, sweetheart, because I don’t get it.”
He never would.
Creating distance between us—because proximity made me a liability—I spotted my underwear on the floor, extending a hand for them. He snatched them out of my reach just as my fingers brushed against the seashell stitching on the waistband.
Felix held my eyes as he shoved them into the interior pocket of his blazer. Was he serious? “Finders, keepers.” He patted the space over his chest.
That was just great. He had a keepsake. A memento for the single time in history I put out for someone I genuinely liked. How fucking sad. I released a hard sigh, my cum-streaked thighs rubbing against each other as I adjusted my weight.
“So?” he probed.
“So what?”
“You’ve made a shit ton of assumptions about me. What can’t I handle?” The seconds seemed to stretch for hours, his confidence withering the longer I didn’t launch into an explanation. “Wait…” He cleared his throat, growing awkward while he scratched at the back of his neck idly, staring at me intently. “Did you fake it?” He expelled an audible breath. “Any of it,” he clarified, narrowing his gaze.
“No!” I couldn’t do this. “I didn’t fake it.” Outside of the fact that it was clear I wasn’t the first girl he’d had under him, why had I thought he was a playboy again? He was so adamant and steadfast to ensure I’d been in this with him completely. “None of this is fake.” Felix stabbed the inside of his cheek with his tongue. “And the issue isn’t me liking you.” He fed his hands into the pockets of his chinos, sloping his head, imploring me to continue. “But she is… a lot.” I shifted my weight from one foot to another. “And I won’t put you…” his expression softened, “or anyone else”—the glare replaced his ease—“in that position, so. We’ll just…” I shrugged, sluggish. “Remember this as a really good night.”
“First of all, there won’t be anyone else,” he declared flatly. “So don’t say shit like that. It makes me want to fuck you again to remind you exactly who you belong to since your mouth is saying one thing, but I’ll bet your pussy says another.” He scowled, and I flushed. Why the hell was my body responding to this absolute caveman who thought he had a say on the matter? “But I’m all out of condoms.” His full pause was followed by a curt head nod. “And no .”
What were we talking about again? I got distracted by the other things we could do without a condom because, apparently, I’d learned nothing . “No…?”
“That’s right. No.” He cut the small space between us with fast strides until we were toe-to-toe, and I had no choice but to incline my head back to regard him with wide-eyed bewilderment. “I hear you, but no.” His hands reached for mine. “You’re scared and I’m patient.” He blew out a breath. “Really fucking patient. So, we’re going to do this our way.”
My pulse quickened, the question stumbling out of me. “‘Our way’?” I was turning into a parrot.
My weak legs followed his lead when he tugged me over to the club chair we’d originally found ourselves piled on, only this time, he didn’t stretch my knees on either side of him in a straddle. Felix parted his legs to form a hammock for my body, setting me on his lap. He draped my legs over his right knee, ribboned his arm around my waist, and pulled me close. My cheek settled on his chest, the drumming of his heart harmonizing with my pulse. “We move at your pace.” His pitch registered low and steady. “But we’re doing this.”
Pressure built in my chest, my voice cracking and stretching around his name. “Felix?—”
“Unless you’re saying my name to tell me you agree, I don’t want to hear it, Belmira.” Tears burned the bridge of my nose. He was so resolved on the whole thing, like it was that simple, and I wished it was. “I like you. You like me. It doesn’t need to be more complicated than that. We’ll face whatever happens together.”
My bottom lip trembled. Why wouldn’t he just let me go? Wasn’t this what Ma had always warned me of? That if I was too fast, a guy wouldn’t want me?
Well, here I was—ten minutes postcoital with a guy who I was giving the perfect opportunity to hit it and quit it, and he wasn’t taking his out like he was supposed to.
He was staking a claim on me, demanding the right to stay.
“Trust me, okay?” Felix pressed his lips to the crown of my head. He reached for a legal pad and a pen that hadn’t ended up on the floor. “Write your phone number down.”
I shut my eyes. “You can’t call me.” I didn’t get to spend hours on the phone, holding up the line, my finger playing with the coiled cord, choking the tip until it turned red. Clinging to his every word like it was gospel, smothering my laughter into a pillow every time he said something funny, or listening to his breathing even out until one of us fell asleep first. It would probably be him. He struck me as the type to fall asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. I couldn’t relate.
“Write it down,” he repeated calmly. “And then your AIM screen name.”
Opening my eyes, his unwavering resolve greeted me. “I don’t have AIM.”
“You do,” he said, undeterred. I turned my face, hiding behind the curtain of my messy locks. How had he known? I tensed in his lap, and he smiled against my hair. “Your nose wrinkles when you lie,” he observed softly. It did? “It’s cute.”
I ran my thumb along the stem of the ballpoint. “You’re kind of annoying.”
“I prefer determined.” He pressed his lips to my temple. “Write it all down, Bel. I need to know how to find my girl.”
His girl.
Those words had me all twisted up. I expelled a tight sigh. Clicking the device, the spring bounced in the chamber, my scrawl small and uneven against the paper, thanks to the tremble in my anxious hands. I’d be able to check my messages on Tina’s computer, even if I couldn’t take his calls.
He leaned back, appraising me. “Do I make you nervous?”
I clicked the pen closed, and with one hand pinning the pad to my lap, I tore off the strip with my information, folding it in half. “You know you do.”
He hauled me closer, fingers winding up my neck, his thumb running along the curve of my jaw. Felix snatched the paper from me before I could change my mind. “You make me nervous, too.”
“You’re not very…” Mysterious? Cool? Slow?
“I knew I wanted you at the sound of your voice,” he admitted, kissing the corner of my mouth. “No point in pretending otherwise.”
I didn’t understand how he could make that kind of declaration unflinchingly. “The sound of my voice?”
“Mm-hm,” he hummed, kissing the other side of my mouth. He framed my jaw with both hands, tipping my head back. “I really wanted to take my time with you. What happened in here”—he made a show of sweeping the room with his stare—“really was unplanned… but you’re very hard to say ‘no’ to.”
I nudged my nose against his, breathing him in. “You’re blaming me?”
“Not blaming.” He slanted his lips against mine. “Reveling.” He deepened the kiss, licking the seam of my mouth, seeking out my tongue. His cock stirred under my ass in response, enticing a tight groan from the back of his throat. Breaking the kiss on a hard breath, Felix propped his forehead against mine. “Okay, maybe it’s ten percent your tongue’s fault.”
“What is your fixation with my tongue?” I asked, the laughter bubbling over.
“Everything else but your tongue screams innocent, and I was right.”
“I’m not like this with everyone.”
“I know,” he concurred, sliding his fingers into my hair. “And it honored me to be the first and last to eat you out.”
“And last ?” I snorted. “You’re?—”
“ You’re,” he cut off, “going to fall in love with me.”
I retreated, staring at him. Enchanted. Horrified. Both. I couldn’t be sure. My head was in a blender right now, mincing everything together into indiscernible pieces.
“But if it makes you feel better,” he continued. “I’ll fall first and wait for you to catch up.”
I shifted in his lap, my hand curving up the trunk of his neck. Even if I was terrified, I couldn’t resist the hold he had on me. “And then what?” I asked between kisses.
He laughed against my mouth. “And then I’m going to make your ma fall in love with me, too.”
“I don’t know about that,” I replied, trapping the squeal behind my lips when he tickled my sides.
“Trust me,” he assured me with another playful nip at my bottom lip.
Trust. He made it all sound so simple, and for a split second, I found myself doing just that.
But it was short-lived.
“Belmira!” Fear gripped me at the sharp proclamation of my name in that drunken, trilled voice.
Shit. What time was it?
I lurched out of his lap, wide-eyed, my stare finding the clock on the wall, clapping a hand to my mouth.
10:15 p.m. stared back at me.
This wasn’t happening right now.
The drilling of angered footfalls in the distance had my hackles rising, and my chest hitched.
Felix’s stare hardened, his eyes bouncing from me to the door. I scanned the room, looking for an out, but short of climbing the desk and escaping into the HVAC system, I was as good as dead.
Maybe we could barricade the door… or… I turned in place. Could I fit into the bottom of Jerry’s desk drawer? I swayed on my feet, anxiety gripping me.
I was so fucked.
A second set of strides followed beyond the door, long and confident. “ Tia .” Aunt. That was Maria. “Belmira’s not down here. She went to the restroom.” She said it so convincingly I almost believed her, too.
Ma didn’t. “ Mentirosa .” Liar.
Maria’s laughter took on a mocking quality. “You really are as crazy as everyone thinks you are.”
I envisioned Ma whipping around on her heel, body tight and ready to launch. “Your sister said?—”
“ Wow ,” Maria cooed, and I cringed, imploring her not to antagonize Ma. “You’ll place that much stock in what a ten-year-old says? Go ahead, then,” Maria admonished. “Waste your time. I’ll watch.”
Ma paused, considering it for a beat, and for a moment, I held onto hope she would retreat. The shaking of knobs resumed, imbalanced footsteps growing more pronounced and urgent with each step.
I was dead. So dead. I combed my fingers through my knotted hair like it would make some sort of difference.
“Matilda.” Aunt Connie. Oh, God, not her, too. I trapped the groan behind my teeth. This was getting worse by the second. “Katrina had it mixed up. I saw Belmira in the restroom just now.” This was turning into the great coverup of 1998. Aunt Connie knew as well as Maria did that I wasn’t anywhere near the restroom.
Why were they both trying to protect me?
After everything, they finally had an opportunity to level the playing field with my integrity, but they weren’t capitalizing on it the way Ma would have.
It was strange. I wasn’t really worried about myself in that moment. When you had built your existence around predicting how people reacted and conditioned yourself to always be six steps ahead of them, you no longer feared the hand that struck you.
You came to expect it. But I resented I was seconds away from losing the first man who’d put me first. Who made me feel safe.
The sob registered low in my throat, needling away at me until I could force it down.
Not one tear.
This wasn’t how I wanted him to remember me.
Felix approached where I stood, scrubbing an open hand over his mouth, brows bent in the middle, plotting or processing. Both. “She’s pissed,” he observed gruffly.
“No shit.”
I shuddered at the calming weight of his draped arm around my shoulders, his scent growing stronger when he leaned into me and pressed his warm lips against my temple. I’d remember that. His warmth. The way it sliced through the numbness temporarily.
How his voice had sounded when he said, “It’s going to be okay.” How badly I wanted to believe him. “I promise.”
“It’s not,” I murmured.
“It is.” He combed my hair out for me gently with raking fingers. His lips slanted to the right in an asymmetrical smile, uneasiness lining his features. He wasn’t convinced, either. “You hang tight, okay?” He gestured to the door with his thumb. “I’m gonna go out there first.”
It wasn’t going to change anything because more time or a diversion wasn’t what I’d needed. I needed a rewind button.
The office reeked of sex and sweat. Of him. Of me. If my reflection in the darkened glass of the computer monitor was anything to go by, I looked guilty. I touched my hair, scraping the right side behind my ear. There was no disguising this. I was the picture of everything Ma had warned me not to do.
Felix primped in the glass of one of the motivational pictures, pivoting to face me. “Lock the door.” He pinched the button on his blazer closed, determination setting his jaw. “We’ll hold her off.”
The fear I believed I’d had under control crept in, and I pulled in a strangled breath, the smell of latex wedging in my sinuses. The evidence was everywhere. My swollen, well-used lips, the beard burn between my thighs, and his messy hair. My missing underwear, and the knotted condom in the trash can buried under soiled tissues.
“Bel.”
Lowering my eyes, I shook my head. There was nothing else to say. Adjusting the dress, I resigned myself as the knob twisted and swung open.
The draft Ma created with the swift motion pulled in the aroma of the traditional late night seafood buffet they were setting up in the lobby—the stench of garlic, paprika, chilies, and brine upsetting my stomach—but it forced the air in the office to circulate, pummeling straight toward her. I witnessed in slow motion as any illusion she’d maintained in her head about the state of my hymen died, and fury took over.
Her spine stiffened, eyes ablaze with repulsion. The makeup on her forehead had begun to melt—probably from the dancing. I wondered if she knew how carefree she’d looked for a few moments when she was enjoying herself—the shine on the tip of her nose catching on the light in the office. Her glower shifted to me, or as much as a glower as she could muster with her pupils that dilated, the whites streaked with red. Drunk. Too drunk.
Had she always looked at me like that? Like she hated me? Had I never noticed it?
Her forehead muddied, and I counted each snag of her chest as she tried to breathe, reconciling what she was seeing.
Me.
Him.
Alone.
She’d wanted to be wrong.
But the other part, the part smoothing the resting wrinkles between her brows and forming the uptick of her sneer, delighted in my error of judgment because if there was one thing Ma loved more than anything, it was being right, no matter the cost.
The eerie quiet of the room dampened the dull echo of music in the distance, the chatter muted and faint. Her control snapped as she drilled the base of her palm against the door, sending it careening into the doorstopper with a loud rattle.
I jumped. How many times had that exact sound marked a moment in my life?
“What did I tell you?”
Four words. Four very loaded words.
My mouth opened and closed noiselessly, the anxious flush winding its way up my chest.
“What did I tell you?” Ma repeated, her voice loud and stable. The sight of me had sobered her up, but the tannin on her breath assaulted my nostrils when she closed the distance between us.
She’d told me a lot of things over the years, but abiding by her rules had never been enough because I was her greatest disappointment, wasn’t I? That’s why she looked at me like that. My existence reminded her of her marriage, of her shortcomings, of the traits in my weak personality she’d tried to kill and failed.
I’d tried, though. I really had. I dotted my Is and stroked my Ts and wore whatever fucking underwear she decided for me, but it was never enough. I wasn’t enough. The only thing that guaranteed to bring her utmost satisfaction was my misery mirroring hers, and I’d told myself I’d be okay with that after tonight.
I’d just wanted one night.
Was that really so bad? Was it so awful to want to be an ordinary twenty-year-old and have experiences of my own design? To want to want someone? To want to be wanted back? To dream? To crave freedom and choice and love and all the other things I’d been deprived of by trying to please her?
Aunt Connie and Maria filled the threshold of the door. “Matilda.” My aunt’s voice had never been that calm before. Soft and reassuring. “Why don’t you come with me?”
“No.”
Aunt Connie hesitated, clasping her hands together. “You might not like what she does,” she began softly, “ any more than I like what my older children do, but Belmira is an adult. She gets to make her own choices.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. That. That was the wrong thing to say.
“An adult?” I opened my eyes in time, catching Ma as she whipped around on her bald heel, holding out an accusatory finger in Aunt Connie’s direction. “You may be okay with your daughter running around like a whore, but I’m not.”
I threw a hand to my mouth, horrified.
“What the fuck?” Felix said out loud in disbelief. I’d warned him, hadn’t I?
Conflicted, Aunt Connie glanced his way and shook her head to silence him. There was no point.
Well, no point to anyone but Maria. She wasn’t fifteen anymore, and she didn’t have to take Ma’s shit out of respect. “You bitter, insufferable bitch.”
Aunt Connie gaped at her daughter. “Maria.”
Ma paid no mind to Maria’s remark. She didn’t care what her niece thought of her or what she had to say. The only thing she fixated on was me—no doubt concocting eight different ways to punish me.
Maria wasn’t going to be ignored, though. She moved for my ma with quick strides, her neck long and proud, shoulders even, fists balled tightly at her sides.
“It bothers you, doesn’t it?” Maria demanded, mocking. “That someone wants her the way no one ever wanted you .”
“No one wants a whore. Not in the long run,” Ma replied.
The implication wasn’t lost on my cousin. Maria’s frame turned taut, and just as she was about to lunge forward, Aunt Connie’s voice charged through, loud and clear. “Maria da Graca.” She hooked a hand on her eldest daughter’s elbow, yanking her back. “Stop.”
“Stop?” Maria looked her mother over, seething. “You’re going to let her speak to me like that?”
Aunt Connie’s measured reaction conveyed too much. The hurt Maria had kept mostly under wraps surfaced. She ripped her elbow free, staggering away from her mother. “Oh, that’s right.” Outrage hit her made-up stare, her mouth blooming into a broad, sarcastic grin. “You agree with her.”
Aunt Connie held up a finger at her, punctuating each word as she released them. “Not. Now.” She ground her teeth, pulled in a tight intake, and dropped her hand. “There’s a time and place, and this isn’t it.”
A time and place… the remark wasn’t just for Maria. It was for me, too.
It hit me then. My aunt’s intrusion and effort at pacifying the situation had less to do with protecting me and everything to do with modulating the blowback. After all, who wanted their event to be associated with something like this?
Not that I blamed her.
Ma’s outburst threatened to create a scandal tethered to her anniversary party, and she didn’t want that any more than she wanted Maria kicking off and distorting any perception that they were one big ol’ happy family, either.
Ma pointed at the door. “Let’s go.”
What little dinner I’d had turned into acid in my stomach.
I forced my legs to move, my feet closer to ten-ton weights as I inched past her, struggling to evade her reach. Her hand shot out to me, her fingers mining against my bicep, dull nails threatening to puncture right through the velvet. That stung. I whimpered, hating myself for it.
“ Nojenta .” Disgusting. I repulsed her.
“Hey,” Felix growled out, barreling toward us in two strides. “Take your hands off her.”
I shot him a pleading look over my shoulder.
I could handle this. I’d done just fine without him.
Ma yanked my arm. The smarting of pain in the socket and joint caught me off guard, my mouth popping open. “Ouch.”
His attention snapped my way, then back to Ma. “I’m not going to tell you again.” Felix bent forward, his stare darkening. “Get your fucking hands off her. Now.”
Ma’s grip slipped from my bicep, and Felix took the opportunity to step between us.
She regarded him up and down, a declaration of war thriving in her eyes. “You got taller, but you’re still as dumb as the rest of your family.” As I suspected, she had remembered him just fine.
He didn’t bite. “Look,” Felix hedged, and I studied the stretch of blotchy skin on the back of his neck and the gathered, tight muscles in his back straining against his blazer. “It’s my fault she’s in here. Don’t take it out on her, alright? You want someone to be pissed off at?—”
“Did you rape her?” The question was as nonchalant as if she’d asked him where he’d gotten his shoes from.
My blood ran cold. “ M?ezinha .”
Felix gaped at her, horror-stricken, the panic leaking from his profile and melding with disgust, struggling to conceive why she’d ask something so heinous and twisted.
But I could. She operated in extremes. That was the only answer she’d accept. Anything that allowed her to tarnish someone else’s reputation and manipulate the narrative to victimize herself. Oh, her poor daughter. The shame.
I wondered how she’d feel if she knew the extent of what Martin had done to me.
Would she still push me in his direction?
Would she still blame me? Or would she keep quiet about it because violating me that way was invisible in a way bruises weren’t? Bruises told stories you couldn’t hide, and in the end, she’d always stood to gain more from my pain than she stood to lose if she protected me.
Ma craned her head, flicking her eyes expectantly between us.
“Of course not.” My pulse quickened, harmonizing with the wobble in my voice. I didn’t want to be her pawn any more than I wanted to turn something beautiful and brief into something evil.
Felix planted his feet wide apart, his stiff fists clenching and unclenching. “I’d never do something like that,” he said. “Ever.” His eyes softened when he found mine. “I respect her.”
Ma laughed. The sound bouncy and bright, thinning into haughty scorn. “You respect her so much”—she winded around, slashing her hand with a violent flourish—“you had her in here!” she shrieked.
“I’m sorry.” He wet his lips, stalling. “I fuc—” He cut himself off, scraping a hand over his face. “ I messed up. Me. Not her.”
Ma pointed at the door. “Belmira. Car. Now.”
I drew a steeling breath in, focusing on the door, the edges blurring with my vision. I was dizzy. Dizzier than I’d ever been before. My heavy arms hung at my sides, and I couldn’t really feel my legs, either. This was it, right? What I’d known was coming? So why did it hurt so badly? Why couldn’t I turn my mind off the way I had countless times before?
“I like her.” He hollowed his cheeks, glancing at the desk behind Ma, recalling something, meeting her eyes again. “I like her a lot, and I understand I—” he searched for the words, fighting to summon the ones that would appeal to her. “I disrespected you by bringing her in here, but I?—”
“Shut up!” Ma stabbed a finger against his rib cage, leaning into him, forcing him back with a Herculean force that deceived her four-foot-eleven frame.
“Matilda.” Aunt Connie approached, her footsteps heavy. “That’s enough.” She faltered, her nose scrunching. If she’d had any doubts before about what we had done in here, the lingering latex confirmed it.
Felix inclined into the weapon of Ma’s finger, jabbing the digit deeper. “Feel better?” he asked flatly.
Affronted by the challenge, Ma’s chest heaved with the expulsion of her scoff. “This has nothing to do with you, little boy. That’s your entire family’s problem. You stick your noses where they don’t belong, just like them.” She gestured at Aunt Connie. What did that mean? Ma wrenched her hand back, disgusted. “Get out of my way.”
Rigid, Felix didn’t even bat an eyelash. So much for attempting to appeal to her nonexistent good graces. “This has everything to do with me.” He’d more than met his threshold for her shit. “Say what you want about my family. Accuse me of whatever you need to make yourself feel better. I really don’t give a shit because I know your type.” He shook his head. “But don’t you dare call her disgusting,” he growled out, sneering. “I won’t let you.”
“Let me?” she echoed, laughing. “Who are you to tell me what I can do?”
Aunt Connie framed her face, her lips moving furiously in quiet prayer. Maria was looking for a reason to tear Ma apart, and I swore the building had collectively stopped breathing, perfectly aware my aunt’s worst fears had manifested no matter how hard she’d tried to stop it.
So, it was up to me now. Sniffling, I commanded my legs to move, but Felix shot an arm out, stopping me. What was he doing now? He didn’t look at me. “I’m sorry, maybe I wasn’t clear, Senhora Tavares.” The muscle in his jaw bounced, the chords in his jugular tight. “Your daughter?” He reached for my stiff hand. “She’s mine now.”
My body threatened to buckle under the weight of that three-word statement. His arrogance had gotten ahead of him. Again . “Felix.”
“Am I wrong?” He studied me for the longest time, and though my life depended on it, I couldn’t bring myself to lie. He squeezed my hand gently, murmuring, “Together.”
In my peripheral, Ma visibly vibrated. He’d committed one of the worst slights against her because if there was anything she hated more, it was someone trying to go head-to-head with her.
Especially a man.
It had been bad enough I hadn’t caved under her pressure to accuse him of something so downright fucked up, but now… I swallowed—bile stretched my scratchy throat, my chin trembling—now he’d made things worse because it confirmed her worst fears.
I’d wanted it. I’d fucking wanted it, and I wasn’t the least bit sorry about it.
“She’s not yours. She’ll never be yours.” With a snap of Ma’s fingers to get my attention, she motioned to the door. “Not now. Not ever.”
The conversation was over, and alongside it went any traces of hope.
“How about Belmira comes home with us tonight?” Aunt Connie suggested, placing a pacifying hand on Ma’s. “Maria will drive you home.” Maria scowled like she’d rather swallow a lit cigarette than be volunteered to spend another second in my mother’s presence. “You’ve had a bit to drink ? —”
“Get your hands off me,” Ma hissed, snatching her hand away.
“Lady, you’re getting on my last nerve.” Aunt Connie hadn’t rushed to Maria’s defense, but my cousin had a protective side to her after all. “Don’t speak to my mother that way.”
“Please,” Ma scoffed, slipping back into Portuguese. “I’ve heard the way you talk to her and about her. You’re both a joke in this community.”
Aunt Connie’s veil of control evaporated, her nostrils flaring. That had been the last straw. “And what do you think you are, Matilda? You think people aren’t talking about you?” She looked at me. “You treat that girl like shit.”
“She has to learn.”
“Learn what?” Aunt Connie threw her hands up in the air. “It’s enough now, Matilda. Stop punishing her because of Dua ? —”
“It’s enough when I say it is!” Ma shouted. She glared at me. “Get over here now, or I’ll make you regret the day you were born.”
I snapped to attention, ignoring the sting of humiliation in my cheeks and the burn in my eyes, pulling my hand free from his.
Felix caught my wrist. “Bel.” I stared at the lock where he held me, slumping. “Don’t.”
My stare floated to his. The hazel so striking and penetrative, I carved another piece of myself out and left it at his feet.
“I have to,” I whispered, tearing away.
We both knew it symbolized so much more than duty. It was the facts.
Felix Ferreira wasn’t a safe bet. He never had been. He was wild and unpredictable. A fantasy come to life.
Temporary.
I kept the audible sob in check as I fled the office, refusing to look back at him, but I swore I felt him track me all the same, Ma hot on my heels.
The tears fell in heavy streams when I collected my coat, Ma hurling hushed insults at my back as we gathered our things.
She’d wait until we got in the car to unload without an audience.
Her pride and name had taken enough of a beating for one night.
I ignored the spectators who stared, with plates full of seafood, deli meats, fresh fruit, and cheese, a sample halfway to their mouths, distracted by what was unfolding.
Uncle John advanced, Aunt Connie right behind him, but Ma stopped them both in their tracks with one look. Uncle John’s posture stooped. “It doesn’t have to be this way, Matilda,” he said softly. “You know it doesn’t.”
She laughed humorlessly through her nose. “ If I wanted your opinion, I would have told your good-for-nothing brother to come back.”
Uncle John shook his head, glancing my way with an unspoken, Are you okay?
My face hurt from crying, and the muscles in my face weren’t cooperating.
Uncle John’s attention skirted to the right, far away from my line of sight, but it didn’t matter. I didn’t need to see him to know he was there.
I felt him.
Felix was a song in my head, a prickle under my skin, the breeze from the vestibule cooling my body, and the pulse in my veins.
Before he could approach, Ma huffed her agitation, shoving me forward. I stumbled, stepping out into the cold winter night, never daring to look back.
But I knew he watched all the same.
Ma sidled into the driver’s seat—piss drunk and seething—and unlocked the passenger door.
I stared at the empty seat for what felt like ages, wondering if it would be my last ride. If we’d even make it home. If she’d get pulled over. If she’d total the car and kill us both.
Ma slammed the base of her palm against the car horn, holding it down, the blast stealing me from my final moment of solitude.
I climbed inside, sealing myself in next to her, waiting on bated breath.
We made it home.
And it was so much worse than I could have ever predicted.