37
I finish the last chapter of the book he gave me a few days ago and put it on the shelf with the others.
Then I go down to the kitchen, thinking about making a yogurt and lemon cake to take to the Fourth of July bonfire that I have every year with my brother and our friends.
When it’s been in the oven for a while, my father comes in, wrinkling his nose slightly.
“What burned?” I give him a playful punch on the shoulder.
“Nothing. I just put it in.” He chuckles. I’m glad to see him happy again. Maybe he just had an argument with my mother.
“Let’s hope the result isn’t a piece of charcoal like last time.” I pout.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I say sarcastically, giving him a broad smile.
“You know I love you, but cooking isn’t your thing,” he says. I sigh with feigned disappointment.
“I guess it’s in my genes from my father’s side. I heard he wasn’t very good at it either.” I burst out laughing when I saw his indignant expression.
“I’d better go, I’m not going to put up with these attacks any longer.” I laugh softly.
I leave the kitchen and head for my bedroom. On the way, I glance at my father’s office. He is not there, but the door is wide open, as if inviting me to enter, and I am not one to turn down such an invitation.
At first, I don’t see anything interesting, but then my eyes fall on a folder with photos sticking out.
I bite the inside of my cheek, wondering if it would be wrong to snoop through my father’s papers out of simple curiosity, but what’s so bad about that?
He didn’t even hide what he did for a living from us, so I doubt he’s hiding anything worse than that.
My fingers move quickly as I open the folder, and my heart almost drops to the floor.
It’s a young woman, maybe a couple of years older than me, kissing my father in a restaurant with few people around.
In another picture, they are on a yacht, she is sitting on his lap wearing a bikini that leaves nothing to the imagination.
My eyes sting with tears as disappointment and sadness invade my good mood.
I feel like I’ve been living a lie, believing that my parents are that couple who would grow old loving each other and supporting each other in everything, when in reality one of them had stabbed the other in the back with the knife of betrayal.
I shake my head as I look at the images again.
I can’t believe it, I don’t want to. What else could he have hidden from us?
How long has he been doing this? I have a thousand questions right now, but I can’t even bring myself to move my hands to put the folder back where it belongs.
I run to my room, wiping my tears with the palm of my hand.
In part, it’s stupid that I feel so bad about his infidelity.
Jason and I are grown-ups now, and if they decide to divorce, it shouldn’t change anything.
The problem is all these years, despite knowing the horrible things my family did, I had idealized the love and respect we had for each other.
For me, it’s the most important thing, what keeps us going and gives us a little light in the violent world around us.
So where did all that go? Why not talk things over with my mum if he doesn’t love her anymore?
I look back at my phone when I receive a call. I don’t feel like talking to anyone, and I know he won’t like seeing me like this, so I hang up and turn off my phone.
Something heavy falls into the pool in front of me and a few drops land on my face, reluctantly pulling me out of my mind filled with memories of her.
When I open my eyes I find Denis face down in the pool, floating like a corpse and most likely smiling because he managed to get me wet for the third time this afternoon. I wished he was a real corpse.
I take my phone out of my swimsuit pocket and dial her number, desperate to hear her voice. I frown when all my calls go to voicemail. Something isn’t right. She doesn’t need to tell me to sense her discomfort. It had always been that way.
“I’ll go out. Stop being an idiot and take care of the perimeter,” I say, walking quickly to my room to change clothes. He gives me a thumbs up, staying in the same position.
I park my bike in front of her parent’s house. I don't give a flying fuck if Ray finds out I sneaked into her room. Then I stand at the door and ring the bell insistently.
“What the fuck?” Jason murmurs on the other side before opening the door with a look of confusion that disappears as soon as he sees me.
“Oh. It’s just you. Crazy Fuck.” I enter the house, dodging his body, and start up the stairs, ignoring Jason’s protests.
“Come back here! You haven't unlocked the 'bedroom privileges' achievement yet.”
I scan everything in her room, looking for her until she comes out of the bathroom with a smile that is clearly fake, trying to hide the redness in her eyes. They are so damn red.
“What’s wrong?” I murmur, about to approach her, but she moves a few feet away from me. My piercing clicking against my molars in slight annoyance at her sudden rejection.
“I fell asleep,” she says, shrugging her shoulders. I sit on the edge of the bed, unable to take my eyes off her, feeling my anger grow with every second I look at her red eyes.
“Come here.” Her legs move almost automatically, walking toward me like the good little demon she is.
Then I put her on my lap, wrapping my arms around her waist. I have to bend down a little to be closer to her height and see her face more clearly.
“Tell me what’s wrong.” I try to soften my voice a little, but my tense muscles reflect my anger.
“If I have to repeat myself, I’ll make sure you won’t be able to walk for days,” I hiss, brushing a strand of hair from her face.
Her cheeks are also red and swollen. It looks like she was crying for a while now.
A couple of tears well up in her eyes and begin to roll down her cheeks. I wipe them away with my thumbs before they fall onto the skin of her legs, feeling the twisting of my guts and the broken pieces of my soul.
“Please don’t cry. I hate it when you cry,” I murmur in a pleading voice, wiping away as many tears as I can.
Without really knowing why, she begins to cry even more and hides her face in my chest, dampening my shirt as I helplessly stroke her hair. My eyelids burn as tears threaten to fall. It isn’t the first time I saw her cry up close, but I’ll never get used to it.
When I feel her breathing calming down I kiss her head for a long time, taking advantage of the fact that she still can’t see me to get rid of any traces of tears that remain on my cheeks. Then I move her a few inches away from my body and carefully wipe her cheeks again with my fingers.
“My father has a mistress. She could easily be his daughter,” she murmurs, my eyes only focusing on her now red and swollen lips.
“I’ve been living a lie since who knows when.
” Seeing the disappointment in her eyes, I regret not getting rid of her father when I had the chance.
That son of a bitch definitely has his days numbered now.
“I’m very sorry, but it’s your parents’ life and they will resolve their issues themselves. I don’t think you should get involved.”
“I know, but they’re my parents,” she mutters with a pout on her lips.
“Tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it. I could make her disappear,” I say, feeling the pull of her lips as I move closer to them.
“No. Just hug me.”
She slips her hands inside my shirt and rounds my torso, making my skin shiver. I swallow hard as I look back at her red tank top revealing every detail of her chest and her shorts hugging her legs.
Fuck. Not now. I tell myself as I hug her back ignoring the tent in my pants as I try as I try to comfort her.
“I think you should take off your belt, it’s uncomfortable,” she murmurs with a frown, shifting around on my lap.
“I don’t have a belt.”
“Oh.”
“I know you’re sad and all that, but fuck, I want you so bad right now,” I admit in a low murmur, feeling like the worst jerk ever and my cheeks burning with heat.
“That might help me a little.” Her sly smile is all I need to rip her clothes off and lay her down on the bed with me on top of her.
“I’ll try to be a little gentler this time.”
“No. I like it like this,” she replies, looking me in the eyes, a sparkle lighting up the green of her perfect eyes.
“How?” I asked with a suggestive smile.
“Tough,” she replied, sweeping her gaze over my naked body. “Make me bleed and ache. Make me forget.”
“Are you feeling better?” he asks as he kisses my shoulder from my back.
“A bit.” He turns me around and leans in, studying my face as if searching for something.
“Your eyes are still a little swollen,” he complains in a low tone.
“Do I look that bad?” I scoff. He shakes his head.
“You know I could never see you that way.” Just when I think we’re about to kiss, he gets up from the bed and goes to the bathroom, leaving me with a great view of his backside.
When he comes back he brings with him the small bottle of eye drops and a cold compress that I always keep in my skincare fridge.
How did he know I had that there? I think about sitting up with the sheet covering my body, but he tells me to lie down again.
I wait for him to put the drops in my eyes and bite my cheek when he kisses my eyelids tenderly.
“Close your eyes, I’ll put this on you.”
“It’s okay. No need.”
“I want these pretty eyes to be normal again.”
“Sometimes I think you’re too good to be real, well, actually, always,” I blurt out, probably still drunk from the aftershocks of my orgasm under his curious gaze.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Everything.” He smiles, caressing my cheek with his fingers.
“Sometimes I feel like I can’t breathe when you’re not here. Although more than just a thought, it’s a fact. I love you with every fiber of my soul, so much that it hurts,” he murmurs. His words send a tingle through my whole body. I look away from his blue eyes.
I don’t know where to look. I want to escape his gaze, but all I manage to do is blush more and more until I cover my face with both hands. Partly to hide my smile, too.
“Don’t do that, I love seeing you smile. If you take that privilege away from me, you’ll kill me.”
“Please. Don’t say another word,” I murmur in utter exasperation when he pulls my hands away from my face.
The vibrations from his cell phone save me from blushing more.
I take advantage of the fact that he has moved away a little to get dressed.
I hadn’t taken into account the state of my clothes, so I cover myself better with the sheets and run to the dressing room before he can see me.
hopping on one foot to pull on my shorts, clutching my top in my hand when I hear his voice behind me.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“Getting dressed,” I say, covering my breasts in a vague attempt to sound firm. He’s still naked, although at least now he’s wearing his boxers.
“I haven’t told you to do that yet, have I?” I shake my head under the intensity of his blue eyes. He snatches my top and throws it somewhere, fixing his gaze on my now bare chest.
I have to bite my tongue to suppress my urge to cover them with my arms. His eyes always make me feel like a prey about to be devoured.
Then he starts to move down my torso until he stops at my shorts, making an annoyed face with the intention of getting closer.
I let him take them off with a blush on my cheeks.
My underwear stays in place before he takes us back to bed.
I grab the projector remote and press the triangle button as I settle into his arms, resuming The Blair Witch Project, the movie we were watching the night before. In one of the scenes in the movie, I look down at one of his tattoos to take my mind off my fright. I rub my fingers in that spot.
“How did you get that?” I whisper, pointing to a part of his arm. He frowns, not knowing what I mean for a moment, until his eyes fall on his arm and he smiles faintly.
“Let’s just say I didn’t have a happy childhood,” he replies, intertwining his fingers with mine. “I’m fine, Lena. Don’t worry about it,” he murmurs when he sees the look on my face, before kissing the curve of my neck.
But even that doesn’t make the lump in my throat go away. I hate the idea of someone else hurting him, especially if it’s his own family. They unleash a flurry of dark thoughts that I didn’t know existed until now.
I force myself to focus on the movie and not on the thoughts racing through my head.
It’s not pleasant for either of us to bring up those moments in his life, but I can’t stop thinking about it during the rest of the afternoon.
When the movie ends, he pushes me aside gently, starting to get dressed as he excuses himself saying he has to go.
“But it’s early,” I murmur with a pout on my lips, staring blankly as he pulls up his pants.
“I have to do something, love. But then we can spend the night together.”
“Will you come to the bonfire tonight?”
“Do you want me to come?” I nod, smiling. He moves closer until our lips are almost touching. “Then I’ll try to be there before midnight.”
“Good.” I lift my neck, wanting to press our lips together in a deep kiss, but he leaves it at a short one before pulling away and continuing to get dressed.
“Who’s going?”
“I don’t know. Maybe some of my brother’s friends.
James, Laura…” I mention the few names I recognize within the group.
Romina’s name also crosses my mind, but I swallow it as soon as I feel his eyes narrowing on mine, revealing his piercing as he runs his tongue over his lower lip.
I focus on his reaction. He always does that when he doesn’t like something.
“James?” I nod.
“Do you know him?” He replies with a no.
“Are you friends or something?”
“Well, I suppose so,” I say, not quite sure what his question means.
“I see,” he says dismissively in a calm voice before kissing me on the lips and jumping out the window.
I know he was furious inside, because the angrier he is, the calmer he appears on the outside, putting on a placid and disinterested attitude. That’s definitely dangerous and confusing for whoever made him mad.