Chapter 8 #2
“Well, if you want to wait until after dinner, that’s fine. Or if you’re not feeling up to it after cooking, we could put it off until tomorrow. But you’ve been here for a couple of days now, and with this… thing between us. I think it would be better to clear the air, at least.”
She stares at her plate for a few seconds. Then she takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. When her gaze rises to meet mine, the pain in her eyes is a punch to my gut.
“Okay,” she finally replies. Her voice is heavy with resignation. She crosses the kitchen and sets her plate on the counter. Keeping a good ten feet between us, she wraps her good arm around herself and exhales again. “I guess we need to. Talk, I mean.”
Her untouched plate makes me feel guilty. Why didn’t I wait until she ate, at least?
“We can wait,” I offer. “I shouldn’t have said anything until after you ate.”
“It doesn’t matter. You’re right. I know we need to talk. And the longer we wait…” She pauses. “So. Where do you want to start?”
Where do I want to start? Of course, I’ve thought about what I wanted to say to her, but that was all in theory. That was when Sofia wasn’t standing right in front of me, still bruised and hurt, and my protective instincts weren’t demanding I take care of her.
Keep it as civil as possible, I tell myself. There’s nothing to be accomplished by throwing out accusations or insults. Not eighteen years later, when we’re two different people.
But are we?
If I’m so different, why do I still care about her?
If she’s a different person, why does being around her feel so familiar?
Does it matter with the lies between us?
“I get why you did it,” I reply. “But what I don’t understand is why you didn’t tell me you were so worried about money. I could have helped you. We could have worked things out. You didn’t have to—”
“You get why I did it?” Sofia interrupts. Her voice pitches up. “What do you mean, you get why I did it?”
“College. Expenses.” I give a small shrug. “You sold the jewelry to get money for college. It’s the only explanation that makes sense.”
“You think I stole for college?”
“You didn’t? What else for, then? Unless there’s something else about you I didn’t know. Were you buying drugs? Uppers to help study? Was your mom in financial trouble?”
Her mouth drops open. “Wait. You think I was on drugs?”
“I don’t know, Sofia,” I snap. “You never told me. I thought we talked about everything. If you’d only come to me, shared what you were worried about… But no. You thought you’d solve it on your own by stealing my mother’s jewelry.”
Sofia clutches the counter so hard her knuckles go white. “I didn’t steal her jewelry.”
Anger expands inside me. “Yes, you did. What’s the point of lying about it eighteen years later? Do you think I’m going to turn you in?”
The color drains from her face. “You want to turn me in?”
“Are you listening to me? I said I wouldn’t. I just want to hear the truth.”
“The truth?”
“Yes. The truth.” Hurt bubbles up, forcing out the worry that’s haunted me ever since I heard what she did. “Did you even love me? Or were you just using me to get to my parents’ money?”
Sofia gasps. Even ten feet away, I can see tears spring to her eyes. After a few silent seconds, she asks quietly, “You think I used you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
She stares out the window. Her throat works. Then she turns back to look at me. “I never used you. Ever.”
“Then why—”
Voice flat, she says, “This is a waste of time, Nico. It doesn’t matter what I say. You won’t believe me.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do.” She lifts her chin. “I could tell you what happened and you’d say it’s a lie.”
My jaw clenches. “How can you say that when you never even tried? You never even tried to explain. Never apologized. You just stole from my family, and when my dad agreed to drop the charges—which he didn’t have to do, I may add—you just took off.”
Fire sparks in Sofia’s eyes. “I couldn’t explain! I had to leave! I wasn’t allowed to talk to you!”
Shock jerks my head back. “What? Allowed? Did your mom—”
“No!” Her voice pitches up. “Your dad! That was the condition of him dropping the charges. That I leave the city and never talk to you again. I couldn’t explain anything. Not that you cared, because you never came. You never thought about how scared I was, how confused, how hurt—”
“What are you talking about? My father? And why were you confused?”
“I was terrified, Nico!” Sofia swipes at her tears. “I was accused of stealing thousands of dollars of jewelry. I was arrested! Do you know how that felt? Sitting in your room, studying, and your dad came charging in, screaming at me? Accusing me of taking jewelry I didn’t even know existed?”
“You stole from us. That jewelry was passed down through my mother’s family. Of course he was angry.”
“I didn’t steal it!” Her voice rises to a shout. “I. Didn’t. Steal. Anything! He made it up!”
Anger bubbles up inside me. But rather than yelling back, I reply coldly, “You’re accusing my father of lying? That’s ironic, isn’t it?”
Full-on crying now, her voice shakes as she says, “It’s not ironic. It’s the truth. He framed me. I don’t know how. But he did. Your dad had me arrested because he wanted me out of your life. And it worked. I lost everything. School. Graduation. College. You.”
Something icy and poisonous slithers into my gut. But I force myself to ignore it. “My father wouldn’t have done that.”
“He did.”
“Stop lying.”
Sofia slams her hand on the counter. “I’m not!
He did it. He framed me. He had me sent to jail.
I sat in that detention center, scared out of my mind for five days because of him.
And you know what I kept thinking while I was there?
I kept thinking you would come. That there was no way you’d ever believe I was guilty. I wanted you—”
Her voice cracks.
She covers her mouth with her hand. A broken sob escapes. “I waited. I waited for you to come. And you didn’t. I was all alone.”
Anger wars with the instinct to comfort her.
But what she’s saying.
My father isn’t a perfect person. But this? To frame a seventeen-year-old girl? And there was evidence. Plenty of it. My father wouldn’t do what she’s accusing him of. He wouldn’t.
“This was a bad idea,” she adds after a shuddering breath. “Coming here. I knew…” Turning on her heel, she makes a beeline out of the kitchen.
“Sofia,” I call after her. “We’re not done here.”
“Yes,” she retorts. “We are.”
A few seconds later, a door slams.
“Fuck.”
I’m seized by the urge to throw something. Anything.
Why would she lie about my father like that?
Especially when I gave her an out. All she had to do was admit she needed the money for college, and it would have been over.
We could have moved on. Had a cordial relationship for the remainder of her stay here.
But instead, she came up with this ridiculous story—
Why would she, though?
What would it accomplish? She had to know I’d react like this.
Unless.
No.
My father wouldn’t.
No, he’s not perfect. Far from it. But this?
Then again, why would Sofia come up with such an incredible story?
Would my father tell her to leave the city, thinking she was a bad influence on me? He’s overbearing at times, too controlling when he thinks he knows best. Could he have offered Sofia money to leave?
Too antsy to stay still, I leave the kitchen and head back to my home office. Down the hall, the door to Sofia’s bedroom is shut. I’m tempted to walk closer, to find out if she’s still crying. But I don’t.
Instead, I close the office door firmly and cross the room to my desk.
My phone sits there on the black wooden desk the interior decorator insisted I buy. “Black’s the way to go,” she explained. “It’s sleek. Modern. Austere.”
In truth, it looks cold.
And I don’t really like black.
As I sink into the leather office chair, I spin Sofia’s accusations through my mind again.
Could he have accused Sofia of doing something so terrible? Had her arrested? Pressed charges for a theft that never happened and had her sent to jail?
Could he have forced her to leave?
I don’t want to believe it.
I don’t want to think of Sofia sitting there, all alone, wondering where I was.
I was so sure she was guilty.
My father said she was.
He had proof. I trusted him.
But Sofia.
I can’t stop seeing her tear-streaked face. I can’t forget the pain in her eyes.
And when she told me how scared she was. How alone. How she waited for me to come and I—
Fuck.
What if she was innocent all along?
What if I fucked up?
What if I believed the wrong person?
I grab the phone, and, after a moment’s hesitation, I call my father.
He answers after three rings. “Nico. We’re in the middle of dinner. Can you call back later?”
“No.” Through a gritted jaw, I add, “I need to talk to you. Now.”
My father sighs. “Fine. What’s going on? Is it something with your company?” He pauses. “Or did you decide to take me up on my offer—”
“No, that’s not it,” I interrupt. “I wanted to ask you about Sofia.”
Several seconds pass. Then he asks in a clipped tone, “Why are you asking about her?”
“I ran into her,” I reply vaguely.
I could tell him she’s staying here. But I’m hesitant to. Not because I’m worried he’ll be angry—as a thirty-six-year-old man who served eight years active duty, I’m more than capable of dealing with his ire. But if he knows, he’ll focus on that instead of telling me what really happened back then.
“You ran into her? Where? When?”
“On a work trip,” I lie. “It was brief. But it got me thinking—”
“Don’t think about her,” my father snaps. “You’ve been doing just fine without that… criminal in your life. I hope she wasn’t trying to worm her way back in. Asking for money, possibly working a con…”
“She didn’t ask for money. Nothing like that.”
“Then what? Why are we even talking about her?”