Chapter 42

When Rafael invited me to have a nightcap on the balcony, I couldn’t refuse him, especially after the moment the three of us shared while putting Nico to bed.

Little by little, Rafael has been opening up to those closest to him, and I’m honored to witness so many big moments for him. Watching him become more comfortable with himself and his past truly is incredible.

We settle on a set of lounge chairs underneath the night sky, with the moon casting a glow over the shoreline down below.

Similar to his company, the silence is comforting, so I don’t push to start talking right away, and neither does he.

A few minutes later, Rafael is the one to break first.

“About tonight…”

I twist in my chair to see him better. “What about it?”

“I’m sure you have some questions.”

“You don’t owe me any explanation.” The one he gave Nico was sufficient for me.

“It’s not that.” He scrubs a hand down his face. “I want to talk about it with you.”

My heart does a little skip. “Okay.”

He stares out at the ocean, his jaw clenching and unclenching with each deep breath. “You know how long it took Nico’s mom to notice my habit?” He says the last word with a sneer, and my mouth stops working temporarily.

“Nico was two years old already,” he says when I don’t speak.

“That is…” A very long time.

“Pathetic.” His gaze swings from me to the stars.

The fact that it took years for Hillary to notice that gives me so much insight into their marriage. I hadn’t shared many meals with Rafael back at the house, so I didn’t pay much attention before, but once we got to Hawaii, I started picking up on the clues.

First, I noticed how he would ask waiters for specific serving sizes and be very purposeful about which meal he chose, which would have made him look like a hard-ass if it weren’t for his extremely generous tip and the simple thank you he wrote at the bottom of every receipt.

Then, he kept saying he was full after every meal, only to eat the small leftovers on Nico’s plate. He didn’t look happy about it. In fact, he appeared pretty damn miserable, which was the biggest glaring sign.

“She thought I was just hungry because of my workouts and all the physical labor I did at work.” He doesn’t look at me. “She didn’t even ask me why. Didn’t care to.” A shaky breath follows. “If anything, she was annoyed.”

My bottom lip quivers, but I ease the tightness in my chest with a joke. “Well, it doesn’t bother me.”

“No?”

“Nope.”

He releases a heavy breath before speaking up again. “My parents didn’t have a lot of money. Whatever they earned was quickly spent on booze, gambling, and whatever made my mom happy that week. Sometimes, because of their irresponsibility, we didn’t have enough money for food, so I learned to not let anything go to waste.”

Our dinner sits in my stomach like a lead block.

His eyes dart away. “It became a habit, or a compulsion, as my therapist said. Some kind of trauma response, and one I can’t control despite having more money than I could ever spend in a lifetime. I didn’t know my limits when I was younger, so when I first moved to Lake Wisteria, I would eat to the point of making myself sick, which then triggered that same fear of my aunt and uncle getting tired of my issues. I was convinced they would wake up one day and decide they were done with me.”

“How old were you?” I ask in a neutral tone despite my heart aching.

“I was only a little older than Nico, and I had seen so much shit in a short amount of time. I was a mess.”

“You were a child.”

He glares at the sky like he wants to yell at it.

“Did they know how bad things got with your parents?” I ask.

“No. My uncle and his brother weren’t on speaking terms before his death, so they weren’t aware of the situation until they got the call about me needing a new home.”

“Oh, Rafael.”

He can’t look me in the eyes anymore. “They drew their own conclusions based on a medical chart and a couple of questionnaires, but they never pushed me to open up.”

He clenches and unclenches his hands a few times before speaking again. “I got away with avoiding the topic for a year, but it wasn’t like I could hide my nightmares or compulsive behavior. Then one day, I overheard my aunt and uncle talking about how they were thinking of sending me somewhere to get help.”

His breath, like my own, comes out shaky. “Lake Wisteria is a small town, and I had heard of a couple of kids in school who went away because they had issues, so I panicked, thinking my aunt and uncle were getting sick of me.”

An invisible vine covered in thorns wraps around my heart and gives it a squeeze. “They just wanted to help you.”

“I realize that now, as a grown adult with a kid of my own, but back then, it felt like my whole world was ending.” Rafael’s despondent smile makes my chest ache.

I yearn to hold his trembling hand in mine, but I remain seated, not wanting him to lose his nerve and shut me out.

“So, I changed little by little, that way no one became suspicious.”

“What do you mean you changed?”

“I didn’t want my aunt and uncle to worry about me, so I pretended I was getting better. That I wasn’t having nightmares about my parents or that I was no longer struggling to keep my dinner down because I was overeating.”

“How?” The question comes out a whisper.

“Some things were easy, like making an actual effort to have friends or focusing on the positives while ignoring every negative thing that happened to me, while other things were more difficult, like controlling my nightmares. I couldn’t do much about those, but I found that if I stuffed a blanket through the crack between the bottom of my bedroom door and the floor, and slept inside the closet, then no one could hear my cries.” His voice breaks, along with my self-control, as a tear slips down my cheek.

I brush it away quickly so he doesn’t notice. “I’m so sorry.”

“What are you apologizing for? It’s not like you did anything.”

“No, but that doesn’t make me any less sorry for what you’ve been through.” The temptation to curl up next to him and pull him into my arms becomes too great to ignore, so I follow that unraveling heartstring in my chest toward the one who keeps pulling on it.

“Scoot over.” I motion with my hands.

“Why?”

“I want to hug you.”

“This is becoming a habit for you.” He shoots me a look I serve right back. With an arched brow, he shuffles over a bit, hardly giving me much room at all.

Well played.

I snuggle up to his side and place my cheek against the spot right over his heart. The beats are strong, although a little faster than normal.

That makes me smile.

Rafael tucks my head underneath his chin and wraps his arms around me. “I didn’t tell you this so you would pity me.”

“It’s called empathy, but if you don’t want it…” I start to pull away, but his arms tighten around me instead.

“On second thought, let me share more tragic stories from my past. I’ve got plenty to pick from.”

I know he means it as a joke to lighten the mood, but my chest tightens.

I tap on the spot over his heart. “You don’t have to pretend to be okay with me.”

A crease appears between his brows. “I’m not—”

I press my finger against his mouth. “I’d rather you say nothing at all than lie to my face.”

His gaze drops to my hand, and I pull it away, noticing the tingle left behind from touching his lips.

“Thank you…for trusting me,” I say while ignoring the knot in my throat.

His bravery makes me want to open up to him too, although I’m not sure where to start. Telling the story behind my scars is never easy, but Rafael sharing parts of his past wasn’t either, so it’s only a matter of where to start with mine.

Fate seems to step in when Rafael brushes a hand over my hip, and I flinch.

“Sorry.” He removes his arms from around me and places them back on the cushion.

I make a decision then. It isn’t a hard one—not after he opened up to me the way he did—but it still makes me nervous. I’m never quite sure how people will react or what they will say, but I have a feeling Rafael will take the time to understand me.

I place his palm back before moving it over the raised skin. “My reaction wasn’t because of you.”

“What’s that?”

“A scar.”

He stays quiet while he softly rubs his thumb over the same spot. If he presses a little to the left, he will find another scar…and then a different one next to that. It isn’t difficult since my body is riddled with them, although my long dress does a good job of hiding them from plain sight.

“What happened?” he asks while stroking my skin through the fabric of my dress.

I remember that first cut like it was yesterday. The anger. The hate. The pressure building inside my head without any kind of outlet.

My mom couldn’t help me, at least not yet. She was struggling with her own demons, and the biggest one of all was Anthony Davis.

Father. Deputy. Abuser.

“You don’t have to tell me,” he says a moment later.

“I was thinking about where to start, not whether I wanted to talk about it.”

We both stare up at the stars and a night sky that reminds me so much of my own thighs and the stars I had tattooed around my scars.

A shooting star races across the sky, and I take it as a sign. “When I was younger, I had difficulty controlling my emotions.”

His thumb keeps rubbing against my scar, back and forth, giving me the reassurance to continue.

“My father was a mean man who took pleasure in belittling his wife and daughter. No one knew that about him though, because to the public, he was an upstanding citizen. A deputy with a bright future ahead of him. The doting husband and father that they show in movies or magazines.” The words are tainted with my obvious disgust.

Rafael’s heart stutters against my ear.

“He had absolutely no control, at least not with us. It was only a matter of time before I picked up on his propensity to explode.” I flip my palm over on his chest so he can see the scar. “I was only eleven when I had my first…incident.”

His heart picks up speed again. “Incident?”

“Self-harm.” I run my thumb over my first scar on the palm of my hand. “It started as an accident. Someone had bought me one of those vintage hand mirrors, and one day after my father exploded on me for drawing on my skin with a permanent marker, I broke it. Just threw it at a wall and watched it shatter into a hundred different pieces.”

“What did he say?”

“That only ugly girls draw on their skin like that.”

“What a bastard.”

“When he came in and saw it, he told me to pick it up myself. Forbade my mother from helping too. Said that if I wanted to be an angry brat, then I needed to learn my lesson by cleaning up my own mess.” I tense up at the memory.

Rafael brushes a hand down my spine. “You were only eleven.”

“Regardless, I shouldn’t have thrown something out of anger. That was something he would do.”

“You were a child.” His words mimic mine from earlier. “You’re allowed to make mistakes and get upset.”

“Yeah, well, not in my house. Everything had to be perfect, including me.”

There is a fire behind Rafael’s eyes, his anger simmering just below the surface. “Did he ever hit you?”

“No, but he didn’t have to because his words always packed a punch.”

Rafael traces the fine bones in my hands. “I think your tattoos only enhance your beauty.”

I can hardly manage a thank you, given how tight my throat feels. I’ve never had someone look at me or talk to me the way he does.

“What happened?” he asks.

“When I was picking up the pieces, I accidentally cut myself.” My breathing is shaky. “My hand hurt like hell, but the pain in my head was finally quiet, at least for a little while.” I trace over one of my hand tattoos. “I felt relieved.” A sad laugh escapes me. “It didn’t last long, but it didn’t matter. A new coping mechanism was born.” My scarred hand forms a tight fist.

“The cutting only got worse when my mom moved out before my twelfth birthday and filed for divorce. Spending weekdays with her and weekends with a living nightmare of a father nearly wrecked me, but thankfully, my mom was finally awarded full custody right before I turned fourteen.”

Rafael lifts my palm with the scar to his mouth and kisses it. The gesture is small, but it has an incredible amount of sway over my heart.

A heart that Rafael is slowly earning, piece by broken piece.

He doesn’t release my hand, and I don’t try to pull away either.

I don’t think I could, even if I wanted to, based on the way his grip tightens when I speak again. “I saved the piece of the mirror until I found better…alternatives.”

“Do you still have them?”

“What?”

“Your alternatives.”

My body turns rigid against his. “Why?”

“I’m not going to judge you for your answer. I’m just curious.”

“A couple of years after I stopped for good, I got rid of almost everything.”

“What did you keep?”

“A piece of the mirror. I tried to get rid of it, but I just couldn’t yet.”

He sits in silence for a minute, and I don’t push to fill it, instead allowing him to process everything I threw at him.

“How long did this go on?”

“Long enough to do some damage to my body.”

“Did you ever…” His voice drifts off.

“Try to kill myself?” Might as well ask it point-blank.

He nods, and a muscle in his neck tics.

“No, probably because my mom got me the help I needed and a full-custody agreement we both desperately wanted. It was a long battle because my father had connections and his hometown rallying for him, but eventually, after a physical and psychological evaluation, the judge ruled in my mom’s favor. I’m not sure how much longer I would have lasted spending time with my father. Without my mother, he was…”

A monster. My mom was a buffer, so once she left, I faced his wrath on my own, and it was truly a miserable place to be.

The arm wrapped around me tightens. “He was what?”

I fiddle with one of the buttons on his shirt and accidentally graze some of his chest hair.

“Actually, you don’t have to tell me.” He stumbles over the words. “I know it’s not easy to talk about the past.”

“That’s the thing. Opening up to you isn’t difficult at all.” When he isn’t fighting tooth and nail to keep me away, Rafael makes me feel safe. Like the demons from the past can’t get me, no matter how much I talk about them.

He makes my head quiet.

Rafael seems to sit with that for a few minutes before we continue talking. This time, we stick to safer subjects, talking about the plan for the rest of our trip, how the animals are doing without us, and how excited Nico is about performing at the Strawberry Festival soon.

I nearly forgot about that one, in part because I didn’t want to think about Hillary coming to visit. For Nico’s sake, I hope she does make it, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

Rafael’s deep, soothing voice eventually lulls me to sleep, and I don’t even wake up when he carries me to my bed.

In my dream, he fussed over my strappy heels before tucking me in. He might have even kissed my forehead and whispered something against the top of my head, but I was asleep again before I ever heard the words.