We watched the movie in easy companionship, as the characters who’d wiped each other from their memories inevitably came together again. Destined to be together no matter how hard they worked to avoid it.
Toward the end, while Jim and Kate frolicked on a snow-covered beach, Beatriz sighed heavily.
“You’re a romantic, Beatriz?”
“No, I am thinking. You are alone here a lot, Mr. Holden.”
My smile faded. “I am. But Beatriz…just Holden, okay?”
She smiled, the motherly affection intensified. “Do you not have someone, Holden? A girlfriend?”
“No girlfriend. I like boys.”
Beatriz thought about this. I waited with my breath locked in my chest to see how my words would land. If she’d withdraw her warmth and care and leave me alone in the dark.
“Okay, then. Where is your boyfriend?”
I let out the breath. Christ, how many times had I imagined my own mother saying something so simple? So full of acceptance… I swallowed the tears in my throat—they burned all the way down to the yawning black hole inside me.
“I don’t have one.”
She scoffed and took my chin in her hand, giving my face a gentle shake. “Do you go to school with blind people? How can anyone look at this face and not fall in love?”
“I don’t make it easy.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” she said. “É fácil amar você, meu doce menino. Mas você tem que se deixar ser amado.”
She turned her gaze back to the TV, and I stared for a moment, her words sinking in, reaching dark places that hadn’t seen the light in years. Old pain whispered that Beatriz was secretly laughing at me or that she was only being paid to be nice to me. I ignored them as best I could and slowly, carefully, rested my head against her shoulder. And she let me.
She tilted her head so that it touched mine, and we watched the rest of the movie together in perfect quiet, the voices in my head for once having nothing to say, the cold unable to reach me for a few precious moments. I fell asleep in that warm haze with Beatriz’s words a gentle whisper, like a lullaby.
It’s easy to love you, my sweet boy. But you have to let it in.
Chapter Sixteen
I pushed into our house after another long, pointless day of school, one day closer to the day I had to leave. I shut the door as footsteps thumped toward me. My sister tore down the stairs, hair flying, her bag clutched tight to her chest. She stopped short.
“Oh, hey,” Amelia said, not
looking at me.
“School just got out,” I said, hefting my own backpack. “When did you get home?”
“Just now, but I’m…going out with some friends.”
“Until when?”
“Until none of your business,” Amelia snapped, then flinched at her own harsh tone. “Dad took Mom to her doctor’s appointment. They’ve been there all day.”
“So you stayed home from school?”
“Yes, okay? Because I can’t stand the bullshit,” she said, her voice breaking. “How am I supposed to listen to Ms. Sutter drone on about fractions when Mom and Dad are going to come home with bad news? The worst news.”
“We don’t know that.”
“I do. I’m going to the movies with Kayla, okay? I just…have to escape for a little bit. And I can’t be here when they get back. I can’t.”
“I know, I get it,” I said. “It’s fine. Go. Have fun.”