“Stop it.” That was Ellie’s voice, as sharp as a drill sergeant’s and shocking everyone in the room. “Knock it off, Dad.”
Amber wanted to look at her sister, ask her what she thought she was doing, but she couldn’t drag her gaze away from Miguel.
“Don’t tell me you’ve decided to champion this man’s case, Ellie. You know how much he hurt your sister.”
“I know he looks as bad as she does when she thinks no one is watching. I know I saw the same grief and wild despair in his eyes when she fainted I saw in hers that day we went to get her in California. I know that for the first time in months my sister’s voice is ringing with real emotion, even if it’s anger. It’s real.”
“She was getting better…” That was her mom, but Amber couldn’t make herself look at her, either.
Miguel’s gray eyes were eating her alive and she felt them on her skin, like she’d felt nothing else since she woke up in the hospital and learned she’d lost the baby she hadn’t even known about.
“No, she wasn’t getting better, she was getting more proficient at hiding her lack of feeling. She loves us all enough to pretend, but it has been just that…a pretense. I tried to convince myself it wasn’t, but seeing her when Miguel came into the living room, I know it was. You all know it was.”
The sound of fabric sliding against fabric and her mom’s voice came as if muffled by a large male chest. “She’s right. God in Heaven help us…but she’s right.”
There were tears in her mom’s voice and Amber wanted to comfort her, but she couldn’t move.
“I don’t know what happened between you and my sister, Mr. Menendez, but I think you might be the only person who can bring her back from the place she’s been living for months.”
“No.” The word whispered out of Amber’s mouth before she knew it was there.
Ellie’s hand grasped hers. “Yes, baby. I know he hurt you, but he’s hurting, too. There has to be a way back for both of you.”
Finally…finally…Amber looked away from Miguel to her sister. “There isn’t. It’s gone.”
“Your heart isn’t gone anymore than Dad’s was after Mom died, but I’ll be darned if I’m going to spend the next two decades waiting for you to come back to us like I waited on him. Near death woke him up, but you would have died from not eating, too. The doctors said your organs were dangerously close to shutting down, but it didn’t matter. You still didn’t come back.”
“I started eating again.”
“But you still don’t want to feel. You aren’t living. You’re just existing.”
“I am living. For all of you.”
Tears spilled over Ellie’s eyes. “Amber, baby, we need you to live for you. We all love you so much.”
“I can’t stand to be around Miguel.”
“Please, Amber…just talk to him. If you want Dad and Sandor to throw him out afterward, then they will…but please, do this…for me.”
“But why?”
“Because I think he can help you heal.”
“He can’t give me back what I lost.”
“No, but maybe he can give you something else instead. Maybe not. Maybe you really do hate him, but, honey, you are real for the first time in weeks…months even. I need you to talk to him, to keep the realness going. If only to tell him he’s a selfish bastard who doesn’t deserve you.”
“I already know that.” Miguel’s voice was rocky and the words were too much for Amber’s fragile hold on her emotions.
She turned wild eyes to him. “It’s not like that. Please, I…” Her throat closed and she had to concentrate to get more words out. “Privacy…” She gulped in air, wondering why it was so hard to breathe. “If we’re going to talk…we need privacy.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ELLIEsqueezed her hand and then stood. “Come on, everyone.”
“Amber,” her mom said in a pleading voice and she forced herself to look at her. “Sweetheart, I can’t lose you…not like this. You’ve got to be okay.”
Amber nodded. “I know.”