“And yet she tried to kill his son?”
“Matt and Mateo have had a bumpy relationship,” I tell her, thinking of what Vince told me today. About Matt not really being sick, just drugged up. I can certainly see Mateo doing that, but I would think he’d let me in on the secret.
“Who killed her?” she asks.
“Mateo.”
Her eyebrows rise, like she’s surprised. “So he actually does get his hands dirty.”
“Sometimes. He doesn’t have to, but he feeds the darkness from time to time.”
“Do you ever do that? Kill if you don’t have to?”
I shake my head, meeting her gaze. “No. I don’t have the desire in me; I just do it out of necessity.”
She nods, like she was prepared for a worse answer, but pleased with that one. “Good. What do you think you would’ve done if you didn’t have to do this?”
“I don’t like to consider it,” I tell her, propping my hands behind my head, so I can see her better. “I think another life would’ve suited me better, and it’s too late to change gears now.”
“Like what kind? How would I have met you if we didn’t both get sucked into Mateo’s world?”
“Maybe you would’ve been my student,” I say, smirking at her.
She grins in approval. “Yeah? High school or college?”
“Oof, college,” I say, grimacing. “I didn’t like that you were 16 when I met you, for the record. Typically I don’t go for younger girls; I like to stay in my own age bracket.”
“How very un-Morelli of you,” she jokes.
Well, sort of. It’s not really a joke, I guess, since it’s consistently true.
“I wonder if I would’ve always liked older guys,” she says, still resting her chin on my chest, but gazing at the wall beyond me.
So do I, and that makes me sad, too. She may daydream up scenarios in which we would’ve met outside of our circumstances, but we never would’ve. She would’ve been a normal girl with a normal life and she would’ve cycled through relationships with normal guys her own age until she found one smart enough to keep her.
I know I didn’t cheat her out of that, but she got cheated nonetheless, and now I’m benefitting from it.
“Are you happy with me?” I ask her. I know it hasn’t been long, and she’d probably say yes regardless, but I can’t really shoulder any more guilt today.
“Of course I am,” she says.
“I don’t feel like that warrants an ‘of course,’” I tell her. “You don’t have to say what you think I want to hear, you know. I only want the truth. I won’t be disappointed in it.”
She reconsiders, and despite what I just said, my heart stops as her generally pleasant smile melts, giving way to actual deliberation. Finally she says, “I mean, it’s had its ups and downs, and it hasn’t been that long, but I like where we are now. I feel less like you’re trying to change me now, like you’ve accepted me more, and that helps. You had me kind of twisted up the first week. When Mateo told me I was coming here, I had certain expectations about what that meant, and then you didn’t act on any of them. And I wasn’t even sure I wanted you to at first, which is why I felt so… unsure about this whole thing, but then you gave me time to adjust. But then it was a little too much time, and I started to feel like Mateo misread what you wanted me for, and then I couldn’t figure out what you wanted me for, and no, I guess I wasn’t very happy about all that. But I’m the sort of person who always finds the bright side of any situation. That didn’t start when I went with Mateo; I was always like that, even as a kid. And it just so happens, there are a lot of bright sides to this for me. I already told you I had a crush on you back when you tutored me, so the groundwork was there, I only stopped because we stopped spending time together and you weren’t interested. Maybe Mateo wasn’t either, but he never expressly said that, and he gave me just enough encouragement to…”
“Keep you on his hook,” I say with a nod of understanding.
She nods, pursing her lips. “Yeah, I guess. Or maybe he didn’t even mean to, I don’t know.”
“No, he did. You were his back-pocket threat to keep me in line.”
“You wouldn’t have let him hurt me,” she says, frowning.
“Nope. But he figures you would’ve let him… not hurt you.”
She flushes at that and doesn’t say whether or not she would’ve. I’m half relieved and half consumed with dread, but I can’t focus on any additional dread tonight, so I let it go.
“I kinda want to go to bed,” I tell her.