Thirty Nights (American Beauty #1)(59)
“Not for this,” I say firmly, finding nothing funny and rubbing my knuckles raw against the kitchen table. He laughs again, and I hear him talking to Maria. He speaks Spanish but after four years with them, I understand. Mom, it’s Isa. She thinks she’s figured out a way to stay. Maria squeals, drowned in seconds by a chorus of the girls. Antonio supplies the baritone to the cacophony. They all get on the line and talk at the same time.
“Isa, amorcita, happy, happy—”
“Oh, how? Who?—”
“When?—”
“Come over here, linda—”
“Mom’s making carnitas—”
“Carnitas? Forget carnitas. I’m making tres leches cake. Javier, go get her. Dora, put on some music.”
“Mom, Anamelia is up.”
“Oh, that’s okay, she likes the music.”
Finally, Javier’s deep voice rises above the rest in English. “Will you all stop? It’s not for sure yet. Don’t jinx it for her.”
In unison, I hear more knocking on wood and more laughter. The girls break into a song that has only one line. She’s staying, she’s staying, la la la, she’s staying.
“?Basta!” Javier yells and it’s finally quiet. I choke at their joy.
“So, everything else okay?” Javier tries to sound casual but I know what he is really asking: how did it go with Aiden? I swallow a few times. How many answers are there to this question in a dichotomous key?
“Oh, you know, the usual. ICE chasing me, rich men wanting to buy my invention, dwindling supply of chocolate.” I try to joke as convincingly as I can.
“Isa, cut the crap. What happened?” he demands.
But I cannot tell him. He will worry himself bald. That’s bad enough. But he will also hate Aiden. And somehow, that’s even worse. I swallow hard again and give him another explanation, which is still true and saves everyone.
“You were right all along, Javier. It’s better not to get attached. Especially since I still don’t know if I’m staying or going.”
He cannot argue with me. But he stays on the line, sensing that I’m hurting.
“Can I come to work with you tomorrow?” I ask. This is how I was planning on spending my last days before Aiden turned everything upside down. One day with Javier, one day with Reagan.
He chuckles. “Isa, sweetheart, I’m painting a house tomorrow. I have to be there at six in the morning. It won’t be fun for you. Sleep in. I’ll come over after work, okay?”
“I don’t mind getting up early. I’ll be up anyway. And I can help with the yard stuff.”
We’ve done this before. He works so much that sometimes, he takes me to work with him or we would never see each other.
He sighs. “All right, you win. I’ll come get you at five forty-five. You’re so nuts, Isa. Go, get some sleep.”
“Yay,” I squeal and clap my hands.
He laughs his deep throaty laugh. “Noches,” he says but waits for me to hang up. He never hangs up first.
“Good night, Javier.”
The moment I’m plunged into silence, Aiden invades all my senses. I can still smell him on my skin and feel him when I move. The burn of his stubble on my neck, the sting of his bites on my breasts, the ache of his thrusts between my legs. And the void of his absence between my lungs.
Hydrogen, I think instinctively, then stop. Strangely, I don’t want to numb any part of this. That’s why I didn’t help Reagan drain the wine bottles tonight. I want to know the full extent of the damage. My dad had this theory. When I was running a low fever, he wouldn’t give me drugs right away. He’d say, let your immune system fight it, it will make you stronger. Same thing now. If I can live through tonight, then I can make it. Irrevocably altered but, in substance, still me.
I leave a glass of water and some Advil for Reagan and trudge to my room. I take off my mum’s dress, trying not to think of how Aiden slipped it off last night. It seems like it happened a hundred years ago. When I unclasp my bra, his shirt button falls out and rolls dismally on the floor. I chase it under my desk, pick it up and put in on the nightstand. But it calls to me in a pea-in-the-mattress way so I tuck in my knickers drawer. Fresh sobs build in my chest, and I make a decision: I have to wash him off. It’s healthier this way even though my skin contracts at the mere thought, as if to hold on to his scent a little longer.
It’s the longest shower I have taken. The loofah stings, as does the hot water. With each scrub, Aiden’s lips, his tongue, his fingers go down the drain. When I am rinsed clean, despite using Reagan’s blueberry scrub, I don’t glow. All the light has gone out of my skin. I think wildly of a dying firefly. Suddenly, I’m afraid. What if I never work right again? What if I never respond to another man? Losing it now, after knowing what it feels like, would be cruel.
No matter how scientifically I try to dispel the theory, the terror is so strong that my knees give out and I sit in the bathtub for a while. I’m not crying. It’s one of those numbing pains that freeze your tear ducts. I’ve had another pain similar to this. It took weeks then before I could cry. My mind is idle, which is worse than empty. Emptiness is where a mind can sit still for hours. Idleness is a meddler. It looks for things to do, images to conjure, feelings to dredge up, questions to ask. Tonight, I can’t afford idleness. I try to focus only on the good things until the water runs cold. I stand up, turn off the shower and dry myself, ignoring the way the towel smarts against Aiden’s love bites.