He must know. He must know that when he comes and reads the things in my notebook, they are not the only thing I have been writing. But he doesn't ask.
The story I'm writing now has captured his attention. He reads the new parts every day. Little by little. Chapter by chapter.
The story about the girl with the absent father. At first, the details of her life are mundane. But he reads them nonetheless. He reads how she goes to school and none of the other kids talk to her. So she sings, and she loses herself in the world of books. And then he reads the parts about her growing up. How her mother died when she was only a baby. She was lost without anyone to guide her, and her father was always too busy.
She decided it was a good idea to have several identity crises all before the age of eighteen. How her black clothing and nail polish prompted stares and whispers, but it also brought her peace.
She didn't want to fit in. She wanted more than anything to be different than them. To let them know that she wouldn't be stuck in that town forever. That she wouldn't be doing the things they all wanted to do. She wanted more.
She wanted time with her father. And she acted out to get it. But he never noticed. Even when she sabotaged her grades. He didn't notice. He was too busy.
With him.
The boy that he'd been spending so much time with. The boy that he seemed to care about more than his own daughter.
This is the part that Javi is reading today. He is enrapt as he scans over the journaled pages. His eyes are dark, barely discernible beneath the hood.
I wonder how it makes him feel when he reads about how she always hated the boy. How her jealousy got the best of her, and she resented him so much. But now she knows. She knows why her father spent so much time with him.
He felt sorry for him.
And now- against her better judgment- she does too.
He looks down at me. I want him to take off his hood. I want to see his face. I want to believe that the man who lurks beneath the shadows is still human. That there is still something to be salvaged inside of him.
Society has cast him out. Labeled him a murderer. Locked him away in a sanitarium as a child. I don't know if anyone has ever really helped him. I don't know if anyone besides my father has ever really tried to understand him. But I am trying now. By being honest with him about my feelings. By provoking something in him too. I need to understand him.
And I want to believe that if I help him... that if I do the thing that nobody else ever has... that maybe he will set me free one day. That maybe he can be more than just the monster society has created.
Maybe he can be a man, too.
"Javi?"
He is still silent. Lost in his own thoughts. I need something from him.
Anything.
But he doesn't give it to me. He hands me back the journal.
And walks away.
When the timefor dinner passes, I start to worry. Maybe I pushed him too far. Maybe this was all a huge mistake.
I'm worried for nothing. Because tonight when Javi comes, something is different. He's quiet, like always. Locked up tight, like always. But something has shifted between us, and I can't quite understand what it is.
He sets my tray down on the table beside me. And the food is different too. I recognize the pasta from my favorite Italian restaurant in the city.
It occurs to me that he ordered this.
For me.
But I don't know why.
"How did you know?" I ask.
It's a stupid question, and I learned early on he doesn't answer stupid questions. Nothing has changed in that regard.
He's on the verge of leaving.