"This can't be right," he'd said. "He's only a boy."
Ray laughed and handed me another workbook.
"Javi, can you do me a favor?"
He opened up the book and pointed to a page.
"Can you solve this one for me?"
I took the pen he provided and solved it in ten minutes while they watched. The man beside him was smiling too when I finished.
"Well, I'll be damned."
They looked at each other, and then to me.
"So?" Ray asked. "How about it?"
"I think perhaps you are right," the man said. "I think he will make an excellent addition to the program."
Ray looked at me and nodded.
“Indeed.”
I didn't know it then, but my life was about to change. It was about to get better, for the first time in a long time. I didn’t know then that I would grow to hate Bella's father so much. I didn’t know the kind of man that he was. Because he showed me something else at first. Something I needed at the time, in a world where nobody understood me.
The man who gave me guidance and a purpose. The man who took me away from the sanitarium. He never treated me like I was dangerous. He helped me with my anger. He helped me as much as he could. He did everything he could to help me.
And now here I am, holding his most beloved daughter captive in my home.
When I think of those early days, and how much I cared for Ray- how much I respected him- it hurts to think of what has become of us.
I can't uncross the lines I have already breached. I can't undo the moments I caved beneath the weight of my darkness and gave into temptation. But what I can do is be honest with her. I can try to make her understand. At least some of it.
Until I’m ready to give her the truth.
"It was never about leaving you," I tell her. "Or choosing me."
She looks at me, eyes shining, and then hides them beneath a veil of hair.
"That isn't what it felt like. He left me to go to you. He did it all the time."
"Because he was responsible for me," I explain. "And he was teaching me. It was only part of his job."
She glances up at me, and her eyes are still wet, but it isn't for herself.
"You were never just a job to him, Javi. Surely, you must know that. He cared about you as if you were his own son."
His own son.
Those words hit me hard. Much harder than I could anticipate. I knew that he was proud of me. I knew that he felt responsible for me. But I also know why he took on the burden of helping me.
I did not live with him as a son would. I was kept separate. Alone.
He came to visit me at the program, and I kept to my routine. I did what he asked of me, and I excelled at everything he put in front of me. Because I wanted to make him proud.
At the time, I felt indebted to him. For saving me from that place. And for saving River too when I had requested it.
He had given me so much.