"Where. Are. They?" he roars.
It takes every ounce of courage I can muster to do what I do next.
I yell back at him. The way he always yells at me.
"You. Don't. Need. Them."
He stares at me in disbelief. Then annoyance. And I wait for it. Wait for him to blow. To flip. To say he's going to punish me. To threaten me and scold me and have his way with me like he always does. But this time, he is waning.
There is uncertainty in his eyes. He wants to believe me. And I am not about to let this opportunity pass me by.
"I have already seen you," I tell him again. "There is no reason for you to be lurking around here with your face covered in shadow all the time. Especially not now that you've had a haircut."
He searches my eyes. Looks for the lies hidden within my words. I take him by the hands again, and he lets me. He lets me touch his face.
"Is it so wrong of me to want to see you?" I ask. "Can you not believe that perhaps I am telling the truth, Javi? That perhaps I actually find you incredibly handsome."
He doesn't respond, so I continue.
"Things are always worse in our own minds," I remind him. "You should know this better than anyone. The way you exposed my fears and exploited them when you brought me here. The words you played on repeat. The ones you knew would hurt me most."
He looks away. And for the briefest moment, I thought I saw shame in his eyes. But he does not voice it. He does not allow me to witness it again, either.
"Your scars mean nothing to me, Javi. Please. I am only asking you to try it."
"I want them back," he says again.
But his voice has lost the harshness from before, and he does not demand that I bring him the hoodies now.
Instead, he simply leaves the room.
Chapter Thirty-One
Javi lockshimself in the office over the course of the next three days.
He has not asked me for his hoodies again. From the rare glimpses I get when I catch him in the hall, I know he is walking around without them.
I am lonely.
There is a hunger inside of me that I can’t defy. I ache for his body against mine. The smell of his skin. The vibrations of his voice. I lay in bed at night and wonder what he's doing. I wonder how to break through the walls he has built so high around his heart.
And then I wonder why I want to. Why am I still so broken for him?So willing to overlook the things he has done.
My mind and heart are divided.
I don’t know how to find peace with either decision when they both hurt so much. It is ripping me apart. I can love him or hate him, but I can't go on feeling both.
I write in my journal. I play at my piano. And I sing songs with words only he can hear. But still, he does not come.
My heart is melancholy, and I think of my father too often. I wonder where he is. If he's even still alive. I wonder what he would tell me to do if he were here now. Then I remember it wouldn't matter. Because I have always been on my own. Even when he was there, the solitude was an ever-present guest. He was consumed with work, and I was consumed with vying for his attention.
My soul is tormented by the mystery of his fate. The unknowns that still linger. But even so, there is peace in my bones. Peace that wasn’t there before.
I am at ease with the knowledge that Javi needed him too, in his younger years. Regardless of whatever happened between them, Javi did love my father once. He looked up to him. And I know my father loved him too.
Now, only questions remain. Questions I am not certain I will ever have the answers to. Not until Javi is ready to share them.
The doorbell rings again this afternoon, and this time I do not race to see who it is. Javi locks eyes with me before he moves towards the door. Searching for what he is so certain he will find there.