“You aren’t listening to me. What is going on over there?”
“Nothing,” I tell him. “It’s nothing.”
Silence greets me on the other end of the line. A long, painful silence. I know it will not last, and it doesn’t.
“I knew this would happen.”
“What would happen?” I ask.
“This girl,” River snarls. “She has made you weak, Javier. She has poisoned you. Crippled you.”
“No.”
I don’t sound convincing even to myself. And I do not deny what he says next either.
“Have you have fallen for her?”
The quiet is tense, and I do not possess the energy to argue with River right now. I can only think of my Bella. My Bella slipping further and further away from me.
It will take her twenty minutes to get to the main road. And from there, only a few minutes to the nearest gas station. She could be back home by noon.
“She does not love you, Javier,” River tells me. “You must know she does not love you. It isn’t real, whatever she thinks she feels. Whatever tricks she plays on you. They are the same we have been taught ourselves many times. You must know this.”
“I am aware of that,” I reply.
“And what of your revenge then?” he asks.
“My revenge will still be had. The past cannot be changed. I have damaged her, just as I set out to. I have tainted her. And when Ray comes home, he will see for himself.”
“She does not look so damaged to me,” River remarks. “Walking around your home as she pleases. Wearing clothing and doing whatever she feels like. You have gone soft.”
It is true, so I do not dishonor him by telling him otherwise. But I do try to reassure him.
“It is done. It has already been done.”
He is silent again, for several moments. Taking his time to gather the right words as River sometimes does.
“Do you remember how they tricked us?”
The memory of his fake murder still plays on repeat in my head. Every day, it has haunted me. The way they deceived me. The way they used River as a tool in my training.
They took everything from me.
I believed he was dead, for so many years. For so long, I had nothing else but the thought of my revenge. And River knows this too well.
“You were my only friend,” he tells me. “My first friend. Do you remember that, Javi?”
“How could I ever forget?”
“They took you away from me,” River says. “Ray took you away from me.”
“I know.”
“They tortured you too, Jav. Brainwashed you.”
“I know,” I say again.
“But what is the worst of his offenses?” he asks.