Page 79 of Healing Hearts
“That’s what I thought,” my mother says. “I saw the way he was looking at you near the end of Victoria’s birthday, and I wondered why I hadn’t seen it before. But I think that’s the first time we’d all been together in a while.” She leans back in her chair. “I was a little surprised, though. I thought something had happened between him and Lila.”
“That was a misunderstanding,” I say.
“And this?” she asks.
“I love him,” I whisper. “Like really, really love him.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” she says, and she rounds the table to draw me into a tight hug. “What is it about these Castillo men?”
I let out a watery laugh into her shoulder.
When I think I’ve got myself together, I step away, and my mom rubs my back in comforting strokes.
“I can take Amir to camp,” she says, “but if you want to help Trent, I would go down to the police station and out yourself. He won’t do it. His lawyer said Trent would rather let the unresolved footage hang over his head for months than tell them who he was with.”
“His stubbornness was cute when it was helpful to me,” I say.
“It’s a bit self-destructive, which is a little concerning for my gentle-hearted girl.” She searches my expression for a beat. “You’re not worried?”
“He’s cut ties with me right now,” I say. “He’s convinced that his reputation is damaging to my career.”
“But I get the sense that his presence buoyed up every other aspect of your life the last few months.”
“Yeah,” I say, wiping away tears. “I feel like myself again.”
“Do you think you two will get back together?”
“I want to.”
“This is my motherly advice, which you’ll probably ignore. He needs to go talk to someone about how heavily his past is impacting his perception of the future. Is what’s going on now bad for him professionally? Yes. Challenging for you professionally? Probably. Does it mean he needs to abandon you and Amir to protect you from that? My personal opinion is that he doesn’t, and that what he’s done is damaging in a different way than if he’d stayed. We can’t protect the people we love fromeverything. As much as we might try.”
“We pick our battles.”
“We do.”
“I want to fight for him,” I say.
“Then your first step is going to the station and brandishing the sword of your knowledge.” She mocks pulling out a sword and swooshing it around like a lightsaber.
“You’re ridiculous.”
“Grandma,” Amir says from the doorway, “are you pretending to be in Star Wars again?”
“It’s our favorite way to battle, my little Obi Wan.”
Amir giggles and goes to the fridge to get his lunch. He stuffs it into his backpack and then looks back and forth between me and my mom. “Who’s taking me?”
“It is I,” my mother says, bowing to him. “I hear we’re spending a few days together when your mom goes on a trip.” She ushers him toward the door.
“Yeah, but I wish I was still hanging out with Trent. We were going to build my Lego set.”
As he goes out the door, my mom turns to blow me a kiss, and then they’re gone, chatting. At least I know that Mom can handle Amir’s curiosity and confusion about Trent. It’s not the first time she’s had to explain the unexplainable to Amir’s curious mind.
Gathering myself together, I brace myself for the visit to the police station. I’m going to be unbelievably embarrassed, but if it gets the police to close their investigation into Trent, then I can handle the heat.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Emily
