Page 106 of Darcy
I miss those days more than anything. We may have been dirt poor then, but we had each other’s backs. Without Miguel, could we go back to that?
I’m not so sure. We spend so much of our time fighting that I’m not sure that killing Miguel and his brothers is enough to undo the damage.
Damage I caused.
The realisation creeps up on me slowly, but with the impetus of a baseball bat. I slump onto my own bed, rubbing my temples with my free hand as I stare at the picture.
You’d like to think that trials will make your friendships stronger, but that wasn’t true in our case. Resentment and fear made me lash out. I don’t even blame them anymore for the situation we’re stuck in. Not really. But in the process of fighting to leave the band to try to keep my family safe, I’ve created a huge divide between us.
Hell, pushing Darcy away probably played a huge part in Arlo’s relapse.
If Miguel dies, then I was an asshole for nothing.
For the first time, I try to picture life without the cartel. I’d have more free time without the constant touring. I could keep writing songs for money, work at the gym to pass the time. If the guys moved in with Darcy, maybe I could visit and—
The air leaves my lungs in a rush.
If the guys lived with Darcy, I’d have to watch them loving her, filling her with the babies she wants, raising children with her eyes and their mischievous grins. Any chance I had with her would be gone, and it would all be my own doing. And she’s right. Whatever jealousy I might’ve avoided by staying clear of the relationship would come back a hundredfold just watching them enjoying the happiness they deserve.
The question is, am I too late to change that?
This latest plan of Slate’s reeks of a Hail Mary. A last effort to bring me into the fold before they give up on me.
“Uncle Ethan?” Malik asks, peering around my door.
“Hey lil’ bit,” I call, putting the picture down. “What’s up?”
He stumbles into my room, looking around at my old stuff with wide, curious kid eyes. “Nana said to come get you for dinner,” he says, looking at me once again. “But we can hide here if you don’t want her to know you’re crying.”
Shit. I reach up and swipe the back of my hand against my eyes, grimacing when I realise that yes, there’s moisture there.
Malik uses both arms to claw his way up onto my bed, shimmying until he’s beside me, and wraps me in a huge hug.
“You need to eat, lil’ bit,” I say. “You’ve still got a lot of growing to do. You can’t skip meals.”
“Okay,” he says, not arguing. “Do you wanna talk about it? Did your girlfriend make you cry? Girls do that sometimes when they like you. My teacher told me that when Talisha told me off for not sharing my bouncy ball at recess.”
His words run into each other so quickly that it takes me a second to put it all together.
Is some girl picking on him?
“I’m not sure that’s always the case.”
“It’s okay,” Malik continues. “When I shared my ball, Talisha let me play in the sandpit with her, and then we made this castle, and she said she was sorry for being mean, and then I said it was okay and she could always play with my ball.”
I could live a thousand years and still not understand kindergarten politics, but fortunately, Malik is satisfied with a nod.
“Darcy didn’t make me cry,” I admit. “I was just… sad thinking about the future.”
“Because your band is angry?” he asks. “I heard Nana and Mom talking about it. It made them sad too.”
It did?I tried to keep the drama away from them, but I should’ve known Mama would pick up on that stuff. The woman has a supernatural level of perceptiveness when it comes to her family.
“If you ‘pologise, they’ll be happy again,” he concludes, with a certainty that only comes naturally to five-year-olds.
“I’ll try,” I promise, slowly. “But things aren’t always that simple.”
Thirty-Five
