Page 84 of The Art of Scandal

Now he remembered Beto standing and clapping loudly during his graduation, even though none of the other parents had done the same. He remembered test-driving his first car with Beto in the passenger seat, bemoaning the death of manual transmissions. He remembered being four years old and watching his father crouch low to fit inside the fort they’d built in Nathan’s bedroom—Beto’s large hands weaving delicate Christmas lights between the sheets. He remembered falling asleep with his ear to his father’s heart and trying to will his own to match its steady rhythm. Because even then, he knew that was how you loved someone. Like an extension of your soul in someone else.

It was their chef, Arianna, who found Beto and called Sofia away from the gala. Beto had stayed after everyone left to make arrangements for a surprise celebration. “I think he was nervous,” Arianna said. “He said that he never knew how much work Señora Cárdenas put into those things.”

Nathan had made plans to meet with Bobbi and Dillon after the gala. It would be nice to think he would have made the right choice and accepted his father’s invitation to join them at home. But he was done lying to himself, and he realized now that he had no instincts when it came to Beto. If he did, maybe he would have known the day with the photo album would be the last time they saw each other. If Nathan knew his father better, he would have seen Beto’s anger for what it was—self-loathing and fear, the knowledge that every second that ticked by was a lost chance to change things. If Nathan knew, he wouldn’t have gotten drunk at the gala while Beto had a stroke, and maybe his father wouldn’t have died alone.

The paramedics said it was painless. The doctors told them that strokes were a common risk for people with brain tumors, and that Beto had probably been experiencing symptoms for a while but hadn’t told anyone. “That’s just like Beto,” Sofia had said, huffing out a laugh that sounded nothing like her.

Nathan didn’t answer his phone all week. Bobbi and Dillon had tried to stop by, but he ignored the knocks on his door. He ordered pizza when he got too hungry to sleep; he only went outside to take out the trash so it wouldn’t attract flies. The first few times, some photographer took his picture, but that stopped eventually. The news cycle had moved on, and photos of a grieving son tossing beer bottles in the dumpster could only be sold so many times.

That’s how Rachel found him, carrying a trash bag and empty pizza box to the back of the building. She was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, and her hair was curly, the way it had looked when they got caught in the rain. As soon as they locked eyes, she stopped walking and wrapped her arms around her waist, like she needed comfort.

“Hi,” she said.

He moved the trash bag to the opposite hand. “Hey.”

“I was in the neighborhood—” She stopped and shook her head. “No, I wasn’t. You won’t answer the phone, so I’ve been sitting in the parking lot watching Netflix, waiting for you to come out.”

“I put it on silent for the wake, and now I’m not sure where it is.” That was three days ago. Which meant he probably had seventy-two hours of messages from complete strangers poking at his grief.

“It’s okay,” she said quickly, and moved closer. “You have a lot going on.”

The funeral mass was yesterday. He’d been forced to listen to eulogies about the man everyone thought his father was. Beto Vasquez was a business leader. A compassionate philanthropist. But Nathan knew that he also loved old cars. He made homemade marshmallows for hot chocolate, and only used cocoa from Oaxaca, because, as he put it, “We’re not animals, mijo.”

“Yesterday was hard,” Nathan said. “Long. Mom was pretty out of it by the end.”

“I wanted to be there.”

“I’m glad you weren’t.”

She nodded. “You’re right. It would have been a distraction.”

“That’s not what I meant. It’s just that people are terrible. I could hear them talking about us during the service.” He took a deep breath. “Before the gala, I couldn’t handle us not being together. I don’t even remember sending you that portrait. It was reckless and selfish, and I’m so sorry.”

“Please don’t be,” she said. “I wasn’t angry when I saw it. I thought it was gorgeous.” She paused and slipped away for a moment, remembering. “You made me look beautiful,” she said, so hushed and intimate that it shrank the parking lot, the town, the whole world down to the distance between them.

He wasn’t angry with her anymore. Clinging to pride in a sea of grief was just a faster way to drown. He wanted to explain that he finally understood her choices, but being this close made it hard to say anything that wasn’t a confession.You’re always beautiful. You also broke my heart and it’s useless without you.

Instead, he asked, “Why are you here?”

She walked up the steps and sat on the cement landing. “To listen.” She patted the spot to her right. He wanted to invite her upstairs but was embarrassed by the state of his apartment. She’d probably start cleaning and offer to cook for him. And he’d let her do it. That’s how weak he was. He’d take anything from her right now, including pity.

Nathan sat and started confessing the shameful truths he hadn’t told anyone. Selfish things, like how he resented his father for refusing chemo and keeping his symptoms a secret. “I blame him,” he said. “He was stubborn his whole life and he died that way. None of us got to say goodbye.” He shook his head. “Or maybe they did. Mom and Joe were saying goodbye this whole time, while I was pretending I didn’t need to. Now all I can think about is how he never saw it. That’s selfish, right? My father’s dead and all I care about is that he missed my fucking show.”

“It’s not selfish. He lost that too. You all did. That’s what hurts the most when someone’s gone.” She grabbed his hand. “And you’ll want to keep clinging to that hurt because it feels like all you have left. Eventually you’ll realize that you have better things to hold on to, and you’ll cling to that instead.”

He thought about what Beto had said to him, that Nathan was a moving target he could never pin down. “We barely knew each other. What if there’s nothing to hold on to?”

“Did you love him?”

Nathan thought about Beto’s fort and listening to his father’s heartbeat. Those feelings were real, no matter how hard he’d tried to ignore them. He nodded and swallowed against the tears gathering in his throat.

“Then it’s enough.”

Nathan’s tears broke free. Rachel grabbed his shoulders as he reached for her waist. He buried his face in her hair and inhaled, breathing freely for the first time in days.

“Get away from my son.”

Rachel jerked back. Sofia stood over them, gripping her purse like a weapon. Joe stood behind her looking defeated, like he’d tried and failed to stop this from happening.

---