I don’t move, processing each bit of information. An art school. It’s a big leap from“joining the traveling circus,”like he’d claimed he would do back when he was a kid.Placement stuff.
“So...you got in?”
He shrugs. “Of course I got in. You know anyone else with a colorful, though maybe not entirely legal, portfolio like mine?”
I don’t miss the way he glances down at his bandaged hand and winces.
Still, I assume that means he used Arno’s tags as part of his “audition.” I don’t know whether I’m impressed or...relieved?
“So, that’s it?” I risk asking. “You’re done running with the Gardai?”
“For now,” Espi says, but he puts an edge on his tone that warns me not to push the issue.
Talking him out of criminal activity—like a goddamn hypocrite—could come later. I didn’t realize until now just how much I’ve missed this...talkingto him. Not having him run from me or take a swing. If I had a soul, I might put a name to the emotion swelling in my chest, but I don’t have the fucking time.
“She’ll be out for a while,” I say, nodding to the woman between us. “If you wanted to go back with Arno...”
“Nah.” He shakes his head. “I’ll stick around until she wakes up. It’s the least I could do for her...”
I don’t challenge that, but I take up a position on the opposite wall so that he won’t change his mind, either. In the dim lighting, I just watch him. Little Espisido’s all grown up. Five years have stripped away the little punk who slept with a nightlight to reveal someone who acted like a man. One who talks about getting into art school while sporting a mangled hand. I know I’m partially responsible for the stern set to his jaw and the weariness in his eyes that wasn’t there before. I spent years protecting him from whatever I could, but it still wasn’t fucking enough.
Apparently, of the same mindset, Espi stares me dead in the eye, crossing his arms over his chest the best he can. “Damn it, Dante, let’s cut the shit. Iheardwhat that guy said. The cop.”
I don’t say a damn thing. I can’t. The therapy sessions we sat through in prison were more about learning how not to smash a bastard’s face in than confronting the past.
“You...you never asked me what happened,” Espi goes on. “Not...not even when you saw. You just did what you do best.” He swallows hard, and when his eyes widen, I know he’s looking back five years ago. All of that fucking blood. “You never even fucking asked me—”
“I didn’t want to know,” I say before he can even go there. It’s the truth.
After all that time...I finally got the phone call I’d been dreading—Espi so fucking incoherent that all he could do was cry into the goddamn phone. I had never experienced that fear—not even for myself. When I got to the house, the bastard was already dead, and Espi was covered in blood.
“I couldn’t let you go to... I had to protect... I couldn’t protect you from him...”
“He didn’t, you know,” Espi says softly. “He didn’t touch me.”
Suddenly, I’m leaning against the wall. When I finally manageto exhale, it’s like five years of fear blow out through my nostrils, and my fingers unhook out of fists, numb for once. “Good.”
“He...he was drinking, and...he started talking about you.”
I barely recognize the sound of the voice that continues to speak.
“Dante.How he deserved to have you hate him. All the...all the shit he did to you. How he—” He breaks off, and the kid can’t fight one of his old habits back. Tears slip down his chin, and he grits his teeth like he does when he’s fighting the urge to cry. “You never told me. I never knew. I thought maybe he just hit you a few times—that’s why you were always around. I thought you had it rough when you ran away. That’s why you used the drugs and why you fought all the time. I thought that was why you looked like you were dead every time you came around. But...I knew. I knew right then that it was because ofme.”
“Bullshit.” Shaking my head, I pull away from the wall. “Espi, what the fuck are you talking about—”
“It wasmyfault.” His gaze is on the floor, but he holds his good hand up when I start to circle the bed toward him, and I stop dead in my tracks. “It was my fault. You went there because of me. You tolerated that asshole because ofme. He was sitting there, wondering if you would ever be able to forgive him, when I couldn’t even forgivemyself. You spent my entire life trying to protect me, and...it was killing you. I didn’t...I didn’t mean to do it,” he croaks. “I just remember shouting at him and s-slapping the bottle out of his hands. The hammer was just lying there, and...”
He stares down at his own hands, flexing his still-attached fingers. “I thought you’d be angry when you saw. I wanted you to yell at me. Hit me. I’d fucked up, and once again, you had to clean my mess. But all you fucking did was make me change my clothes, send me to Arno, and I didn’t even know until the next day that you were in lockup.” He glances up at me, his eyes shining with hatred. “Even then, you put me first. You confessedwithout even knowing what the fuck happened. You gave up the rest of your life for me, andyou didn’t even ask me why.”
“It didn’t matter,” I snap. “I would do it again.”
Espi watches me for so long that at least three nurses have crept into the room to check on the girl only to dart right back out by the time he finally sighs.
“I know you would...andthat’swhat pisses me off.”
“Then I suppose you’ll just have to be pissed off, then,” I counter, not giving a fuck if that makes him hate me even more. “So, you better go to fucking art school and stay out of trouble. You fuck up and I’m the one who will take the fall for you, whether you like it or not.”
He doesn’t say anything to that, but when I approach the bench and sit beside him, he doesn’t run off, either.
