Suddenly, I hate myself for wasting these last four years dwelling in my grief instead of doing something productive with them. Seriously, what the fuck have I achieved? Punishing my parents and everyone else around me hasn’t brought Jamie back. All the mindless sex I’ve had since starting college hasn’t in any way assuaged my suffering, or filled the void in my chest my brother left behind; the only thing that’s managed to do either is being with Blondie, and it’s killing me that I don’t know what to do to help her.
I wish I knew more about her mom’s cancer, about their insurance, about fuckinganything, but I can’t exactly ask her about it without telling her Ronnie spilled the beans. And besides, even if Ididknow any of that information, what the fuck couldIdo?
Nothing. The sad truth is I can’t do shit.
I lean forward, propping my elbows on my knees, and comb my fingers through my hair before lacing my hands around the back of my neck. The consequences of my actions these last four years have never felt heavier than they do at this moment, when I’m so close to having a real seat at the table and yet farther than I’ve ever been because I was stupid and immature enough to fuck it all up. If I hadn’t been so short-sighted and angry, then in another six months, I would be working for Hallazgo, and I would have the access and means to try to do something,anythingat all, to help people like Blondie’s mom. Like Jamie.
I only wish I knew what that something was.
I rub my hands across my face and blow a loud breath out through my nose. My mind spins in circles, searching for an answer, for even the smallest drop of inspiration, but I got nothing. As usual, I’m fucking useless.
What I wouldn’t give to have a brain like Blondie’s right about now.
My eyes drift to my bedside table where my phone sits on top of it, silent and still, and it dawns on me that, while I might not be a genius, Idohave the next best thing.
Swiping my phone, I open my recent contacts and select my abuela, who answers on the first ring as if she sensed I would be calling.
“¡Hola, mi cielo!” she trills, and my worried heart instantly warms at the unabashed affection in her tone. It wraps around me like a soothing embrace.
“Hi, abuelita.” I put the phone on speaker and set it back down on the table. “Are you busy?”
She clicks her tongue. “For you, mi amor? Never.” I can hear the smile in her voice when, not even two seconds later, she asks, “How is that charming girlfriend of yours?”
My stomach flips, and my mouth reflexively stretches so wide my cheeks begin to ache. Never in a million years did I, Damian Navarro, self-proclaimed asshole, think I would grin like a lovesick idiot at the word “girlfriend,” but here I am.
“Lexi is fine,” I tell her, and the words sound like fucking sunshine on my lips. “I’ll tell her you said hi.”
“Please do,” my abuela insists. “Now, as much as I love hearing from you, mi cielo, I’m assuming this isn’t a social call given the hour?”
My smile slips as I glance at the time on my phone. Shit, it’s nearly midnight in Newport, which means it’s eleven o’clock in Guadalajara, which on a normal day might as well be three a.m. to my elderly grandmother. Aside from not realizing just how late it is, I forgot all about daylight saving time and assumed I was still two hours ahead.
“Lo siento, abuelita. I didn’t even look at the time?—”
“Nonsense,” she interrupts before I can finish apologizing, say a hasty goodnight, and hang up. “I will always answer your calls, no matter the time of day, mijo. But Xolo is looking at meas if to remind me that it’s our bedtime, so perhaps you could tell me what’s wrong so we can talk it out and this old lady can go to sleep?”
I nod, even though she can’t see it, then dart out my tongue to wet my lips. “I just…well, what I wanted to ask…” I trail off, struggling to put the thought into words.
A beat of silence passes before my abuela asks, “What’s bothering you, mi amor? You know you can talk to me about anything.”
A shaky breath expels from my lungs. “I don’t know where to start,” I admit. “I feel like I’ve completely screwed everything up. Like…I had a chance to make a difference, to do something good with my life like abuelodid, and now, it’s just…”Gone.
Or close to it. At this point, it’s impossible to tell what my parents are thinking, or if they’ll allow me to take that seat at the table once these nine months are up.
“Did you get into another fight with your father?” my abuela asks.
“No,” I retort, then clear my throat, checking my tone. “No, I haven’t. It’s just… I’ve been thinking about Hallazgo and everything abuelo built. About how he wanted to help people, and he just…madeit happen. Looking at my own future”—I let out an exasperated breath at the thought—“I don’t know. It just feels like the whole system was constructed to hurt the people who need it the most, and I don’t know how to fight that. How did abuelo manage to do it?”
My abuela’s lengthy pause is telling. “Oh, mijo,” she coos, and the sadness in her voice has alarm bells screaming in my head and red lights flashing behind my eyes. “Your abuelo was a great man, but what you saw in him, and the stories and ideals he instilled in you when you were young, that was the dream.Hisdream, yes. But it wasn’t always the reality.”
Goosebumps pimple my skin. “What do you mean? He always talked about wanting to make medicine accessible to the masses, and he did it. It wasn’t some unattainable dream. He made it happen.”
I was raised on stories about my abuelo—about how he grew up in near poverty, and built Hallazgo from nothing to become the conglomerate and major foothold in the health industry it is today. It was always framed as the classic underdog story, an inspirational tale about a man with a passion for chemistry, who—after developing a breakthrough treatment early on in his career—realized the power he had to use science to change the world.
His goals were altruistic, his kindness and compassion were unparalleled, and though he didn’t believe in unearned handouts, he was always the first in line to donate to charity. To offer help to those who needed it most. I know all that about him for certain—I saw it with my own eyes—and yet…my abuela’s comment makes me wonder if there was more Ididn’tsee because I was too young, too afraid of shattering that image, to look beyond what was right in front of me. If I was only seeing what Iwantedto see instead of the truth. If I idolized the grandfather I loved and the man he desired to be instead of who he actually was.
Her next words only compound that fear.
“It might not feel like that long ago to you, but you were still so young when he passed. You only ever saw the success. You didn’t see what it cost him.”
