Break My Heart

Chapter 20. Nightmares

Luis's POV

That night, she told me everything down to the last detail. The gruesome things that flooded the air between us practically suffocated me. I hated it all. All the time, people have moments in their life where if they could do things differently, they would—for me, this was that moment. If I could go back to that hillside where I opened my big fat mouth, I would have kept it closed. She wasn't ready to tell me, and apparently, I wasn't prepared to hear it. 

I kept staring at her face, imagining it scrunched up in pain and black and blue. The things she told me were far worse than I imagined. I twirled one of her blonde curls around my finger, memorizing the texture. 

She cried herself to sleep on my chest—I hated myself for making her relive the vile things she experienced. 

My stomach turned the longer I stared at her face. Suddenly, I just couldn't look any longer. I crawled out of the bed and snuck downstairs. 

As I ran the water, waiting for it to get cold, Dad came into the kitchen. I looked at him for a long moment. 

His lips were pursed. Somehow, I knew what he was going to ask before he asked. "Is Remi staying?"

I sighed and shrugged. "I guess."

"You guess? You invited her, didn't you?"

"She kind of fell asleep," I said.

"Maybe you should wake her."

"Maybe you should butt out."

My dad crossed his arms over his puffed-out chest, and part of me wondered where my bravery came from because I never spoke to my father that way. Nobody in their right mind would speak to my father that way if they knew who he was. "Boy—"

"I'm sorry," I said automatically.

"Are you? What the fuck is with you? If you're trying to convince me at all that this girl is good for you, you're doing a shit job of it. Luis, you never used to talk to me that way. 

"I know, okay?" I placed the cup under the water to let the glass fill up. I turned the water off and kept my eyes off my father as I sipped at the water. 

"Luis, I'm serious. Maybe you two need a break."

"We don't. It was a rough night, that's all."

"For who? You or her?"

"Both. Probably her mostly," I said.

"Look, I know your mom is easier to talk to about this kind of shit, but maybe we should talk about it." Dad sat down and gestured for me to sit beside him.

I trudged over to him and sat beside him. 

"Lyric won't be happy if she is here all the time and he won't like her randomly not coming home," Dad said.

"I texted him and told him she wasn't going to be home tonight."

Dad pursed his lips and tilted his head. "For some reason, I don't believe you."

"You and Mom have been saying that to me a lot lately."

"That's because it's true."

I chuckled. "I didn't tell him it was me, obviously. I just pretended to be her and told him she was staying with Jada. I texted Jada and told her to go with it."

"Do you two do that to him a lot?" Dad wondered.

"How much do you mean by a lot?"

"Never mind. It's probably better if I don't know any of that."