Chapter Twenty-Eight

In Which There Are No More Secrets

The day after Lucia returned home, Elisa once again called a meeting with all her sisters, once again all crammed in her bedroom.

“I think if there’s anything to be learned from all this,” she said, “it’s that keeping secrets is a bad, bad idea. If I’d told you all what Wick did to Gianna…” She trailed off then shook her head. “There’s no point dwelling on what could’ve been. My point is…can we all agree, no more keeping secrets from each other if it could be a matter of someone’s safety?”

Her sisters all nodded in agreement. They’d spent almost every waking moment together since Lucia had returned home safely. None of them had asked too many questions about what had happened. She had, as promised, told the police everything she could, and Alejandra said that she’d tell her family when she was good and ready. Elisa tried not to let herself get caught up in all the nightmare scenarios that had been flashing through her mind since she realized Lucia was with Wick.

About an hour after their little meeting, Lucia rapped on the inside of Elisa and Julieta’s bedroom door.

“Can I talk to you alone for a bit, E?” she asked.

Elisa nodded, setting down her book. “Of course,” she said. “Roof?”

Lucia nodded. It was the only place in Longbourn with relative privacy.

Hollering to their mother that they would be back in a few minutes, they headed to the top of the apartment complex. It was a hideous view, overlooking the ugliest part of Steventon, but it was quiet, and secluded. Lucia sat down with her back to the chain-link fence that had been installed a few years before to prevent falls.

Elisa sat with her. “What’s up?” she asked.

Lucia was quiet for a moment. “I met Wick at a club in Daytona Beach,” she finally said. “First night I was there. This guy was harassing me, and Wick…‘rescued’ me. After that, we hung out every night, and…and… We started sleeping together. I knew it wasn’t a good idea, but he convinced me that our ages didn’t matter for people like us, that he wasn’t normally ‘that guy,’ but I was an exception, and…”

She reached for her hand. “You don’t have to talk about this if you’re not ready, Lulu.”

“No, I… He said he was planning to take a road trip. And he wanted me to come with. He said he’d…he’d never felt this way about a girl. That I was special to him.” Lucia’s voice was trembling. “He actually got me to believe it…”

Elisa’s eyes were filling with tears again, but she forced herself not to shed them. She had to be strong. For Lucia.

“After a couple days, I started to get homesick. I… I started thinking about Mom, and Camila, and…and I really missed you. So I asked Wick to take me home. He said, ‘Lu, home for you is wherever I am.’”

“Ugh,” Elisa said, grimacing in disgust.

“I know,” she agreed. “But I ate it up. I bought the whole thing, hook, line, and sinker. So I stayed with him, even though I knew it was a bad idea. Even though…even though my gut was telling me to run away, I stayed. I…I can’t even call myself a victim.” Her small hands were bunching into fists, her voice heavy with disgust. “I had a choice, and I made the wrong one. I stayed. Even after he hit me, I stayed.”

“Lu, that’s not how it works,” she said. She reached over to stroke Lucia’s hair, but her younger sister flinched away. Retracting her hand, she said, “He’s an adult. You’re a child. He made you think he cared, even when he was doing awful things. You’re not a bad person because you bought into it.” She took a shaking breath before asking, “When…when did he hit you?”

“The first time? We got in an argument over…” She sighed. “He wanted me to go to this rager at a school his friend went to. I knew it’d be full of drunk frat boys and drug dealers and all kinds of shit, so I said I didn’t want to go. He said I was being stupid. A kid. He said I was being a kid, and I called him a jackass…and that’s when he punched me. See, a smart person would’ve left right then and there, but no. I stayed, because he was oh-so-sorry. That he’d just been caught up in the moment.” She let out a raw, bitter laugh. “God, I even went to the fucking party. I’m like every other dumbass that lets her boyfriend walk all over her because he’s cute. What’s wrong with me?”

“Lucia, stop putting yourself down,” Elisa said, voice firm. “You’re not stupid, or less of a victim. Don’t ever try and downplay what you’ve been through because you feel bad about yourself. Okay?”

Lucia didn’t respond right away, but finally mumbled something that sounded like, “Okay.” Slowly, she leaned her head against Elisa’s shoulder.

She wrapped an arm around her. “I’m so glad you’re taking him to trial. And I’ll be with you every step of the way.”

Lucia tried to smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes. Finally, she turned her gaze away from her.

“I was thinking about what you said, about not keeping secrets,” she said. “I know you said it was mostly for when it was a matter of someone’s safety… But what about a matter of someone’s happiness?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Elisa, Darcy is the one that found me.”

Elisa swore her heart froze for just a moment. It took nearly a full minute for her to find her voice again.

“What?”

“Darcy found me. Found us. She found us, and she got me to come home. She had someone drive me here, too. The reason I’m back home, it’s… It’s all her.”

“But—but how—?”

“We talked a little bit while her driver took us back to Steventon. She told me about how she’d run into you at Pemberley while you were in Columbus, how she was there when you got the call that I… That I…”

Lucia trailed off, guilt stealing her voice away. When she found it again, it was quiet, but calm.

“Apparently, the only thing Darcy’s done since you left Columbus was call every hotel, club, and bar in the area to find out if Wick had been in,” she said. “She told me what he’d done to her sister, and that Gianna had told her all the places they’d gone together. She figured sooner or later, Wick would have to come back up here, if only to get his extra credit cards. She was right, too. He was running out of money, fast.”

She was digging her nails into one of her arms, dragging them down, leaving tracks behind. On instinct, Elisa reached out to stop her.

“Anyway, we—we made it to Parkersburg, and Wick said it should be fine so long as I didn’t go back into Steventon and stayed in the hotel. He’d been posting stuff online the entire time, he said people would notice if he went silent right when I ran away. He said as long as he didn’t let it tag his location, it’d be fine. Stupid asshole…” She sighed, licking her lips.

“Darcy was checking his social media, too, of course, but couldn’t find anything that nailed down where he was. One night, when he went out to get a drink, he bumped into a friend, and posted a picture with them online. And, wouldn’t you know it, Darcy saw, and showed it to Gianna. Gianna recognized the bar—I guess they’d been there together. So Darcy knew he was in Parkersburg and had someone drive her out. After that, it was only a matter of time before she found the hotel, since it’s a pretty small place… She drove by and saw Wick outside our hotel room getting ice. I told him he wasn’t careful enough…”

“What’d Darcy do?” Elisa asked.

“Well, she told me on the way back that she’d wanted to call the cops, but he saw her. She knew he’d run before the cops got there, so she had to deal with him herself. She kind of…forced her way into our hotel room. Wick kept telling her to get the hell out, but she stood her ground. She told me he’d done this before, that I was just the latest naive, vulnerable girl he was taking advantage of. I didn’t want to believe her. I said he loved me. I think I even believed it.”

“So why’d you come home?”

Lucia stared down at her lap, eyes watery.

“Darcy turned to Wick,” she said. “And she said—she said, ‘Okay, George. If you two are so in love, then I take it you told her all about Gianna.’ And she told me the whole story. About how Wick had done the exact same thing to Gianna as he’d done to me. Found a girl that was too young for him, and told her she was so grown-up, that she was special.” A couple biting laughs escaped her. “He even used the same lines on her. Darcy was standing there, reciting all the compliments and put-downs Wick had fed me, word-for-word. Like it was all just part of a script. And she said that he had hit her sister, too, and forced her into situations she didn’t want. Everything he’d pulled on me—everything—he’d done to her.”

“Did Wick try and deny it?”

“No. That was the worst part. He just told me that Gianna was a bitch, that’s why he’d dropped her. But Darcy said, ‘No, she dropped you. Because she realized she deserved better.’ And she looked at me and said, ‘Lucia, you deserve better, too.’ I… I didn’t know what to think. I asked him, if I told him to wait two years, until I was old enough to date him for real, would he? He said we didn’t need to worry about some stupid law, but I said that…that if he loved me, if I wasn’t just another Gianna to him, he’d be willing to wait.”

“And he wasn’t,” she finished.

Lucia sighed. “And he wasn’t. He said, ‘I like you. But I’m only human, I’m not gonna wait around for some kid to grow up.’ I told him to go to hell, and he just… He looked at Darcy and asked if she was gonna call the cops. And she said, ‘Not if you get your ass out of here in the next minute.’ So he did. He didn’t even say goodbye to me.”

“Oh, Lulu…” Elisa murmured. “Lulu, I’m so… I’m so sorry.”

“I just stood there. I was too shocked to even cry at first. And Darcy… It was like she wasn’t even the same girl I’d met before. She was quiet. Kind. She told me what happened wasn’t my fault, and that it wasn’t too late to come home. That I had people back home who really, really loved me.”

“And she was right. You did. You do.”

Lucia tried to smile. The two sat in silence for a few minutes, Lucia trying to collect herself, before Elisa said, “Darcy really came through. I… I can’t believe it. I’m so glad she managed to get through to you.”

“Me, too. I’m not sure anyone else could have gotten through like she did,” she admitted. “She also said she can act as a witness at the trial, if she has to. She said she can’t make any promises for Gianna, but she’ll talk to her and see if she’s willing.”

“Why didn’t you tell me before? Hell, why didn’t Darcy tell me?”

Lucia hugged her knees to her chest. “She asked me not to tell you. I don’t know how she expected to keep it from you forever—I mean, if nothing else, it was bound to come out during the trial.”

“But why wouldn’t Darcy want me to know?”

“She didn’t say. I think she didn’t want you to feel indebted to her.”

“But I am,” Elisa said. “I’m so, so grateful, and I owe her so much for this—”

“I think that’s what she wanted to avoid,” Lucia said carefully. “That she didn’t want you to think she did this so you’d be grateful. Elisa, Darcy did this for… Well, I’m pretty sure Darcy did this just for you.”

Elisa stared at her. Lucia kept talking.

“Whenever one of us mentioned you, Darcy’s eyes just…lit up. I’d say she was lovesick if it wasn’t Darcy. She obviously cares about you, more than you think. Elisa…I think she might love you.”

Elisa laughed nervously. “Don’t be dumb,” she said. “I mean—I mean, Darcy asked me out a few months ago, but I shot her down. We’re friends now, but… Just friends. She would’ve done this for any of her friends.”

“Yeah, because clearly, vigilantism in the name of friendship is totally a thing that happens every day.”

“Look, Darcy had feelings for me at one point, but…”

“Do you have feelings for her now?”

Elisa tried to respond, but all of her wit and words seemed to have deserted her when she needed them most, and she was left with inarticulate stammering.

Lucia grinned, a shadow of her old self.

“No,” she said, too loudly. “Darcy and I are friends now, that’s all.”

“Uh-huh. That’s totally how I react to one of my platonic gal pals.”

Lucia got to her feet.

“I just thought you should know.”

She headed back into the building, leaving Elisa sitting on the roof.

Elisa may not have ever felt sparkly inside or seen fireworks in her head over someone before, but she definitely did now. She also felt a bit dizzy, but she told herself that was because she didn’t eat breakfast.

Her mind was instantly flooded with all the things she wanted to say to Darcy. Mostly, “Thank you.” But also, “You’re officially my favorite person,” “Can I please hug you and never let go?” and, “Did you really do this for me?”

This was just the romantic in Lucia getting the best of her, right? She would’ve loved it if this had all been some big, grand romantic gesture for Elisa’s sake, but…

No. No. Darcy didn’t feel that way about Elisa anymore. Any feelings Darcy once had were gone by now. She’d made sure of it.

And then, there it was.

The feeling of regret.