She covered her face and peered up at me from behind her fingers. “I am so sorry,” she croaked.
“I thought you said you trust me.”
She turned away from me. “I said I was sorry. Don’t get mad.”
“I’m not mad.”
She looked at me in surprise.
“I’m sad. I don’t want you to lie to me, Aria.”
She licked her lips. “I didn’t.”
“You did. You said you trust me and I believed you.”
“You should have told me!”
“Why?”
“Because… you said we were together.”
Were. She used the past tense. “Yeah… well…”
She looked up at me beseechingly. “You shouldn’t be keeping your good work a secret, Derek!”
“I can do whatever I want.”
Her face fell. “I suppose you can. But they should know who is helping them.”
“Why?” I started pacing around the kitchen, rattling cabinets and opening the refrigerator, anything to avoid this conversation. “Will it make their arms grow back? Will it undo the damage already done? No. I can’t take back the past. For anyone. So I’m just trying to make the future a little better.”
“For them?”
I looked at her, confused. Wasn’t it obvious? “Yes. I’m trying to help them move on with their lives.”
She closed her eyes and then opened them again and the fierceness suddenly blazed out from them again. “What about you?”
“What do you mean?”
“When do you move on? When do you worry about your future?” She slid back up the wall and stood straight and tall again. “Your happiness? When does that happen?”
I balled my fists at my side but the anger came anyway. “I could say the same thing to you, couldn’t I? When do you go visit your parents? When do you take back your career?And what about pressing charges against that piece of shit who hit you, when does that happen?”
She sagged back against the wall again.
I turned back to the refrigerator and clenched and unclenched my jaw.
She exhaled. “I guess we both have our stuff.”
I grunted. “I guess we do.” I knelt down and rummaged around for some eggs, then gave up and just grabbed a piece of bread and stuffed it angrily into my mouth.
I stood back up again and shut the door and nearly jumped out of my skin to see that Aria was standing right there.
“I’ll fix my stuff,” she said.
“What?”
“If….” She held up her finger. “You fix yours too.”
“What stuff, exactly?”
“You need to talk to Jesse.”
“And if I do, you’ll press charges?”
“No, I’m not ready for that yet,” she said, casting her eyes down. “But I will talk to my parents.”