Page 190 of From Rivals to I Do

He opened his mouth to speak, but he couldn’t. “Camilla, it’s why I went to jail, but it isn’t like he says.”

“But that’s what happened? You went to jail for murdering my father.”

“No, no. I didn’t kill him. I…I went to jail for it, but I didn’t—”

“Stop,” she said. She could hear her voice starting to break. “Just…stop.” She glanced at Rafael then back to Abel, and it felt like her heart was bleeding.

“Camilla,” said Abel. “I promise—”

“Don’t. Don’t promise me anything. Please.” She stepped away from him, then tore her eyes away as she walked past him, pulling out her phone to order an Uber. She heard him calling for her, but she didn’t dare turn around. She walked away, tears running down her face and sobs in her chest. When the car finally pulled up to take her home, she disintegrated, weeping in the back seat all the way home.

Chapter nine

Chapter Nine

Abel did not have any words for his brother. That night, he left him on the street, going back home without saying anything to him at all. At some point in the night, Abel heard his brother come home, but he didn’t come into his room or make any attempt to talk to him, which was fine by Abel. He wouldn’t have known what to say anyway if Rafael had tried to talk to him.

That night, he lay in bed, thinking about everything that he and his brother had gone through. The death of their parents when they were young and then the death of their only other caregiver when they were teens. It seemed that the two of them only had each other for their entire lives. The truth of their lives was just that Abel had come to depend on and trust his brother more than anyone else in the world.

The whole thing swirled around in his mind in a cloud of confusion. Rafael had had feelings for Camilla this entire time, and he never told him. He did not understand why, either. What had Abel ever done to cause mistrust in Rafael? Did he think he would make fun of him? Or hold it against him? Or…

His stomach turned as he realized. Camilla was the daughter of the man he had killed. Of course, Abel woul

d have judged him if he’d known. He’d have told him who she was and cautioned him not to get mixed up with her. And if Abel had known about her, he’d have stayed as far away from her as possible. Being with Camilla was basically the romantic equivalent of returning to the scene of a crime.

Rafael set the whole thing up to show Camilla the kind of man he was. He could have helped him find a job elsewhere for no reason other than self-preservation. But, instead, he brought his little brother to work in Camilla’s restaurant to show her. Look at what a nice guy I am, helping my brother. It was like some twisted kind of love language.

The more Abel thought about it all, the sicker it made him. If the tables had been turned, he would never have dreamt of doing this to Rafael. Abel went to bed that night feeling more betrayed than he ever had in his entire life. The black-and-white of the situation was that Abel had given up ten years of his life so that his brother could be free, and his brother sold him out the first chance he got. And it wasn’t even for money or out of fear or any of the other reasons that people turn on each other. Rafael’s betrayal had been for something that wasn’t even real in the end.

It had been real for Abel, though. He closed his eyes and thought of how Camilla felt in his arms and how sweet her kiss was. He could still feel their softness pressed against his mouth and still smell her sweet lavender scent. The way her eyes seemed to sparkle when she was happy…when she looked at him.

He’d been through hell and back in his youth and, in fact, lost most of it. But despite it all, Camilla had come to him like a boon. She had been like a sign from God telling him that he would be all right. That he might finally be free from the depressive bonds of his existence. Camilla had been the greatest thing to happen to him in the last ten years. And his brother blew it all up.

The next morning when Abel woke up, the smell of cooking filled his room. He lay there as the sunlight cast its rays across his body, warming him and urging him to get out of bed. In the few moments before full wakefulness came over him, he hoped that the night before had all been just a terrible dream. His reality didn’t actually include his brother’s betrayal and why should it? Rafael had never done anything but protect him. He’d so hoped that he could get up, get dressed, and come down to breakfast, where Rafael would spin some kind of wisdom about staying out of trouble before he went off to work.

Then he sat up and his jaw smarted with pain and radiated down the side of his neck. He pressed his fingers to it, gingerly touching the sore spot from where his brother had punched him. Nope. Not a dream. It was all real.

Disappointed but far from surprised, Abel got up and out of bed. He decided that there was no talking anything out with Rafael this time. He did not even know if he wanted an apology and even if Rafael were to offer it, he did not know if he would want to hear it. All Abel knew was that it was in his best interest to avoid Rafael at all costs. He didn’t know how long he was going to be able to do that, but in all honesty, that hardly mattered. He could only think about the now, and right that second, he just wasn’t interested in anything Rafael might have to say.

He got into the shower, washed quickly, then dressed, and started making his way out. As soon as he stepped out into the living room, he was met with a, “Hey. You not having breakfast?”

Abel looked up to see Rafael standing at the kitchen door. He was wearing t-shirt and sweatpants, spatula in one hand. His face was a little bruised from Abel’s punches, but otherwise, he looked the way he’d did every morning since Abel got out of jail.

“I don’t think so,” said Abel. Rafael sighed and shook his head. He then set down the spatula and walked into the living room. “How long are you going to be mad at me, ‘mano?”

“I do not know. Forever sounds good.”

Rafael didn’t crack a smile or even pretend to act as if Abel might’ve been joking. “It wouldn’t have worked out,” he said. “You understand that, right? I had to do what I had to do.”

“The crazy thing is that I think I might understand if that was actually why you did it,” said Abel. “But that is not why, is it? There was no way all that last night was about protecting me.”

“If you two continued, you would have told her the truth eventually.”

“Stop with the crap,” Abel barked. “This is me, man. Your brother. You cannot stand there and lie to my face—”

“It’s not a lie,” he snapped. “You can’t be with her because of what happened. That is the truth.”

I snorted a bitter laugh. “So, what makes you think you can be with her? Just because she doesn’t know I took the rap for you doesn’t mean I’m the only one with something to hide.”

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