Page 108 of Saving Sparrow
“What are you hiding?” My question made me feel guilty because I was hiding so much, and not just my ever-changing feelings for them.
“I can’t tell you.” He sounded pained, but it didn’t seem physical.
“Sure you can. You can tell me anything.”
“You don’t understand.” He sniffled, hands gripping the drawer handles.
“Then help me. Tell me what’s wrong. Please.”
He glanced at the closet doorway.
“Quentin’s making sandwiches; it’s just you and me.”
“I-I can’t say it.”
“Then show me,” I said, looking at the drawer he seemed ready to close.
Miguel ran his bottom lip through his teeth, then jutted his chin forward, silently giving me permission to have a look.
Reaching for the side of the drawer I’d seen him burrowing under, I folded back the stack of shirts there. “Is that…” I withdrew the ornate silver box, opening the lid. “It’s a jewelry box.” I brushed a finger over the ballerina inside. “It’s your mother’s,” I whispered.
“The ballerina’s supposed to spin, and music is supposed to play,” Miguel said hoarsely. “She loved it the most. It doesn’t work, but I’ll never get rid of it.”
Miguel was sensitive and sentimental—two things I loved most about him. “Why wouldn’t you want Quentin to see this?”
Miguel glanced over his shoulder at the doorway again.
“We’ve got at least ten more minutes,” I assured him. “You know he has to eat the first three sandwiches before getting serious and making some for us.”
Quentin’s daily calorie intake was insane, especially after football or sex.
Miguel took the box from me before lowering to his butt and crossing his legs. I did the same, then shifted to face him. Lifting the velvet padding inside, he pulled a folded sheet of paper free.
“What’s this?” I asked, accepting it once he’d unfolded it.
“I…can’t,” he stressed.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to say anything. I’ll read it.” My own eyes flooded with tears as I realized what it was.
“She killed herself.” My whispered words trembled. Miguel closed his eyes, turning his head away from me. “It’s not your fault,” I said, understanding exactly where his thoughts were.
“She wasn’t happy, but I was,”he’d said to me once.
“You couldn’t have known.”
“I tell myself that sometimes,” he said, voice clogged with tears. “But it never sticks. Sometimes I wonder if admitting what happened to her, if saying it out loud would help, or if it would just hurt more to hear it. It’s hard, you know?”
I nodded, but I didn’t know. I had no idea what it was like to love my mother or to wish she hadn’t died. I knew what it meant to love Miguel, though. I knew how lucky his mother was to have him for a son. He was good and selfless, even if he sometimes believed the opposite.
“What made you think about this today?” I handed him the letter back.
“I don’t know. I guess I was lying in bed thinking about not wanting to lose Quentin, and it made me think about how I’d lost her.” He put the letter back before stuffing the box into the drawer again.
“You’d never lose him.” Another layer of guilt wrapped around me. They could never know how I felt. It would throw our whole dynamic into utter chaos. Even worse, it would end our friendship. They’d feel betrayed. They wouldn’t trust me. And Quentin was too territorial to ever let Miguel remain my friend after knowing I had feelings for him. It wouldn’t matter that I had feelings for him, too. No, I could never be the thing that came between them, between us… I could never be the cause of Miguel ever feeling like this.
“You don’t get it, Ellie.”
“What don’t I get?” Miguel had explained to me how Quentin’s mind worked and the roles they played for each other. Quentin saw himself as the hero. The person who saved and protected us. He thrived on it. One of the things he thought he needed to protect Miguel from was his father.
