Page 86 of Scoreless Nights

“You are not welcome here,” she screamed, completely irrational. Ivan and I both yelled at her, but Cruz held up a hand to stop us.

“I live here,” he repeated, like that was the main point of him being there. All it did was make my mom more upset, and I shot daggers from my eyes to his hoping he shut up.

“Cruz,” Ivan said calmly. “Son, you are always welcome here, but you caught us at a very rough moment.”

“Good,” he nodded. “Because I’ve had a few of those moments myself, and I think we need to work them out… as a family.”

Those were the exact words we heard every time Cruz was in town while we were young. Ivan wanted to go camping as a family. Mom wanted to have dinner as a family. We all had to decorate the Christmas tree as a family.

The words weren’t lost on any of us. Ivan looked like he was getting ready to throw Cruz out, but when I looked at him, in his eyes, all I saw was pain and I fought the urge to run to him and wrap my arms around him.

“I had a right to know,” Cruz said angrily. “You should have told me.”

“Don’t blame them,” I yelled. “I told you in the hospital that it was my decision. I begged them. Not to mention, didn’t you tell me we all deserve to have secrets?”

“Even my mom knew,” he yelled back at me. “I was the only one that didn’t.” I had no idea that Mariana knew about my heart issues. Mom and Ivan never told me that she knew, so I looked at both of them in shock. Cruz turned toward Ivan and ran his hands down his face before pointing at his dad. “You spent every one of my trips here trying to convince me we were one big happy family. You reminded us every day, and almost every time we were on the phone, that I had a sister, that I had a family. You wanted us to be one big happy family so much, but not enough to tell me the truth about Lil.”

“You didn’t live here,” Ivan explained. “Lily was always sick when she was younger. When we got to spend time together without hospitals, or distances between us, Gloria and I tried to create a family for you both. It was a small piece of normalcy in what was a very chaotic childhood for you both.”

“It made me angry,” Cruz admitted calmly, then glanced back at me. “I was scared every trip here that if I looked at her the way I wanted, or in a way you thought wasn’t appropriate, you would disown me. She was never my sister, Dad. She was my crush, my first dance, and the girl I used to think about every single day. Too young for me to be feeling the things I was, and when I turned eighteen, I never came back for that exact reason.”

I heard my mom gasp next to me, but Cruz didn’t seem fazed. He came on a mission, to say his peace, and that was exactly what he was doing.

“You should have told me,” Ivan tried to reason. “I was a teenage boy before. I would have understood.”

“You don't understand,” Cruz laughed. “I basically fucked my way through Miami trying to get her out of my head. I wasn’t always a kid, I’ve been an adult for a while now, and nothing has ever changed. When you called and insisted she stay with me, I knew it would be trouble. I knew I wouldn’t be strong enough to resist her anymore.”

Mom was crying, like it was the end of the world, but my heart was beating wildly and I started walking toward Cruz. He tucked his hands into his jeans, he had a plain white t-shirt on and a leather jacket that he only got to wear because it was colder in Brooksville than in Miami.

“This is unbelievable,” my mom mumbled, making me turn back around to face her before I got to Cruz.

“It wasn't just him,'' I confessed. “I hated our ‘family’ trips because I didn’t want Cruz to be my family.”

“You never said—” my mom started to say but cut herself off.

“I promised you a long time ago that I would never break your heart the way my dad did. That meant I went along with almost everything you needed from me. I have lived my entire life to make you happy, Mom. But being with Cruz meant I got to live for myself for a while, and for the first time in our lives, we got to be together without someone constantly trying to tell us how nice it was that we were siblings.”

“That doesn’t make it right,” my mom started to cry again, before walking out of the room, back to the kitchen.

“And it doesn’t mean you had a right to know about Lily’s heart,” Ivan added.

“Myheart,” Cruz said. “Her heart has always belonged tome, and while I do respect that you kept it from me because she asked you to, I always had a right to know.”

ChapterForty-Two

Cruz

Gloria ran from the room in tears and Dad followed her into the kitchen. Leaving us alone meant I finally got to concentrate on Lily, who was looking at me with her eyes wide.

“Come on,” I grabbed her hand and led her upstairs to my old bedroom. “We need to talk.”

There were a few boxes for storage in there, but the bed was still made up with the same quilt I used all those years ago. I had never had many personal affects there, but there were things I had left behind that I knew would still remain.

Once the door was closed, Lily pulled her hand from mine and wrapped her arms around herself while walking slowly to the window. I took my jacket off and tossed in on the bedpost before following her.

“I’m scared to talk.” Her voice cracked and I turned her around so that she could see into my eyes how serious I was.

“Then I’ll talk,” I snapped. “I left because I was scared. I had to get out of that room and away from the fear I had when I looked at you in that bed, knowing what you had been going through for so long.”

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