Light Unshaken (Unveiled #2) Page 20

  I picked up my cell again and stared at the dark screen, wishing I could start over with a blank slate. Unmarred.

  The phone trembled against my ear.

  Riley answered on the first ring. “Emma, thank God.” A slow exhale oozed with relief. “Did Jaycee find you? Did she tell you what happened?”

  I fiddled with the keys in the ignition. “Yeah.”

  “So, then you know I—”

  “I know. I’m sorry I doubted you.”

  Another fatigued exhale filtered through the line. “And I’m sorry I ever gave you a reason to doubt.” A loud clatter sounded in the background as if he’d knocked something over. “I hate this, Em. I hate what being apart has done to us. What I’ve done to us—”

  “Stop it.” I sat up in my seat. “We both made choices. For better or worse.”

  The silence on both ends of the call pulsed with words neither of us had.

  Riley swallowed. “Does your choice still include me?”

  His voice held the same urgency it had the day he flew to Nashville when he made me promise to trust in his love. Could we still trust in something so shaken?

  “Sometimes you have to lead your heart instead of following it.”

  Borrowing Dad’s assurance, I looked out the windshield toward the road still ahead of us. “Always.”

  chapter twenty-nine

  Exchange

  Last night’s turmoil merged into a dull angst that gnawed at me all morning. Same as most days at the center since losing Dee, the void of missing him tested my faith. But today felt harder. More strained. When I swiveled in my chair toward the sound of A. J. talking to a group of boys, I understood why.

  In place of our usual friendship, a palpable barrier stood between us. A wall resurrected. He wouldn’t look at me no matter how hard I willed him to.

  Could I blame him? A heart could only take so much pain before closing. I knew that better than anyone. And even though there was no alternative, it killed me to watch his eyes retreat to that distant place they’d hidden behind at the beginning of the semester.

  A. J. squatted to the floor and cupped one of the boys’ shoulders. His gaze flickered toward me. For one suspended minute, all traces of pretense dissolved. The room tapered until his eyes were the only things filling it. I gripped my desk.

  Sheets of paper rustled in a breeze streaming in from the open door. Someone stepped in front of A. J. and obscured him from view.

  A woman tilted her head as she stared at me. Following a deliberate pause, she closed a folder in her hands and set off in my direction. Her high heels clacked against the tiles with each step drawing her closer.

  I shifted in my chair. Something about her face tugged at my heart. The skin around her brown eyes sagged into creases that ran deeper than they should have for someone her age. Her natural beauty seemed tarnished, as if a dull eraser had left smudge marks over a canvas. I couldn’t help staring.

  Her heels dragged to a stop a foot away from me. She resituated a weathered shawl that had drooped to one side and exposed the bare tip of her shoulder. “Miss E?”

  “Emma.” I held out a hand. “Emma Matthews.”

  “Of course.” Her shoulders relaxed. “I’m sorry. He only ever referred to you as Miss E. I’m Delores Mendierez . . . Dee’s mother.”

  My legs found the edge of my desk, my thoughts losing balance. What suitable response could I possibly offer a mother who’d lost her son?

  Unbidden, a deeper panic set in. Had she come to demand justification of how we could’ve let this happen? Did she come to cast accusation and blame?

  She met my gaze with honest compassion. No wonder she looked familiar. I might as well have been looking straight into Dee’s eyes. The resemblance caused a swift and uncontrollable lump to rise without warning. I looked away before it showed.

  “I’m sorry about not having a funeral. The money . . .” Her voice trailed into a sigh bound by grief. She fumbled with the manila folder again. “I found this in Dee’s room.” With slight hesitation, she handed it to me. “I think he would’ve wanted you to have it.”

  I glanced between her and the folder. My heart pounded without explanation. I ran my fingers down the peach cover, the simple action of opening a folder never more difficult.

  It hit the ground and disappeared beneath my desk. A single sheet of paper shook in my hands. A sketch. Me on the bench on the basketball court with my guitar in my lap. A moment captured in charcoal. Its flawless detail could have passed for a photograph. Centered beneath the picture, an artistically drawn caption defined the memory—Courageous.

  I traced my finger over Dee’s initials penciled in the right corner of the page and fought my tears with every ounce of energy I had. “I don’t know what to say.” I brought the picture to my chest. “Thank you. This is incredibly special to me.”

  “I should be the one thanking you. You gave my boy something I didn’t know how to give him myself. Hope.”

  Despite her smile, her lashes failed to blink back her own tears. “What you’re doing here,” she said with a glance around the small room, “is really making a difference. Dee wouldn’t have wanted you to stop trying because of what happened to him.”

  I inhaled, eyes turning glassy. “Your son was very brave, Ms. Mendierez.”

  She lifted her chin ever so slightly. “No mother could be more proud.” She smiled with a level of dignity that surpassed the need for words and returned the way she came.

  Still clutching the picture Dee had drawn for me, I watched this woman—battered by a life I couldn’t begin to have the endurance to face—hold her head high. As much as I loved Dee, it was only a fraction of what a mother would always carry in her heart for her son. Still, no amount of love was wasted. Dee had taught me that.

  I met Trey at his desk. “Listen, I know bills keep coming whether we have money or not. I don’t have a single lead lined up for another grant request, and I’m at a loss as to how to make foundations believe in the center. All I know is, it can’t close. Not when people like Ms. Mendierez are counting on it. And not when we’re still here to do something about it.”

  I raised my chin the way she had. “From now on, I’m volunteering. Put my paychecks toward other expenses. I know it’s not much, but—”

  “What about your rent?”

  I stood tall. “What about the centers’?”

  Trey shook his head, a smile peeking through. “You’re sweet, kid. Stubborn, but sweet.” He squeezed my hand and nudged me toward my desk. “We’ll figure something out. Like I said, there’s always hope. Even when we have to make our own.”

  Donating my time wouldn’t eliminate our financial problems. I knew that. The fight wasn’t over yet, but maybe bravery was found in surrender. Just not always the way we thought. Same as with love, I couldn’t determine the center’s fate, only my part in it.

  The front door flew open again. A teenage girl swung around the frame. “Miss E. Miss E. You gotta come—quick!”

  Trey, A. J., and I exchanged a hesitant glance. All three of us hurried after her to the street corner and through a group of kids mobbing the sidewalk.

  I stopped on the curb. A sharp intake of breath knocked me backward. One look answered what all the commotion was about.

  Trey whipped out his phone.

  All sound and motion dissolved. Nothing existed except the sight of the one person who evoked more abhorrence in my heart than I ever thought possible.

  Tito.

  He had some nerve showing up here after hiding out from the police. Something inside me snapped. I sprang into the road without bothering to check if any cars were coming.

  A. J. lunged after me, but Trey caught him midstream. “Cops are on their way. Give her a minute.”

  On the opposite side of the street, I shoved Tito against the bricks and held him in place with pieces of his shirt entangled in my fits. My rage evaporated every trace of fear I should’ve felt.

  “Easy, senorita.” His
gritted teeth glinted an array of gold, white, and silver.

  I didn’t release my grip on his shirt or back an inch away from his body. My chest heaved a silent threat daring him to utter another word.

  “These streets is mine,” he said. “Peeps can run with me or pay the consequences.”

  Adrenaline nearly strangled me.

  A tendon on his neck twitched. “I gots a reputation. Mi familia wouldn’t let Dee just humiliate me like that.”

  What was he talking about, his familia?

  A city bus screeched to a stop a block away. Turning toward it, I drew in a ragged breath and fought to regain a hold over my self-control.

  “Don’t act like you know what it’s like to live on the streets, senorita. You don’t know nothing of the way we live.”

  A speck of spittle hit my cheek, but I didn’t flinch. I squared my shoulders, refusing to let him intimidate me. He leveled his eyes with mine, and my heart sank over the truth I didn’t want to admit. Despite my relationship with the kids in this neighborhood, I’d never experience a firsthand understanding of their lives.

  His jaw flexed in and out. An inward battle visibly clawed through him the way I’d seen it war inside the other kids. “Dee never fought back.”

  He turned and raised his shoulders, the struggle intensifying.

  Silence stood between us.

  Slowly, he looked up at me. My hands slid from his shirt, my arms going limp. A well of brokenness I wasn’t prepared to see mirrored the torment that had haunted Dee’s eyes when he first came to the center. Shame, confusion, fear.

  His jaw pulsed again as though giving in to a decision. He kicked off the wall and sounded a shrill whistle through his teeth.

  On command, a gang of guys rounded the corner. A miniature version of Tito flew to his side—the same kid who was with him that day he tailed Mr. Brake’s SUV.

  Tito dropped his gaze from the center to the pavement. “Dee changed.”

  Tangled emotions kept my voice lodged somewhere behind my ribcage. I breathed, trying to release it. “He wanted a second chance.”

  He set his hands over his brother’s shoulders and faced me head on. “Maybe he ain’t the only one.”

  The group surrounding us turned into individual faces. Faces of boys. Boys like Dee.

  I backed up, tripped over my feet. Barely making it across the street, I fell to my knees in the spot where Dee’s lifeless body had lain. The empty walkway left a hollow shadow in place of where life should have been.

  Is this what it took? One life sacrificed for the redemption of all of these? My pulse thundered. Had Dee known this was what it would cost?

  I faced Trey, unable to move, and silently pleaded for him to intervene.

  Responsive as usual, he corralled the regular attendees back to the center while inviting the group of street kids to join them. Police sirens blared in the distance. Trey landed a hand on Tito’s shoulder. Expressionless, Tito dipped his head and followed him inside.

  He was turning himself in?

  A. J. lingered behind. He stood at the corner, one side drawing him toward me, the other pulling him in the opposite direction. I smiled weakly and motioned for him to go on without me. Chin lowered, he backed around the building, every movement labored.

  The sidewalk’s coarse texture pressed into my jeans and rooted me in place. I dragged my fingertips over the hint of red stain on the concrete. And from the deep recesses of an anguished heart came the ache of an unanswered question.

  Why?

  “Why did Dee’s life have to be forfeited?” My voice wavered. Would God hear me the way he’d heard the prayers of a young kid crying out from his bedroom window? Would he answer me?

  Silence settled. Memories of Dee coalesced with sights of the streets he’d walked. I saw him everywhere I looked. Fingerprints left behind.

  The ground might’ve been covered by the shadow of his death, but his neighborhood would always reflect the lasting light of his life. It hadn’t been for nothing. None of it was.

  Somewhere in the time that stretched, the clouds released a glimmer of sunlight. On a quiet street bound with pain and sorrow, a warm breeze swam around the corner and washed peace over a broken heart in its path.

  Dee’d been a star to the place he’d been brave enough to offer hope. The evidence of that truth awaited me on the other side of the door to the center.

  I slipped in unnoticed. Dozens of voices rebounded off the walls and competed with the thumping of basketballs out back. A. J.’s eyes flashed from the two youngsters hanging from his arms toward me.

  Kids Trey had always hoped but never expected to see come through our doors crowded the room. Many of the newcomers blended in with the others. A few stayed huddled in guarded skepticism.

  Some of the older guys lined the perimeter of the room. Every few minutes, they glanced at their leader in search of a signal of instruction. Tito sat in a back corner with Trey, eyes on his little brother, looking stoic as he waited for the police to arrive.

  A CB radio beeped from the front door. Everyone froze. Every conversation halted. Only a single basketball bounce made it through the barrier of immediate silence.

  Two police officers entered the hall. The crowd of kids parted on either side of them. Footsteps had never sounded heavier.

  Knowing Trey’s heart of compassion, I wasn’t surprised to see sorrow on his face, but the look on Tito’s gave me pause.

  Even when the police secured handcuffs around his wrists, he didn’t appear intimidated. He didn’t hold the same look of arrogance from earlier. Or even a mask to hide his fear.

  As the officers escorted him from the building, he held a look of something far less expected. Something I’d seen before.

  Courage.

  His departure unleashed a ripple of questions across the stagnant room. Relief swept over some, conflict tore over others. Trey couldn’t stop those who wanted to leave. But for those who stayed, his acceptance and encouragement met them in a time when the fatherless needed a father.

  Without any measure of surprise, he had the place operating in a bustle of activity within the hour. The impact of Tito’s arrest hadn’t been forgotten, but all I could see around me was the impact of Dee’s life.

  I clung to that consolation for the remainder of my shift until Trey led me into the corner by the coat rack. “I don’t think Tito did it,” he said quietly.

  I stared, no sound coming.

  “I think he’s covering for Lucas.”

  Blinks stood in for my voice. “Lucas?”

  Trey set a hand on my arm. “His brother.”

  The scene from earlier played back Tito’s words and almost knocked the wind from me. “Mi familia.”

  My coat slipped from my hands onto the floor. “The boy?” He couldn’t have been more than eleven.

  Trey nodded, face pained. “Probably thought he was defending his family name.” He picked up my coat and draped it around my shoulders. “Tito didn’t say as much, but he asked me to take Lucas in. Give him whatever Dee found here.”

  Hope? The emotions of it all nearly folded me in half.

  I gripped his sleeve. “What are you going to do?”

  Trey looked from Lucas to a cop coming in from outside. He sighed as he signaled him over. “What I have to.”

  He steered me toward the exit. Seeing A. J. standing at the door sent one source of turmoil colliding into another. Despite making it to the end of the day, the anguish in my heart wasn’t fully over.

  chapter thirty

  Fragments

  A. J. waited for me as he usually did. Outside, he took his customary post on my right, hedging me between him and the wall. It could’ve passed for a normal ending to a normal day. Except that everything had changed.

  A. J. strode alongside me but might as well have been a stranger. Each step accentuated the distance re-forming between us.

  Around the corner, the city streetlight cast streaks down fractures I wasn’t ready to
acknowledge. I slipped my hands into my pockets and rocked on my heels, stalling.

  We’d circled back to a splintered friendship again. Only now, the weight of things unsaid exposed roots that had gone much deeper than they ever should have.

  “You good?” he asked.

  His guarded tone drew my gaze up from the sidewalk. “Yeah.”

  The faintest smile reached his eyes. “You should’ve seen the way you looked pinning Tito to the wall. I don’t think you have to worry about anyone messing with you now.” He squeezed my bicep. “Yep, definitely intimidating.”

  We both laughed, but the sound dropped in the air.

  A. J. stowed his hands inside his coat pockets and dragged his Nike back and forth over a patch of grass along a break in the pavement. “You have a lot of self-control, you know. If it were me, Tito would’ve had a busted jaw before I gave him the chance to say the first word.”

  “Trust me,” I said, “it wasn’t easy. But something in his eyes reminded me of Dee when he first got here. . . . They’re just a bunch of kids trying to cope with hardships the only way they know how.”

  I stared down the wall beside us. “It’s hard to stay angry when you know you need grace as much as they do.”

  A moment passed before A. J.’s stirring breached the stillness. I looked up from the pavement just as he edged toward me. His expression burned with something he wanted to say. But when our eyes met, he stopped where he was and turned his head away.

  “It’s getting late,” he said instead. “We should get back to campus.”

  “Yeah, sure. I’ll, um, see you around.” My voice came out weaker than I meant it to, quieter.

  I lingered in place until resignation took hold and urged me toward Riley’s car, leaving the unspoken trapped with regret.

  A huff from behind me drew me back around.

  Head craned, A. J. raked his hands through his hair. “Em, wait.”

  He caught up to me. I stopped at his touch and braced myself for the confrontation I had no right to avoid.