Beacon in the Darkness

10. Drifting

He allowed her to feel his deepest, darkest, most painful emotions. The ones that came through loudly in his music. They were exposed with each other in ways they couldn't be with anyone else, because no one else had lived there in the blackest corners of their reality. The place where no sun shined, no birds sang, and no flowers bloomed. The place where only guilt, pain, and hopelessness thrived. The place to which she'd banished herself the moment Carlos's heart stopped beating. When his spirit left behind only an empty shell as a reminder of what had once been so good, so courageous, so alive. As awful as it was, Shawn lived there too, and she was happy not to be alone anymore.

The thing that had most surprised her about her interactions with Shawn, was how she felt better, lighter, and less sad when she was with him. She almost felt like a normal girl again. Maybe not the same as she'd been before the accident—then again, maybe she'd never be that girl again—but she felt better. She wondered if maybe, just maybe, she had the same effect on him.

"Mila?" Sinu came around the corner, wiping her hands on a blue and white checkered dish towel. She stopped before fully entering the foyer from the kitchen. "There you are. Why are you just standing there in front of the door?"

"Um." Camila shifted the box in her arms, wondering how she'd managed to hold it for so long without dropping it. "I just got here."

Sinu furrowed her brows. "Oh, why were you late?"

She lifted the box slightly. "Mrs. Hastings asked me to stay after class to gather up and return the art books you loaned her."

"Oh, I forgot." Sinu draped the towel over her shoulder and walked forward, reaching out and removing the box from Camila's arms. "This is heavy. How did you manage to carry it all the way home?"

Camila's face flared. "I got a ride." She hesitated, but quickly recovered, hoping Sinu didn't notice. "With the Jaureguis." Okay, with one of them, but what her mother didn't know wouldn't hurt her.

"That was nice," Sinu said, distracted. She heaved the box onto the island in the center of the kitchen.

Camila climbed up onto the wooden barstool and studied her mother curiously. She furrowed her brows. "Mama, what's going on?"

"What?" Sinu pushed a chunk of blond hair out of her eyes as she dug through the box, removing the art books and sorting them into piles according to medium. "Nothing."

"Don't lie."

Sinu sighed, placed her hands palm down on the countertop, and leaned against them before meeting Camila's gaze. "I'm going out tonight. After my class."

Camila reached forward and grabbed a banana from the crystal fruit bowl in the middle of the island, drawing the yellow peel back slowly. "Okay ..." she half-asked, wondering what the big deal was.

"With a man." She eyed Camila carefully.