Skin of a Sinner: A Dark Childhood Best Friends Romance(23)

“My birthday was, like, months ago.” The absolute attitude dripping from her voice right now is uncalled for. She’s still a part-time brat, I see.

I cock a brow. “Your point?”

“You didn’t know if I was coming—"

“I did.”

“I can’t accept all of this.”

“Who said you had the option not to?” The urge to groan and shake my head in disbelief is real. She does this every time: pretending that her moral compass is in the way of taking something I’ve gotten specifically for her, even though I can practically smell how much she wants to get her hands on it.

“I do.”

“Signore aiutami con questa.” Lord, help me with this one. “We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the way that will have you all squirmy. Take the goddamn keychain.”

She glares at me as she takes the keychain and clips it on her bag, grumbling, “I haven’t liked Mickey Mouse in a long time.”

“I’m sure you don’t, but I don’t make the rules.”

Tradition is tradition. Every year that has passed and that will come, she’ll be getting a Mickey Mouse item. No ifs, ands, or buts.

“Last one,” I say. And thankfully, it has nothing to do with the big-eared rodent.

A little wrinkle forms between her brows as they dip, taking the orange stuffed animal from me. “Foxes aren’t my favorite animal anymore.”

Of course, they aren’t. It changes every year. Last year it was a fox. The year before, magpies. The year before that, wolves. “What is it this time?”

“Bears.”

“That’s gonna have to change. I’m here, and you aren’t going to be a solitary creature.”





Chapter 8





ISABELLA





3 Years Ago

Roman: 19 years old – Isabella: 17 years old.

Today is always the hardest.

It’s the time of year when I remember the life that I had, or more accurately, the life I could have had. Not because I think I deserve it, or that it’s the path I should be on, but because it doesn’t matter how hard I try, the hole in my heart will never be filled.

That’s not to say my heart isn’t stuffed to the brim. It’ll simply never be whole. There will forever be cracks, and shards have gone missing.

One of the cracks—the one glued back together—came when I was born, and my father decided he wouldn’t be there.

He also decided he wouldn’t be there on my first birthday, second, or even the third. He wasn’t there on my first day of school either, or when Mamá got sick and couldn’t look after me anymore. I didn’t even see him when the state took me in or when they turned Mamá’s body into ash.

Mamá said his name is Carlos. “I told him, Isabella. He’ll come find you, and you’ll be a family.”

It was one of the last things she said before she died.

Still, I’ve never met him.

The biggest crack, the one where no amount of glue or tape will put it back together, happened when I was six. It was ripped off and shattered into a million different pieces. But the hurt wasn’t quick, not really. It was slow, spanning months as, piece by piece, another part of me was taken. Until eventually, there was nothing left to take, and Mamá was gone.

The motel she was cleaning at and my childhood home disappeared from under me.

In a single night, the only family I had left, the woman who read to me every night, and did my hair in fancy braids and perfect pigtails every morning, was gone. I lost it all.

I would give the world just to be able to sit on the floor with nothing but a blunt pencil and spare paper and watch through the window as Ma rushed around to clean the rooms.

I don’t remember much, but I know when she immigrated here, she fell in love with Disney and wanted to give me the childhood she had missed out on.

I still remember the first time we went to McDonald’s because she got a pay raise. I can still hear her sing beautiful songs as she pushed me on the swing or danced with me in the living room. Our stereo was broken, but it didn't stop Mamá from entertaining her little girl. Nothing would stop her from being the best mother she could be. She spent years saving up so we could go to Disneyland, and we finally did the year she died. That’s when she got me the doll that never left my side and that Mickey keeps saying needs to be washed.

But the hurt didn’t stop there.

Another piece broke off when I got moved into Greg’s house. With each look Marcus gives me and each word that falls from his lips, another bit of my heart splinters off.

But it’s the filling that’s keeping the rest of my broken little heart together.

It’s when Jeremy comes running into my room because he claims to have invented another pun. Or when Mickey “buys” me art and craft supplies, like candle-making kits or polymer clay. Even when he gets in trouble for hitting the other kids at school for being mean to me or, by extension, if I get upset because someone was being mean to Jeremy.

I haven’t told him about Greg and Marcus and everything they do when Mickey drops me off at home. Even if Greg laughs when Marcus calls me a useless whore or pushes things off the table just to get me to clean it, I say nothing. Mickey and I have a plan that doesn’t involve getting me kicked out of the house.