Page 41 of Her Hidden Smile

“I’ll get out, sweetheart, but on one condition.”

“What?”

The first tear was ready to fall. I watched as it clung to her eyelash, just waiting for me to leave.

“Sit down. Just sit down for me, Millie. Then I’ll leave. Okay?”

She wavered. “Then you promise to leave?”

“I absolutely do. I promise.”

“Okay.”

I helped her to sit down.

“Do you need anything before I leave? A glass of water? A pain pill?”

She was staring down at her hands, where they were twisting together on her lap. “I just need you to leave.”

“Okay, Cariña, I’m leaving now.”

Even when I had the door open, and then shutting it behind me, she didn’t look up. Instead, I just saw her shoulders slumped in defeat.

It killed knowing I was the one who’d done that to her.

I’d tried as hard as I could to put Renzo out of my mind after shoving him out the door, but it was six days later, and I was still thinking about him, mooning over him, obsessing over him. It wasn’t good. It needed to stop.

I got out of the shower and dried off. I used all of my best products today. I wanted to feel good when Little Grandma and all of her ‘kin’ came over. After I was done brushing my teeth and putting on my face cream, I grabbed the burn scar ointment that didn’t do crap, but I promised Dr. Rose that I would use. Last year, she told me I should sit down and close my eyes and slowly rub it in with love. Whatever the hell that meant.

You know what she meant.

I shook my head, trying to rid myself of that pesky, reasonable voice in my head.

Heading to my bedroom, I lifted my duvet and lay down on my pretty lavender sheets. Then I closed my eyes and started to softly rub the cream into my scars. I pictured the girl that I’d watched on the internet the day after Renzo left. She was fourteen, the same age I’d been when I was caught in the fire. When my parents died.

The difference was, she’d been burned as a baby. Just like Renzo said, she was smiling in the video. She was wearing a swimsuit, even though one of her legs was spindly from the burns. It didn’t seem to matter to her.

I pretended I was rubbing the cream on her. Somehow that morphed into me rubbing the cream on my younger self. Almost like I was my mom, soothing my hurt and lavishing love, hope, and beauty on my teenage leg and hip.

You’re beautiful to me.

It was Renzo’s voice in my head. His voice and words had been in my head a lot.

Millie, you take my breath away.

But how could he say that? He hadn’t seen me. He hadn’t seen the real me. He hadn’t seen my scars.

Sweetheart, he does see you. He sees the real you.

Now it was my mom’s voice in my head.

I stopped rubbing the cream into my hip.

“This is stupid.”

I pushed up off the bed and glared at the tube of medicine. I needed to be pragmatic. This talking to myself was getting me nowhere, and neither was thinking about Renzo all the time. Of course, him calling me twice a day was not helping to get him off my mind. Not that I answered.

But I listened to every single one of his voicemails.