by Hall, Marie
Table of Contents
Blurb
Copyright
Dedication
A Moment
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Acknowledgements
A Note From the Author
About Marie Hall
Marie Hall's Books
A Moment:
Ryan Cosgrove and Liliana Delgado are on a collision course with destiny. They don’t know it yet, but before the night is over their lives will be forever changed.
Spending Valentine’s Day at a burlesque bar, hadn’t been Liliana’s ideal way of spending a Friday night. She’d much rather be back on campus doing homework… until she meets Ryan. Tall, athletic, and gorgeous, Lili can’t keep her eyes off him, and despite his gruff manners and drunken disposition she’s intrigued.
Ryan’s got demons, and they’re deep, dark, and eating him alive. Regardless of his attraction to the petite brunette he’s tired of fighting, of pretending the last fifteen years haven’t been a daily struggle just to get out of bed every morning. That night he decides to end his pain, to leave it all behind and float away into the blessed darkness of oblivion. But fate has other plans for him, Lily finds and rescues Ryan, determined she’ll not only save his body, but his soul too.
This is their moment…
A Moment
Copyright 2013 Marie Hall
Cover Art by Regina Wamba at www.maeidesign.com Copyright March 2013
Formatted by Jennifer Blackstream
Edited by 4 Real Edits
www.MarieHallWrites.blogspot.com
The author acknowledges the copyrighted or trademarked status and trademark owners of the following word marks mentioned in this work of fiction: Silver Springs by Fleetwood Mac, Jell-O, Schlitterbahn, University of Texas merchandise.
This is a work fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental. Many of the locations within Austin are purely from the author’s imagination.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Marie Hall, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in the context of reviews.
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. Thank you for respecting the hard work of all people involved with the creation of this ebook.
Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Marie Hall. Unauthorized or restricted use in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.
The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patent Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.
Published in 2013 by Marie Hall, Honolulu, Hawaii, United States of America
Dedication
To all those too afraid to speak out…
Moment: The dictionary defines a moment as a minute portion or point of time. But for me, it’s more. I see a moment the way a scientist does… the product of quantity (as a force) and the distance to a particular axis or point. A moment is that indefinable period in your life that only makes sense when you look back and you realize I made the right choice. I didn’t know it then, but I made the right choice and I’d do it all over again.
This is my moment…
Liliana Delgado
Chapter 1
Liliana
The smells are the first things that hit me. Huddling into myself, knees tucked under my chin as the hospital doors whisk open and shut, a sick sort of feeling sinks its claws into my stomach. I’m ill. Have been for days.
Throwing up, always nauseous, and my boobs hurt.
Biting my lower lip I glance at my father sitting beside me. Angry doesn’t even begin to describe how he’s feeling. The school called, said their daughter was puking her guts out. He’d seen me puking my guts out the last ten days. Every time he’d give me a look that said, “girl, that better not be what I think it is.”
I close my eyes as the ache in the back of my skull intensifies.
The smells in here are awful-- blood, sweat, and vomit. Beside me a little kid is hacking her lungs out. I’m not a germaphobe, but each time I get blasted with the spray I tuck further into myself and count to five before taking another breath.
Surrounded by people, but I’ve never felt so alone.
I wish mom was here with me. She would hug me, tell me it will be okay. But she hasn’t been feeling good the last year.
Doctors say she’s in the beginning stages of multiple sclerosis, which means dad had to come.
The doors slide open with a loud whoosh. Huffing the bangs out of my eyes I look up and my heart stills.
In fact, everything seems to freeze. It’s a strange sensation, sounds grow dim, and the world recedes to a pinprick of light, a halo that surrounds him. I have no idea who he is, a perfect stranger in a room full of them, but something about him stands out and makes me notice.
He has dark wavy hair and intense blue eyes. He stands squinting in the doorway and it’s obvious why he’s here. The entire left side of his face is a swollen mass of discolored skin. Grabbing onto the corner of his jaw, I notice his knuckles are also split open. Hard eyes scan the waiting room, and for a second, I glimpse in his face the same emotion I’m feeling right now.
Anywhere but here…
Then our eyes meet. He’s older than me, I can tell. There are whiskers on his cheeks, and he doesn’t look like a boy.
Especially not like the boy who did this to me.
The look lasts only a second, but feels more like an eternity-- a stolen moment in time that exists outside of where we’re at right now. But like so much in my life, it’s fleeting.
He sits far in the back of the room.
I want to turn and look. To see if I’d been right and he’d understood-- if somehow a stranger understood exactly what I was going through.
But I can’t, because then a nurse comes out and calls my name.
“Liliana Delgado?” Her voice is calm, cool, and it sends chills straight through me. Wrapping the ends of my thick sleeves around my closed fists I sit like a deer in the headlights, spooked out of my mind with a mouth tasting like cotton.
“Get up,” my father growls low, for my ears only.
Coming here, it’s just a formality. We all know, but it’s one of those things that you can ignore until you no longer can.
Swallowing hard, I look back at the guy one last time.
He has his face turned and is staring at the wall. No one is going to save me from this.
Grabbing my stomach, I force my feet to move. The nurse’s smile is small, but reassuring. My father’s look is full of hate.
An hour later he won’t even look at me.
The test is positive.
At fourteen, my life is over.
***
Ryan
Fuck! This is just what I need.
The bastard had cracked my jaw in two places, granted they’re hairlines, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t throb like a sonofabitch.
It’d been worth it though.
I smirk, even though doing it makes the pain feel like someone’s shoved a hot poker through my face. I don’t care. It’s done. Over. Never again.
The doctors gave me pills, sent me home.
Home.
I don’t have one of those anymore.
But I don’t care. I’m more free now than I’ve ever been. My parents, they’ve never believed me. Just think I’m a big fucking screw up. I barely graduated high school. There goes Ryan, such a disgrace to his parents. Such good god-fearing people, what a shame to be saddled with something like that.
I’d heard it all before.
It’d stopped bothering me a long time ago.
But today I’d had to do it-- had to confront my uncle, because I’m eighteen and I’m a man and I had to show him that.
Never again. Not to anybody else. I’d pounded that truth into his fat face with my bloody fists.
Flexing my fingers I stare at the swollen and distorted mass of tissue, the sun is beating down on my head. All I have left in this world is the clothes on my back. I’m not going back home, couldn’t even if I wanted to.
My dad kicked me out after the fight, says he can’t handle me anymore. Honestly, I think he would have found a way anyway, but this fight was the perfect excuse-- a way for him to maintain his spotless reputation within the community.
All I’ve ever wanted is for him to fucking believe me. But his chance is over. I’m done and no matter what anybody else says, I’m not stupid, but with my grades there won’t be any college in my future.
Glancing down the busy street it takes me all of two seconds to decide where I’m going.
Away.
Far, far away from Austin, Texas. In fact, I want out of the country.
I can’t breathe here anymore.
I’m joining the Marines and I’m going to war.
Chapter 2: Seven Years Later
Liliana
He’s screaming again.
Groaning, I open my eyes, stare at my ceiling and wonder what will happen if I just ignore him.
But I can’t, he’s my baby.
The clock reads 2:32. Thirty minutes longer tonight.
The screaming-- it’s new. Something he’d started ten weeks ago. But it’s always something with Javier. He’s my special boy.
Getting out of bed, I wrap the green terry cloth robe around me and walk to his room. “Mama,” I call, her bedroom is across from mine.
“Mija? What’s wrong with Javi?”
She can’t walk anymore. Mom’s completely wheel chair bound, which is why when Javi screams, it makes her antsy. She’s grandma and feels the need to comfort, but can barely manage to even lift her arms.
“It’s okay, Mama, it’s the dreams. Go back to sleep.”
“You sure?” Her voice is reed thin through the door.
I nod, but remember she can’t see me, so I say, “Si.”
Saying a quick prayer for strength, I open the door.
Javi’s lying in the middle of his bed with his sheets kicked off, his transformers pajama pants are scrunched up around his knees. A loud, keening wail rings so loud through the room it makes my ears buzz. I jog to him and gently pick him up, bringing him to my lap.
It’s the only time he ever lets me hold him.
When he’s sleepy.
I cherish each moment, since they’re so precious and few.
“Javi, mijo.” I rub his forehead, twisting his dark curls gently around my fingers. He stills instantly. “Papi, what’s wrong?”
He doesn’t talk. Just grunts. Mumbles and moans mostly.
“Ssshh, mommy’s here. I’m right here.”
It’s impossible to describe the feeling of holding him. Of both the elation and terrible pain I feel each time I do.
Javier had been diagnosed high functioning autistic four years ago.
Hard enough having a baby at fourteen, but that hadn’t been the worst. The worst is falling so in love with him only to discover he’ll never feel the same for me in return. The doctors said maybe someday he’d start talking, a nurse had even mentioned that sometimes (when they grew up) they’ll hug you back.
I’d hung every ounce of hope on those words, believing someday he would. That high functioning meant he was better than others. That it might take him time, but it would happen. Soon he’d be like any other seven year old.
But the hope had turned into a cancer as the weeks, months, and then years rolled by.
I learned to stop hoping, because it kills as surely as any disease.
Eventually his trembling’s cease and his breathing returns to a smooth even rhythm.
Kissing his warm brow, I ease his head back onto the pillows and run my finger along his cheek. “Goodnight, baby.”
Back in the hall, my mother stops me. “Come here, Lily.”
Sighing heavily, feet feeling heavy as steel, I open her door. “Si?”
Bathed in shadow, mom’s face turns toward mine. A tiny woman engulfed by pillows, blankets, and a giant mattress.
Dad had left us four years ago.
It’s just me, mom, Javi, and mom’s nurse- Adelida.
“Come here, sit beside me a second.”
Glancing at the clock on her bed stand I swallow my initial desire to decline. It’s well past three now. I have a math exam first thing in the morning, but I owe my mom a lot, and know in the end I’ll do whatever she asks.
So I sit, but can’t hide the loud yawn that overtakes me, trying as best I can to hide it behind the back of my hand.
Her smile is sad. “You’re working too hard, mija.”
I shrug. “Don’t have a choice, mama. Someone’s got to pay the bills.”
She looks up at the ceiling. I know what she’s thinking. The same thing she always thinks but never speaks about. How much dad sucks. How much she still loves him, needs him, wants him back even while cursing the day she’d ever met him. Because I feel the exact same way.
The night he’d left us, we talked about it. Crying and hugging. My world had literally shattered. Papa had bailed and I couldn’t.
Selfish thought, yes. And I regretted it the moment I’d thought it. Of course I never told her that, too ashamed to admit that for a moment I wanted to leave with him. Beg him to take me far away from all of it. From Mama, Javi, my life…
But I know the truth, the real reason he left, he did it because of me. Because of what I’d done, how I’d screwed up his plans for my life. He’d always said I’d make something of myself, bring pride and honor to the Delgado clan, until the day the doctor said Javi was coming, then dad stopped saying those things to me.
“You do have a choice. Lily, you’re gorgeous, and you’re only twenty-one, my God,” she brushes her cold fingers over my hand, “Life is more than school, work, and--”
“Mama, we’ve been over this.” I straighten my spine. “I’m a mom. I no longer have the luxury of pretending I’m not.”
Her face falls. “And I’m his Nana. I can take care of him.”
I shake my head. “I would never, in your condition… I…”
No clue how to continue I clamp my lips shut. There’s honesty and then theirs cruelty for cruelty’s sake. Mom knows she can’t watch him, can never be the type of grandma she’d always dreamed of one day becoming.
But instead of crying as I’d half expected, she smiles brightly. “I’ve asked Ade if she wants more hours and she’s agreed.”
“Mama, we can�
��t pay for that. I barely bring in enough to pay our bills each month.” Tears clog my throat.
Yes, it’s pitiful and wimpy of me, but I’m feeling pitiful and wimpy right now. I feel like a candle burning at both ends, too much more and I’m going to melt.
“I applied to my insurance, and it’s been approved. I need more help than eighteen hours a week. I need a live in. We have three rooms, Ade agreed she’d be willing to share my room.”