Ashes Learned Human Names novel · Chapter 12 of 24
Chapter 12: What My Mother Called Me
Lucia did not sleep again.
She lay with her eyes open until the window went gray, and Rafael's arm stayed heavy around her waist.
When he woke, he woke all at once.
He looked at her face, bare on the pillow, and then at the lamp.
"You didn't put the mask back," he said.
"I'm tired of it."
"You don't have to..."
"I know I don't."
She sat up carefully, pulled the blanket around her shoulders and reached for the paper cup of water on the tray.
He watched her drink.
His hair was a mess, his shirt was on the floor, and he looked younger than he had in weeks.
"Can I ask you something?" Lucia said.
"Anything."
"When I was ten, my mother used to call me by a different name. Everyone's got one, right? A name no one else uses."
"Yes," he said, smiling.
"What was mine?"
"Luz," he said.
He said it softly, without thinking, and his smile was still on his face.
Then it left.
The room went very quiet.
"My mother called me Luz," Lucia said. "She died when I was ten. I have never told that name to anyone. Not Paulina. Not Elvira. Not my aunt, who calls me mija."
"I..."
"You said it in your sleep," she said. "At two in the morning. You cried and said it over and over."
His hand came up and covered his mouth.
"I didn't mean to," he said through his fingers.
"You came back too late," Lucia said. "You said you shouldn't have gone."
"Lucia."
"I remember it, Rafael."
She said it to the wall, and then she made herself look at him.
"I remember all of it. The bracelet. The bead. You walked out of this building the week after you took it, and I never heard from you again. I was discharged to a room that smelled like smoke. I lost my scholarship. I died at twenty-five in a rented room with an infection I couldn't pay for."
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