Chapter Five
Samuel dropped her off at her building later that night. She wouldn’t have minded staying, because honestly, she felt safer around him, but she hadn't made any preparations. Both she and Brianna were small, around the same size, but Brianna was smaller than she was in certain areas. Camila had a small frame, but her body was still curvy, and none of Brianna’s clothes would be able to fit over her chest or hips.
The thought of wearing Samuel’s clothes instead was both sexy and ridiculous because of their size difference.
Camila waved at him, and he watched until she’d gone inside the building and disappeared from sight to start up the car and move. He had attempted to insist on bringing her all the way to her doorstep, but she didn’t think it was necessary, and it wasn’t how she wanted him to meet her mom, either, when they were both feeling high strung.
Was it too soon to try and be happy?she thought to herself.
The time she’d spent with Samuel now seemed like some interval period, and this was her real life from now on, worrying about what stunt Adrien was going to pull from prison. It worried her almost as much as what he would do after he got himself out of prison. Camila wasn’t feeling too good about her chances of getting out of an altercation with him a second time, and she was banking on it being years away. Maybe he’ll forget about me by then, she could only hope.
When she opened the door to the apartment, it was to find her mom sitting on the couch with the TV on some soap opera. Camila didn’t know if she’d really been watching or not, because the moment she opened the door, her mom turned to look at her.
“You’re back,” she said, and she couldn’t completely hide the relief in her voice.
Camila smiled tightly at her. She couldn’t exactly say a thing about how her mom was feeling, considering everything that happened. After the whole incident with Adrien outside their apartment, and while she was gone, a bunch of neighbors had come over to either complain about all the commotion so late at night or to see how she was doing. None of them had attempted to step in and help and most had returned to their apartments during the altercation. She knew the walls were pretty thin, and especially for the downstairs neighbors, it would have been impossible for them to not have heard anything.
She’d already told her mom about everything she could recollect about that night when she’d returned home after filing the report. Still her mother worried incessantly about her, and it didn’t help that their neighbors continuously brought it up to her. She knew all of the drama made her mother extra wary about Samuel, considering Adrien was his brother.
“Hello, Mom,” Camila said, taking off her shoes at the door, and replacing them with a pair of soft slippers, then walked further into the room.
“How was your date?” her mom asked nonchalantly.
“It was fine,” she said, sitting down on the couch. “I finally told him that you wanted to meet him and his sister. Are you glad?”
Her mom pursed her lips, and Camila didn’t think she looked glad even a little, when she was the one that had asked for this in the first place.
“What did you have in mind?”
“I was thinking, since it would be the four of us, we could just go to their place. It would feel more comfortable for Brianna as well. You don’t mind, do you?”
There was a short silence.
“I wouldn’t say that I exactly mind…”
Camila sighed. “Mom, I understand your feelings, believe me, but there is absolutely no reason to be wary of Samuel. Besides, when Adrien came here to cause trouble, how do you think he got taken in by the police? Samuel showed up to save me, going up against his own brother, even when Adrien had a gun, just to protect me. Samuel is a good man.”
That seemed to make her waver. Camila kept her mouth shut and waited for her mom to make up her mind. If she interfered too much, her mom might just say no to be stubborn. Sure enough, after a long moment, she sighed.
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll go over to your boyfriend’s place for dinner. When is this going to be?”
“We didn’t get that far, since I still needed you to agree, but sometime this week? Also, Brianna’s pretty shy, so I can't be sure she’ll actually be joining us for dinner, but I’ll try talking to her.”
“She’s mute, right?”
“Uh, not really. She can talk, she just doesn’t because of some trauma from when she was little. According to Samuel, she was just fine one day, and the next, she didn’t want to talk to anyone, and ran away from everyone, even him after it happened.” Camila sighed. “He didn’t realize in the beginning, but he’s figured out that Adrien must have had something to do with it. He has no proof, and his parents never shared what happened to her. However, every time he clarified to Brianna that he was Samuel and not Adrien, she would be calmer around him. It was a lot harder to distinguish between them when they were younger, probably because their individual traits hadn't properly matured yet, but now, Brianna can tell the difference just by looking at them.”
“What a complicated family,” her mom muttered.
Camila sighed. “I think it’s more like ‘how unfortunate for family’ having Adrien around. Who knows how he ended up the way he did, but there is no excuse for any of it. And he doesn’t even bother to give any.”
Maybe, if something had been caught earlier, he might have gotten psychological help a lot sooner, but she’d already noticed how smart he was at manipulating people. Was he just as smart when he was a child? She didn’t doubt it, because people didn’t just change so suddenly, which meant he must have been the way he was for a really long time.
“That boy is bad news,” her mom muttered. “A lot worse than your father.”
At the mention of her father, Camila stilled, and the atmosphere between them suddenly got tense. They rarely ever talked about her father, if at all. Camila could just barely remember what the man looked like, not so much because of time but because she had tried hard to suppress his image in her mind.
Her father hadn't been a good person. Maybe, there was a time when he was, because her strong, independent mother wouldn’t have gotten together with him in the first place, but as far as she could remember, her parents had argued regularly.