I Don't Need Anything Else

73: I Don't Really Deserve It

Arturo

She's a baby.

Elena is so small, so soft in my arms. Carmen lays back on the hospital bed, sweat still matting her hair.

"How is she?" she asks.

Nothing in the entire world can make me take my eyes off my daughter. My baby. Innocently sucking on her thumb, her eyes as wide as planets, soaking up everything they see.

"I love her," I say, tears welling in my eyes. "I love our daughter, Carmen."

Elena hiccups and I just love her even more.

"I promise," I tell Elena as she slobbers over her thumb. "I will never let anything harm you." I hug her close to my body, swearing that if anything happened to her, I'd die. If anything happened to my daughter, I'd die first. It didn't matter if she cut her finger or if she tripped, it would always hurt me, it would always nag on my heart.

"Let me see," Carmen, the love of my life, says.

Carefully, I bring her over and place her in Carmen's arms. 

Tears keep falling from my face because I have my family, so beautiful, warm and radiant.

Elena learned to crawl, to walk, to talk. She ran around the house with two ponytails sticking out of her head. Then, I dropped her off at her first day of school. She cried and clung onto me just like she is now.

"Apa," she wails, practically choking on her own sobs.

It's hard to focus my eyes but Elena is not a baby anymore. Someone's blood is splattered across her face and her tears fall murky from mixing with it. She's screaming and wailing for help, for anyone.

How did it take all of this for me to see my daughter like this again? Like my baby, soft and gentle in arms. Like the girl I swore to protect against all odds.

It wasn't enough, making sure that she wouldn't actually get shot, making sure that she was always just grazed. I should've never made the decision to send someone to kill her. She was my weakness and I wanted to prove she wasn't. But I couldn't even do that huh?

"Mija," I whisper. "Perdon."

She screams frantically. "No, no, no, no! I don't know what to do! I don't know! You can't die! You can't! I can't- I don't know!" She sobs into my chest. "Apa!" she wails.

I fell in love with money, power, and greed. I met Karina when Carmen and I had just lost our home and I couldn't even afford shoes for Elena. I didn't want Carmen and I going out the same way, leaving Elena alone in this kill or be killed world. So I listened when Karina told me which drugs to sell and where. My eyes lit up when I found out she was the daughter of the leader of Los Santos. And it kept getting easier every time, to crush those below me. It became so easy to shove any remorse away. Until I didn't feel anything again.

I lost it all. Sight of it all.

I want Carmen right now. I want Carmen.

I want to go back to the happiest moment of my life; when Elena was born.

But with everything I've done, I really don't deserve it.