I nod. “That would be wonderful. We’d be delighted to host you again, or I can arrange for spectacular accommodations elsewhere if you’d prefer. It’s a small country, but there’s a lot to see and do.”
Auggie nods and claps my shoulder before stepping away, and I catch sight of Elle speaking discreetly to Isla while Colin stands just beside them, holding their baby girl. I fight the urge to narrow my eyes skeptically at Elle, as I don’t really know her, and I’m not sure if I like her. Colin is, for all intents and purposes, a surrogate son of Ernesto and Fortuna, and I know him well enough from when he would stay with them back when we were all teens. He’s always been low key and chill and never meddled in their family drama, and I like him. His fiancée, on the other hand, is clearlynotany of those things, and I don’t know about her. She’s well-educated, and opinionated, and works with really fucked up people for a living, and she’s obviously been planting ideas in the heads of a number of Isla’s family members.
Case in point, Joaquin, who is now slowly marching toward me with his jaw set, hands in the pockets of his slacks and his shoulders thrown back.
“Don’t forget what I fuckin’ said, Mal,” he says on a low, threatening breath as he stops just in front of me. “I’d have no problem killing you, and Papá is connected enough to keep me out of trouble for it.”
True, he kept your sister out of trouble for it,I want to say, but don’t. None of the other Reyes kids have any idea what kind of seedy shit Isla got involved with right around the time she fucked me over, and I’m not going to be the one to tell them.
I smile placidly. “Oh, I won’t.” I pat the side of his arm. “Safe travels.”
He glares at me. “You turned into a real piece of shit, you know that?”
Yes, and guess who’s responsible for that,I also want to say, but also don’t.
I incline my head to one side. “Así es la vida.”
He grunts as he steps away. “Fuckoff.”
He pauses next to Isla, kissing her cheek before they exchange a couple of quiet words, and then he approaches one of the cars to climb in. Isla pleasantly and compliantly returns to my side, and I pleasantly comply with the facade of this marriage and wrap my arm around her shoulders, holding her close to my side.
Elle and Colin are the last to get in the car, and he passes off the baby to her and then ducks inside to wrestle with the car seat. After he finishes futzing with it, they linger outside for another moment, exchanging a couple of chuckles and enamored glances before he strokes her cheek, then the baby’s, and then kisses them both.
I won’t admit how sweet the quick, commonplace affection between the three of them is. I also won’t allow myself to let on to the fact that the mere sight of it is such a contrast to my situation that it feels like the knife Isla drove through my back is twisting and carving that much deeper.
There’s a quiet sniff from Isla, and then the even quieter words, “Querida bebé.”
I know better than to glance at her, but it seems to be a reflex. She glances at me at the same time, and then we’re locked in a melancholic stare that’s like looking through a shattered window at every perfect thing frombefore.
Before I can think the better of it, I draw her close and settle my lips softly on hers. And I shouldn’t do this because I don’t want her to get the wrong idea. I can’t let her believe thatany of itis okay, because it’snot—but suddenly, it’s not aboutherat all.
It’s about me standing in the rubble of broken hopes and dreams that her choices caused to crash all around me.
It’s about me scampering off to the ends of the earth like a dog with its tail between its legs after she beat the ever-loving shit out of me.
It’s about me having to lick my wounds in total solitude, and being expected to simply stand back up, and dust myself off, and carry on with my responsibilities, while her daddy bailed her out for doing so many unthinkable things that he couldn’t even get the whole story.
It’s about her destroying everything I loved the most, and the fact that I put all of that aside to uphold a vow I had made to her since we were children.
It’s about the fact that I hate myself almost as much as I hate her for allowing this poorly-thought-out pregnancy to chip away at my armor and become glaring evidence of the fact that hate is often far from the absence of love. That hate is often a symptom of love so deep and permanent that it can’t and won’t ever die.
That I hate herbecauseI still love her and never stopped.
That I hate her because of what she turned me into.
That I hate her because she’s still right here, and she’s not going anywhere—and I don’t mean in my arms, or at my side, or in my home.
In my heart, where she’s always been, and where she always will be.
World without end. Beyond my last breath.
A promise. A vow. A curse.
I end the kiss, remove my lips from hers, rub her arm, and let her believe that it’s all part of the same ruse we’ve been putting on since the day we wed.
But the true ruse is that it’s not, and it probably never was.
ELEVEN
