I thought I heard someone knock on my door, but instead of getting up to see who it was, I opened my phone again to look at the last photos I’d taken of Jude. They were from a couple of days before he broke things off. He’d just woken up and was smiling up at me, his hair muzzled from sleep, a tiny love bite under his right ear. I’d taken like five shots in a row and as I scrolled through them now, the screen showed him shaking his head at me, a big grin on his face. I missed him so fucking much.
I didn’t know I could hurt like this.
“Oh my god. We got here not a second too soon, this is a full Code Red. He’s listening to Selena and crying over photos on his phone. Jesus, and it reeks of Vicks in here.Patrice, open a damn window. Nesto, what the fuck are you doing? Do you have a cold?”
I looked up from where I was clutching my phone and saw my mom, my sister, Patrice, and Camilo standing by the couch, looking at me like I’d lost my mind.
I sat up, wondering why the guys were here and not in the city. “Umm hey, I had a headache, so I rubbed some on my temples. Mamí, how did you get in here? Do you still have the spare key?” I pointed at Milo and Patrice with my phone. “And what are you two doing up here? I didn’t know you were coming to visit.”
This was apparently the last straw for my mom, because she snatched the phone out of my hand and turned off the music.
“Mamí! What the hell? I need the phone!”
“No, Ernesto Amado, you need to get yourself together. It’s been over a week, and you are still moping around.” She waved over to Milo and Patrice. “Your friends arehere because I called them. I’m worried about you. You don’t answer my calls, you’ve barely been at the truck in the last few days, and worse, you’re doing nothing to make things right with Jude. This is not like you Nesto, you don’t give up on what’s important to you.” At the mention of Jude I curled in on myself like she’d punched me in the stomach.
“What am I supposed to do, Mamí? He told me he doesn’t want me. He asked me to leave him alone. He wouldn’t even open the door when I went to his house. I fucked up.” I shook my head as another wave of self-loathing and regret washed through me. “I let him down and I deserve to be iced out. I?—”
Someone whacked me over the head so hard I almost fell off the couch. Startled, I jumped up and saw Milo staring at me looking furious. I rubbed my head, glaring at him.
“¡Coño, Camilo!What did you hit me for?”
“Because you’re a moron, that’s why. Out of all of us, you’ve always been the relentless one, once you start something you don’t give up until you get it. And now you’re going to sit this one out because it’stoo hard?” Milo’s face was angry, and my mom just looked worried. Patrice and my sister were standing to the side, watching with concerned faces.
I ran my hands over my face and sat down on the couch again. “It’s not because it’s hard. It’s because it hurts. Every time I think of how he sounded when he told me what happened with his sister. How sad and empty his voice was. It makes me sick I wasn’t there for him.”
Milo sighed, and my mom came and sat next to me on the couch. “M’ijo, of course you can fix it. You love him, and he loves you. Jude’s a good man, but he’s been hurt badly by people who should’ve loved him unconditionally. He doesn’t know what it’slike to have someone fight for him. You need to show him you always will.”
I nodded, and looked up at them, my people, who came to get my ass in gear before I threw away the best thing that had ever happened to me. As I sat there an idea started forming in my head. I wasn’t sure if there was still a chance Jude would take me back, but it wouldn’t be because I sat on my ass crying while the love of my fucking life thought I’d given up on him.
I stood up and started walking to the bathroom. I had work to do and then I needed to start planning. Before I went into the shower I turned around.
“I’ll be ready in ten. We need to get this thing at Sheridan’s done. When we get back tonight we’re making plans for how I’m going to show Jude he isn’t just a priority, he needs to know he’severything.”
Jude
“I can see you staring at me, Carmen.”
In the last week, Carmen had spent each second we were together scrutinizing my every move. I knew she was trying to make sure I didn’t fling myself off a bridge or something, but the constant worry on her face was starting to piss me off.
Except it wasn’t just Carmen, everything and everyone pissed me off. My patience seemed to have evaporated in the past seven days. I’d been so short with people lately, I noticed some were going out of their way to avoid me.
Like I cared.
I didn’t need people walking by and staring at me like I was a pathetic loser. I looked up to see Carmen still glancing in my direction and huffed, “Seriously, Carmen. I’m fine. Nesto and I were seeing each other for two months, it’s not like he jilted me at the altar. Besides, it’s better this way. He has important things to do and so do I. I need to focus on the launch, which is only days away.”
Carmen stood up from her desk and closed the door, then planted herself on my desk right in front of my monitor.
“The launch is going to be fine, Jude. You’ve managed to come up with a great program, despite our miniscule budget. It’s going to be perfect. You know it and I know it.” She threw her hands up in frustration as I stared blankly at the wall.
“You need to let me do my work.”
“No. We’re talking about this right now. You’re not fine, and this was not just some fling that ended. What happened with your sister was horrible and heartbreaking, and then you broke things off with the person you’re in love with. None of it is even remotely fine, and pretending it is won’t make it go away.”
I scoffed at her words, feeling angry. “Well what do you want me to do? Fall apart? Lose it? Stay in bed for weeks? Let this despair and sadness overtake me, so I can’t leave my house? Because I’ve done that once already. I’ve been there, and I’m not doing it again. What happened with Mary…” I held up my hand while I took a breath. “Even though it hurt, I forgive her, because she’s as much a victim as I am in all of this. Nesto—” Here I really needed to tread lightly, because this thing with Nesto would be what undid me. “Nesto is here to build his business. That’s what he needs to focus on. What we had was a distraction.”
Carmen rolled her eyes to the ceiling as if looking for some guidance on how to get through to me.
“What you had was arelationship. Nesto is just as torn up about this as you are. Nurys says he’s been a wreck all week. Leaving early or missing work altogether. She even said she was going to call his friends to come from the city to talk to him.”
