Page 53 of Buy Back My Love

JB

Five years behind them damn walls, and now Lee was standing in the airport holding her first passport like somebody had handed her the world. I’d made her apply for it almost as soon as she got home and paid to rush it, but I wouldn’t tell her why, so she knew we were going somewhere. She just didn’t know where. I stood there with her suitcase beside me feeling guilty as hell, because she thought this trip was nothing but me loving on her.

“Baby, look at this,” she said, flipping through the pages for probably the third time in ten minutes. “I ain’t never even had one of these. Where are we going, JB? You still won’t tell me nothing.”

“It’s a surprise, Leona. Stop asking.”

“You crazy.” She pulled out her phone and held the passport up beside her face. “I gotta show Anika. Girl is gonna lose her mind.”

I shook my head as she took about five pictures before deciding she liked one enough to send.

I booked the trip because I wanted to get her teeth fixed so she could stop hiding her mouth every time she laughed, take her somewhere she’d never been, and let her see something besides Mobile for a few days. But there was something in it for me too, because I had already decided I was telling her about Hannah while we were gone.

That shit had been eating at me since I booked the flights, and I promised myself I wasn’t bringing her back home without telling her everything.

By the time we landed in Medellín and made it outside the airport, Lee damn near stopped walking. Mountains surrounded the city, and she was looking around so hard I had to grab her arm and pull her out the way of some people trying to get past us.

“Baby, listen to everybody talking.” She grabbed my arm and squeezed. “Look at these mountains, JB! They right there. Like they hugging the whole city.”

I laughed and pulled her closer. “I knew you would like it.”

“Like it? I love it! This is unreal.”

Seeing her that happy fucked with me. I took damn near a hundred pictures of her that first night, pulling my phone out every time she stopped to look at something and even recording her trying to pronounce the Spanish words on the signs.

Maybe I was doing it because I knew once I told her about Hannah, I might never see Lee this happy with me again.

The hotel room in El Poblado was nice as hell, with big windows looking out over the city, a balcony that wrapped around the room, and an infinity pool outside with the mountains sitting behind it. Lee barely got through the door before she dropped her bags and ran straight across the room.

“JB!”

“What?”

“Come look at this shit!”

She snatched the balcony door open and stepped outside. Before I could even put my duffel down, she already had Anika on FaceTime.

“Girl, guess where I’m at!” she yelled into the phone.

I walked out behind her as she flipped the camera toward the view.

“No, seriously, guess. Look at this! Look at this pool, Anika! I feel like I’m in a movie.”

I leaned against the doorway watching her pace up and down the balcony, excited about every damn thing she saw.

How the fuck you break somebody’s heart while they this happy?

The next morning, all that excitement disappeared soon as we got to the dental clinic. Lee sat in the chair with her hands balled up in her lap, looking at every damn instrument they had laid out like one of them was about to jump off the tray and attack her.

“You alright?” I asked.

She nodded.

“You lying.”

“I’m nervous.”

I reached over and grabbed her hand. “I’m right here.”