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“Or maybe I’ve been too blinded to see and accept my reality.” The first tear rolls down my cheek, and they squeeze my hands in solidarity. For a few minutes we stay in silence, enjoying the clear evening sky, but it doesn’t last long as I fight to swallow a sob. Hurt is churning and turning and is quickly becoming ire. At me. At him. At fate for putting him in my path. “I can’t do this anymore,” I say after a while and close my eyes, fighting to control my emotions. My voice is low. Breaking. “Can’t keep putting myself in a vulnerable position when who I wish would catch me, always lets me fall. I’m worth more than that. Deserve more than late-night visits and empty words.”
“You do,” they say in unison, but then they give me the silence I need.
For the most part, I’m not the most emotional person. I’m more of a suffer-in-silence type of person, and yet, he’s my exception. Ivan is a weakness I need to shake off, but in the past have failed to do so time and time again.
So while the clock sounds in the distance letting us know we’re at the top of the next hour, I make up my mind.
I’m done.
Fuck him.
The sigh that leaves me is heavy. “Please don’t hate me, Luna.”
“I’d never, Lynnie. Just tell me what you need me to do.” Turning my face toward hers, I open my eyes and meet her stare. Luna’s giving me a smirk that says she’ll get her fiancé to punch Ivan if I ask, and all I can offer back is trembling lips and more than likely ruined makeup. “You want me to have his—”
“I say we slash his tires.” Nat cuts her off, and I shift my attention. She releases my hand before clapping once, then stands and paces—muttering under her breath while shaking her arms out like fighters do. “What if I add eyedrops to his coffee? Get his mom to serve him liver and onions for a month straight...she’d do it, too. That woman is brutal, and I love her.”
I’m nodding, wiping my tears. They don’t stop but have slowed. “Maritza is my shero.”
“So payback it is? We choose violence?” Nat asks, and Luna laughs a bit. Crazy women.
No whining. No complaints. No hesitation.
It’s why I love these two and would do anything for them. Their friendship is honest and giving. Never selfish.
“I don’t want to walk down the aisle with him.” Even as the words leave me, I can’t help but cringe at them. My emotions are all over the place, and between the guilt and selfishness I feel for asking this of Luna, there’s also so much relief. Distance is the only way I’ll survive the next twenty-four hours. It’s how I start getting over him. “I’ll do it if there’s no choice—”
“Done.”
“That easy?”
“Yes.” Luna didn’t pause. Not one second of hesitation or analyzing. She gives a short, low whistle and Nat quits her pacing, pausing to meet her cousin’s stare, head tilted to the side. “Ivan’s your new partner, prima. You okay with that?”
“More than. I’ll make sure to jam my heels into his toes the first chance I get.”
Even with a little bit of smudged liner on my fingertips, I can’t help but giggle. “I love you two so much. Needed this.”
“You better.” An older man I recognize as one of the family’s most trusted guards pokes his head out, gets a headcount, but at the glares sent his way, leaves just as fast. Less than fifteen seconds. “That has my Thiago written all over it.” The bride rolls her eyes, and we don’t argue the truth. The man’s the textbook definition of obsessed. I’m jealous of it in the best way: happy for her, but wishing I’d find someone as committed. “Now, Alvin will be your new partner. You know him.”
My face scrunches up. “I actually don’t. Who’s that?”
“Do you trust me?”
“I do.”
“Then don’t worry, and let’s get a few drinks in our system. The night is hella fucking young.” Standing, Luna pulls me with her and loops her arm with mine while Nat takes up the opposite side. “Besides, I’m going to enjoy his reaction tomorrow. Ivan is going to be livid.”
They walk me down the stairs and to a side door that says Employees Only that’s unlocked and we step inside, following a short corridor that leads to a bathroom not far from the private party in her honor.
They’re quick to help me fix my face and gather myself.
They’re by my side when we eventually make it back inside, and I immediately catch his eyes. The honey color seems darker as he takes me in, and it feels like a dirty caress. Everything in me heats; no matter how much I fight the reaction, it’s beyond me. Uncontrollable; a need that breaks me a little more as those words replay again.
And again.
Nothing more than an obligation.
“Goodbye, love,” I mouth the words, and as if he understands, Ivan takes a step toward me. One step. That’s all I get before once again, I’m given something I’ve come to expect.
