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“Yes, I have. Danielle reminded me two hours ago. Now, stop fretting and get dressed. I’m feeling okay, I’m seizing the moment, Iwillhave a sneaky flute of champagne when no one’s looking, and unless you’re planning to wear electric-blue yoga pants to my eighteenth birthday party, you need to get a move on... This thing started twenty minutes ago.”
“Shit! You’re right!” She flies across my bedroom in a panic, all tan limbs and shiny black hair. At sixteen, my sister is already a dynamite fusion of mischief, beauty, and sweetness, and I love her more than life itself. “You’re sure you won’t forget to—”
“Yes! No! Go! I want you downstairs flirting withPapá’ssicarios,not stuck in here acting like my nursemaid.”
She pauses in the doorway and smiles. “You know I wouldn’t do it for anyone else.”
It shouldn’t be your burden in the first place.
This is the heartless root of living with a chronic illness. It flips everything upside down, and I meaneverything.It’s the small print that doctors never tell you about because, by then, the panic is top tier, and they don’t want to send it stampeding down a side street like a bull in Pamplona.
Dreams change.
You start living vicariously through your younger sister.
Childhood friends I thought were forever, barely even remember my name...
I watch her disappear into the hallway, wondering if I’d have her confidence if I hadn’t been locked up in a hospital for months, back when the doctors were still figuring out what was wrong with me. Maybe if those sterile-white walls hadn’t driven me deeper and deeper inside myself…
But I am who I am. I’ve come to terms with myself now. I’m determined not to be defined by anything, let alone some stupid autoimmune disease.
Instead, I’m the girl who talks too much when I’m nervous, rattling off words like bullets from a gun, and I take empathy to the next level by constantly weighing up the impact of my decisions. I’m also literallyobsessedwith Fleetwood Mac, so much so Thalia’s considering an intervention. And I’m terrible at walking in high heels. Like toddler terrible. It’s almost embarrassing.
From the window, I watch as another black supercar zooms up the driveway of Uncle Rick’s gray-stone mansion in the Hamptons. It brakes by the steps below, skidding up gravel from the front tires like an angry encore.
They’ve been arriving all evening, delivering hundreds of faces I’ve never met before to my own birthday party. I don’t have friends of my own, only the kids of my various cartel ‘Uncles’. The people downstairs are allPapá’sbusiness associates, but I don’t mind, just so long ashe’shere.
My phone beeps. It’s Thalia from the room next door.
And you’re POSITIVE you’ve taken them?
I tap out my reply with a reluctant smile, knowing her concern comes from a beautiful place.
I may have a defective immune system, but my memory still works. Plus, there’s a wonderful invention called a smart phone which reminds me to take my meds on time. You might have heard of it?
Her response is instant.
Am I doing it again? Am I bugging you too much?
My smile widens.
Yes, but I secretly love you for caring.
Two seconds later…
Good because I just stole your favorite Dior mascara.
Chucking my phone on the bed, I turn back to the window, feeling nervous suddenly. Nothing can go wrong tonight.It just can’t.Because it’s been six years of wishing, wondering, hurting and—
The car door swings open and my breath hitches, even before the driver reveals himself. Something about the way his heel spurs the gravel with the bitter crunch of reluctance tells me it’s him… The man who’s avoided all my calls and letters since that day in Colombia. Because heisa man now. Twenty-three, lethal, powerful…
Cavalier in all the ways he rejected our friendship when I was eleven, and how it still cuts me to the core on the eve of turning eighteen.
Edier Grayson.
The real reason why I beggedPapáto let me have my party on US soil.
I knew his no-show tonight would be viewed as a great disrespect, and that’s something my father deems worse than poor judgement. Besides, it’s practically a Santiago Cartel class reunion downstairs. All the major players are here, which includes Edier too, now that he’s taken over New York and is hell-bent on making a name for himself.
