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But I will spend the rest of this night trying to repair the damage between them. I will use my last moments with her trying to glue the pieces of her heart back together so that she no longer fears them. Yes, I know I will lose her, but I’d rather it be me alone than her. Tonight, the flames of her heart will burn through the rough skin of my hands, but I will continue to hold the broken pieces together until they mend while mine breaks.
I watch her now as she stares at the moon, a thick blanket around her shoulders as she sits on the porch of the small home. She rocks back and forth, her tears streaming down her cheeks as she battles whatever it is she sees in her mind.
No doubt it’s the demons. The very ones I helped put there.
She stands, her hair whipping out behind her as she walks to the shore, her blanket slipping to the ground as her bare feet sink into the wet sand.
“I love them!” she screams into the wind. “Why did you have to do this,Mami?”She throws her empty beer bottle at the sky, stumbling and dropping to her knees where she punches the ground, her incoherent words lashing at my heart.
When she begins to vomit the beer from her empty stomach, I can’t stop myself. I move to her side, dropping to my knees beside her.
“Diabla,” I breathe, catching her when she flips her hair from her face and almost falls from the drunken movements.
“Romero, my ocean.” She sighs happily, her hands reaching for me and clumsily pulling herself onto my lap. “White sands and blue waters, that’s what you are.”
You won’t feel that way for long, I think depressively. After tonight, she’ll be lost to me, but at least she won’t be alone anymore. Not like how Alvaro was for five years.
I lift her into my arms, hating how light she feels, how cold and clammy her skin is. Her head drops into the crook of my neck as I walk her back to the house, kicking the door shut behind me. I lay her on the bed before turning around and stoking the barley burning fire in the small pit in the corner of the room.
“The words of a drunk are the thoughts of the sober,” she says as she watches me grab her blankets. Her words are so slurred it's as though she’s speaking in cursive. “So let me tell you my truth while I’m free to do it.”
“What is your truth, baby?” I ask as I tuck her in, grabbing a wet wipe from the package by her bed and begin cleaning her face. I doubt she’ll remember this part tomorrow, so I'm taking it for myself tonight. Burning the moment of me taking care of her into my memories.
“I love you, Romero Herrera, and I hate myself for it. You let my dad be tortured, you gambled my brother’s life. You turned my brother into someone I don’t recognize; I don’t even know if he helped kill our mother! I can’t look at him without thinking he pulled the trigger alongside you and Alvaro.”
Her words break off with a sob and I try to cup her face to give her comfort but she shoves my hands away with a scream.
“No! You’ve lied to me from the start and I forgave you time and time again! You lied to Alvaro for five years and tried to do the same thing to me! Would you have ever told me about my dad?”
She doesn’t let me answer her, she just grabs my hand and places it over her beating heart as the tears trek down her face.
“You hid the truth about my family from me, made me fall in love with you despite the lies, you made me value you more than anything in this world…you and Alvaro are the most toxic men I've ever met and still…” She sobs, her words slashing me with their honesty. “I want every drop of your toxin. I want to die in your poison, to cut my vein open for your venom and drown in the bane with you. I wish we could just pretend again.”
She lurches to the edge of the bed and heaves into the bucket I quickly grab for her.
“Let me speak now,” I tell her when she drops back against the pillow.
“What is it?” she slurs, her eyes rolling closed.
Her fears and sorrow break a piece of my soul that I know will never be repaired, and my next words will break the red string holding us together, but I love her too much to let these fears eat her alive. Even if I lose her, I’ll lose her knowing she will have Alvaro and her brother. The fears that torment her will be placed on me and I’ll take them all away from her when she walks away from me.
“Alvaro never lied to you. He never knew about your father or about your family until I told them. I knew almost from the start but I didn’t want to lose you so I kept it to myself. I lied to you because I’m a selfish man and having you meant more to me than being honest with you.”
She stares at me, her eyes having opened and cleared with each word I spoke. It almost looks like she’s sober now and I have no doubt she will remember this tomorrow… For the rest of her life, she will hate me.
“I’m sorry, Vicenta. So fucking sorry. If I could change it all, I would, but I can’t, so I’ll tell you one more truth and then I will let you go. Don’t fear your brother and don’t look at Alvaro with the same eyes you now look at me with because it wasn’t them who killed your mother,mi vida. It was me and me alone.”
So slowly,Diablalets my hand go and pushes up on the small mattress, her honey eyes widened in a mixture of anger and disgust. I move when she stands, straightening and backing up a step so I’m not in her space. I’m ready for her slap, for her to scream at me and tell me to leave, but what I’m not ready for is her next words.
In a voice so calm it’s soul crushing, Vicenta kills the last shred of humanity inside me.
“You are dead to me, Romero Herrera.”
“Vi–”
“GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!” Her body quakes with her scream, her lip trembling as she breathes heavily. “Get out of my life and never come back.”
I squeeze my eyes shut for a second, before turning on my heel and leaving the small shack.
