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I drove him to a shuttle bus early in the morning. After parking, we sat holding hands. I smiled at him. “Go give it your all, beast.”
He sighed, frowning at me. “I will miss you, Bella.”
“Me too.” We kissed. He glared into my eyes, his chin high. Then he opened his door, jumped out, and slammed it behind him. After he grabbed his bags from the trunk, I watched him walk to the shuttle. I think he was put out with me for not running after him down to Mexico.
On the quiet and lonely drive back to my house, there was a hollowness in my chest. With Javier, I’d been alive. After he’d left, the weight of what I’d lost—Hank, my life in Austin, my freedom—pushed me down.
Back at the house I plopped down at the new dining-room table and drank coffee, answering emails on my laptopwhile Antonio cooked in the kitchen. Kate came up and sat across from me.
“Why the sad face?” she asked. “Did your hunk have to go already?”
I nodded. “He has to work. You know what, that’s what I need to do. Find some damn work. There’s still three weeks before school starts. I don’t know what to do with myself.”
“Sounds rough,” Kate said, sarcastically.
Antonio came over and placed our plates on the table. “It is only Monday,” he said, “not the end of the world.”
I sighed. “Just the bottom of it.”
“Why not go to Mexico?” Kate ate a bite of fried potato.
Antonio snorted. “He will be on set all day and have no time. They will not let her go there too.”
“That’s it,” I said. “Besides, he needs to go do the movie-star thing. Not my scene.” Especially when I was supposed to be hiding. Although Javier would probably love the publicity if the media found me. “He’s going to be really good on screen, don’t you think?” I yawned, hiding it behind my hand.
Kate smiled at me. “Well, maybe he’s better in small doses.”
The rest of Monday was a blur from not enough sleep the night before. I did contact a local nonprofit that helped seniors. Also, Michelle was ready to get a lot of decorating done that week and we hashed out more furniture choices.
I did a late workout, took a swim, and dozed by the pool as a kind of battle went on in my mind between Javier and Hank, with Clint popping his head up too. Javier and Hank were like two sides of a coin, or the opposite ends of a spectrum with safety and attachment on one side and excitement and instability on the other. Except, Hank could be exciting too…And I didn’t think Javier was heartless either.I’m the heartless one…
The Senior Center had a volunteer training session that afternoon and invited me to join them. We would basically do social calls, help out with little things around the house, but mostly be company a few times a week for a senior. I left with a shiny new name badge to wear, emergency contact numbers, and a list of dos and don’ts.
“Hey,” Layla said to me that evening as we drank rosé and watched her dating show, “what are you doing tomorrow?”
“Well, I have a new senior buddy to meet then I’ll run onto campus. What’s going on?”
“Some of us are going over to Wildwood Falls. Forest wants to see it. He loves nature stuff like that and says it’s supposed to be one of the best swimming holes around. I don’t know, it looks really rocky. So we’re doing that. Then, tomorrow night, a bunch of us are going bar-hopping downtown.”
“Fun. You bet I’ll join up.”
Layla smiled. “Yay. Forest told me to get some water shoes. I was like, what? I need special shoes to go splash around in some trashy river?”
“Will he whip out a big fishing pole and catch us a giant fish to grill?”
She shook her head. “He’ll try.”
We watched the show for a bit. Hank would want to do outdoorsy stuff like fishing, hiking—anything and everything. I glanced down at my freshly painted toenails. New Sally could handle a chipped pedicure.
“Clint asked me about you today, at this banquet event the football team went to with girlfriends.” She glanced at my face then away.
“Oh? Tell me more.” That boy was still moving fast and didn’t have any quit in him.
“I was, like, a little worried because you, like, don’t want us talking about you and stuff.”
“Thanks, hon, that’s nice you thought about that.”
Her shoulders dropped. “I tried. But he was, like, super persistent. He wanted to know if that guy was still here. I finally told him, no, he had to go be in a movie and so he left.”
