The Temple of Love

“Get in the car.”

Nothing.

“Get in the fucking car Isabel”

“No.” She pulled her arms in tighter. “I’m not going anywhere with you. You’re a monster. We’re done here.”

“I’m leaving you here then.” He rolled the window up. Looked dead straight ahead, nothing in his face. Nothing. Then he drove off.

It was like a punch to the gut.

“Incredible.” she breathed. He actually fucking did it. Three years, just like that. Dancing all night with that tall girl he just met. She wanted to cry. Worse, it looked like rain from the humidity of the air. Her dress felt too cold. Her skin bristled at the humid tropical night that suddenly turned cold. She started muttering to herself. Her mantra: breathe. Breathe in, breathe out. The road ahead was dark but if she focused, the starlight reached through the forest floor and at the open paved road. It was late, maybe 1 am, and no vehicles were driving by. She estimated that she was 20 minutes or so to the house. She started walking briskly, not thinking about her fear. Nothing at all, just the steps one after another. Paso tras paso.

Well how did she get here? From a beauty pageant queen, to a writer, and now some loser’s girlfriend. She felt like a nobody. Another face ignored because of that guy. Just picked a dangerous guy and it got dangerous before she even could catch it. But it’s sad in a way that’s not even interesting anymore. 

Her deep brown curls stuck to her face, wet from angry tears and the drizzle of rain.

When she arrived home the gate was locked. She took off her sandals and climbed the gate. She landed on something wet and soft. Whatever. Her body was numb. There was nothing to feel now. What’s the point of feeling anything when she has to survive?

She tried to think, but was too tired. She tried to calculate if he was going to be nice or if she could afford to appease him. She had to find a calm way out of this, otherwise everything would explode and she’d really be on the street. 

Her room was locked. No surprise. But it still felt like a second sucker punch. She took a second to recover. Her hand froze on the unyielding door handle. Unyielding like his damn heart. Her mind reeling with possibilities. The couch, and maybe take a blanket. It’s ok you can do this. Call his bluff. If you actually sleep outside he’s going to look bad in the morning. You can win, all you have to do is call his bluff. Isabel took a large towel from the clothesline and covered her strapless dress and legs and lay on the moist couch. She tried to calm down. She tried to sleep. But she couldn’t sleep. She worried she would stay up all night. And it scared her because in the morning she would have no energy to fight the next battle.

She awoke to the sound of a rumbling engine. He rolled out on his motorcycle and disappeared for an hour without saying a word. Then he came back just to smoke on the porch and go on his phone, but without looking at her. As if just to patrol her. She said nothing. She pretended not to be hurt, but she was. But she tried to hide it. Just when she was almost at her wits end he came downstairs. She went to the kitchen to make a snack of boiled eggs. She almost felt better, the bubbling of the water soothing her. She always liked the kitchen sounds. She found herself feeling better as she ate. He gave her a look of distant longing. 

She instinctively asked: “Do you want one? I have extra.”

“No” he said. 

Stupid, she fell for it. He scored one. 

He walked off in triumph. 

Motherfucker, she thought. You think I care. You’re so wrong. I’ll just keep pretending, she thought. What day is it? Third of March. She chewed the egg whites gliding smoothly through her teeth. She liked thinking, she always had. She was good at it. Maybe she could be better than him.

It started when her mother died, and she sold the house. The lawyers said it was a bad move, but she needed the money. She didn’t try to find her dad, he proved himself useless a long time ago. She quit school and went to Mexico for the cost of living and for its tense melancholy that called her. She drifted around nightclubs waitressing until she met him: Lucero. The local rock star. He looked like Antonio Banderas. Women were chatting him up in a circle but he put his hand over her fingers while she refilled his beer. He chose her. She was his muse, he said. Her legs were a spiritual experience. She was walking poetry. He was going somewhere, he had far-off exotic magnetic dreams like a thousand and one nights of open road and echoing wide skies. She wanted to ride off in his motorcycle, drive off the edge of this world and enter a magical one, one of never ending shimmering summer. She’d never have to worry about money again. They would travel the world. This was the fairy tale she deserved. If I want it enough then it’s mine, she thought. He reached back and put one hand on her thigh slipping out of her miniskirt. She gripped his hand harder and he went faster, and faster, until she couldn’t tell the difference between tomorrow and yesterday, between her skin and the sound of the roaring road. She was floating in that tunnel of air, all her problems frozen mid-stream, and nothing mattered anymore except her heartbeat whizzing at the wonder of going fast enough to die but still beating. As long as it was still beating, that was all that mattered.

He’s taken things too far. She thought about the last time she checked her bank account. About $800. She could get somewhere with that. The bus was $40 and it left at 4 am. She agonized about that. About the rain and her suitcase getting muddy and carrying it down the hill. But what choice did she have? She went to his room and took the keys from the door and opened her room. She started to pack her things with contained panic. She tried not to cry, her whole body felt like shaking. She told herself: it’s ok. It’s ok to leave the books behind. She didn’t want to, but they were heavy. But it hurt, it hurt too much. Somewhere, somewhere far in the back of her mind, where she kept her thoughts private, she remembered they were important, but she couldn’t choose them, and if she couldn’t choose them then there was no point in going anywhere. And that thought alone nearly broke her more than all the other shit she put up with. Lucero’s footsteps came up the stairs. Isabel felt defiant. She knew this was going to start a fight but she felt good that she stood for something, and made a decision. This will show him, she thought. What it was exactly she didn’t know. She didn’t know the shapes of things anymore. It was like slowly going blind. She couldn’t put words to the forms and shapes of control she had over objective reality but she remembered the things that were powerful. From distant memory. Some ideas she could never forget, like learning to play piano, the opening six notes of Fur Elise and how her fingers learned to tickle the melody. Playing for her mother because she never got a chance to learn. The memories of important things, the way her mother taught her to be strong, the rules of life. And she had done one of those important things now, as she kept rolling her dresses into her suitcase one by one, her hands shaking, from fear and anger and fatigue, but her mind still focused. Thank god for her mind. She thought. But the mind would run out eventually, and the fear and emotion would take over. The emotion came out of nowhere, and was like a monster that left her exposed and bruised. It lost herself to herself. It gave her secrets away. But she had to pack now before the monster returned.

Lucero walked straight past her window of her room. Without a word he went to his room. She kept organizing and putting things into bags. She could feel him imploding, as if the walls between her room and his were so thin, thin like his patience always threadbare. He came to her room eventually. 

“So you’re really leaving? That’s it?” His eyes were red and wet. “You’re not even going to try?”

She could feel the emotion monster coming closer. She tried not to give in, she wanted to make all the pain stop, stop right now. His voice felt like comfort but she knew it was a trap. But a part of her wanted to believe. She said nothing, but the tension hurt.

“You know why.” she said, practicing the words in her head before saying them.

“Isabel, let’s talk. Please. Please, just look at me, Isabel, look at me”

She didn’t look. She counted to ten, she couldn’t take it. She looked up. His face was warm and pleading. The closer he got to her the more afraid she was of everything. Like it amplified all her fears about the world outside, and made him feel so safe instead. She wanted to believe him. She was so tired, she just wanted to believe it, it was starting to get dark and she didn’t want to worry about tomorrow anymore.

“Fine” she said. “Let’s talk.”

So they talked, they talked about behavior and dynamics and changing and making it work. And she cautiously made up with him. Maybe I’ve explained it well, she thought. She had faith in her words, if nothing else. But as she lay in bed next to him, his snoring filling the silence between her thoughts, she sadly remembered that day with the wind and the motorcycle, and how that memory felt like another person’s memory altogether. And the space between now and then made her cry.

But the truth is he loved her, sometimes. He held her in the middle of the night when the terrors came to her. They came to her all the time, but she didn’t know what to do. It happened a lifetime ago but the memories stayed like prison guards, watching her always. She remembers a name, a mattress in a basement, and the terror that started in her groin. And every time the terrors started she fought, she fought hard, but lost every time, and she’d been defeated all over again. And she started all over again, and she would have to fight again to hold herself from not taking Tylenol for no reason or something worse, for no reason. Lucero made her forget how hard it was to hold herself together, to resist the disappearing altogether. So every night she took him again, like a Tylenol.

Juan was a watcher. He watched the sea all day and at night he watched the moon over the same sea, floating over the far hills on the other side of the bay. He usually thought about… well he didn’t think much about anything. But lately his mind was filled with thoughts of her. The jokes she made that were the truth. The way she taught him things and made him see the world in a different way. It was almost a year ago now, and she hadn’t come back since. Even her absence filled him with peace. Juan was a peaceful man but he wasn’t always this way. He fought hard against life. He had been an angry man. Then, like a miracle, his anger turned into gold, and he became a brave man.

She was far, yet close. She chose the wrong man, that was obvious to them both. So he watched. He studied her like he studied the waves. The way its shadow and rhythm spoke of the migration of currents far far away. His eyes watched the sea but his mind watched something else entirely. 

Isabel is terrified when she closes her eyes. She can feel the walls turn into cruel hands. So she keeps them open. But it’s dark and she can’t see everything and that always brings her back to that familiar panic that something bad is going to happen. But she can’t cling to Lucero tonight because he left. She said she would leave and instead of stopping her he left. And now she felt paralyzed, paralyzed by this darkness and silence and stillness she couldn’t tolerate. She wanted to text him but he blocked her. She found herself praying for him to come back. Praying he will and praying he won’t. The sides of her won’t agree, they won’t agree, like her parents yelling and the loud crash of the large flower plant as her dad knocked it over before slamming the door. In the morning the floor was already clean but the cheerful small tree was in an empty paint pot. Somewhat less cheerful, somewhat forever smaller and exposed.

She tossed and turned and fell into a light exhausted sleep for only a few hours before waking up to the faint orange light of dawn. It felt peaceful, but she was wanting and grasping for happiness, and it wouldn’t come, so instead she wanted more sleep, but she was too tired for wanting sleep so she kept grasping at the happiness that wouldn’t come. Until Lucero came home again and she grasped at him when he said he wanted to talk, he wanted to change again.

The first time she came home with him, he let her sleep in the guest room but they were watching a movie at his desk in his bedroom. His legs tried to touch hers and she carefully moved away. He told her about his mother giving him up for adoption and how his adopted parents were so nice, but he felt like they were strangers.

“So tell him (the little boy) that your adoptive parents love you.”

“I can’t. I’m scared”

“You can do it, I’ll hold your hand,”

“Okay.”

He closed his eyes and mumbled hesitant and nervous breaths of silent words to himself and his breathing got full of emotion, bursting from the invisible pain. She instinctively put her arms around him and held him close and held him still. And she stayed very, very still. Quiet enough to hear the distant noise of a child’s crying.

Isabel looked at her face in the mirror. The shadows on her face had grown heavy and her skin was sallow. She had once been crowned beauty queen of her city. She remembered being insecure before, all women were. But she knew how to solve it. That’s what made her different and confident. She used her mind to solve it. But now when she tried, she couldn’t remember her secret. Maybe she should have written it down. It wasn’t just that she couldn’t remember: it hurt to remember. Lucero’s words bounced around in her head: “I can’t look myself in the eye anymore because of you.” well that wasn’t him at all, that was her. She knew that. But she couldn’t know that. It was absolutely impossible. It was the terrifying paradox. For what was real to not be real. The real was inside her where she could not even access it. She couldn’t pull it out like a gun and point it right between Lucero’s eyes like she wanted to. She couldn’t get to it. And instead she was holding whatever he said, whatever he felt, whatever his twisted heart wished. She held in her mind and body, scraped out and emptied like a container.

“Whew, You’re too pretty not to dance.” 

The drawling voice came from underneath a black cowboy hat. 

“I couldn’t, I came with my boyfriend.” She smiled politely.

“Well, where is he?”

She tried not to look directly at Lucero, happily entertaining some female friends at the bar. 

The man wasn’t exactly handsome but also was sort of handsome. He had swagger and confidence and just the right kind of roughness. Alright he was sexy. And fun. 

“I used to be a dance teacher.” He bragged. She tried to follow along but his feet were doing bizarre steps and she found it hard to keep up. 

“What kind of salsa is this?” 

“This, lovely lady, is Cuban salsa, not like the Mexican salsa. It’s got more sophistication and speed. Watch, I’ll show you”

Whenever he turned her to face Lucero she could see the rage boiling in his face. But she liked it. 

“Wow you’re pretty good. You know you’re just my type. Korean women are the most beautiful women in the world in my humble opinion. My ex wife was Korean. But damn you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. And you know how to dance salsa too. Oh boy I’m in trouble.”

This guy really just says whatever he thinks, thought Isabel. She liked him, he was cute and funny.

He was starting to get a bit nervous. He went quiet, realizing how much he wanted more. She smiled in response.

The music changed to bachata. 

“This is my favourite song.” She said. They danced close, their bodies pressed together where it felt good. It’s the kind of dancing that makes you feel like you’re not strangers at all.

“I’m Tony.”

“Isabella, but you can call me Isa”

“Say why don’t we go for some air, it’s getting real hot in here.”

He grabbed her hand before she could protest and she found that she didn’t want to say no. It was too much fun and freedom tasted so good, it felt so right. 

It had rained earlier and the benches in the small park were wet. The man took off his vest and motioned for her to sit on top. Isabel surprised herself: “I have a better idea, you sit on the vest and I’ll sit on you”. He looked dumbstruck. And she almost had to help him move into place so she could sit on his lap. Trying to hide his nervousness, he lit a cigarette. 

“I don’t come out much because I’m always working. I’m a workaholic. I own three businesses. That’s what you gotta understand about me and these other men. Most men have so self esteem. They don’t try to make anything of themselves. I’m self made, the way my father taught me. I’m only 34 and I’m almost retired. I own properties in countries all over Mexico and Texas. I’m trying to teach you something about men, because we’re not all the same. And these men will lie to you and pretend they’re something they’re not.” He seemed defiant, arrogant, almost angry. But she saw his nervousness and she was having a great time and nodded like she was learning something important. He saw through her response and was startled, rattled at her lack of being impressed. “That’s really interesting” she said, amused. The more amused she got the more nervous he became. 

“So what’s the deal with this boyfriend. What’s he do?”

Isabel started getting nervous. Like the clock just struck 12 and she was Cinderella. 

“I shouldn’t talk about it. We should go inside, I’m getting cold.”

Tony’s eyes sank as he put out his cigarette. Then he gathered himself. “How about I keep you warm just a little longer.” He wrapped his arms around her, they were strong and she felt his soft forearm hair so comforting and intoxicating. He drew her in and kissed her and she didn’t stop him until what felt like an eternity pass. In the back of her mind she thought, well if Lucero doesn’t see it then it may never have happened. But she was wrong. Because when she finally pulled him off her she turned around and caught the eyes of Lucero watching from the porch inside. She quickly grabbed her purse and, hiding her nerves, walked towards Lucero like nothing happened.

He started to walk towards the parking lot, and she followed behind obediently, and scared as hell. On her way out she saw someone who looked familiar, the lifeguard from the beach. He was out in his casual clothes, even more casually following her with his gaze.

He didn’t say anything, so neither did she. The silence she had been practicing, the non-giving of her reaction, was becoming more skilled, easier. Easier, yet harder, because the stakes were rising. They had been slowly rising over the last few battles and she could feel it, but never like this. She had broken something and it felt wonderful and unbearable at the same time.

I tried to tell him, 

He kissed me, he forced me,

She thought of the force angle. If she made herself a victim and was powerless enough, Lucero would approve. Would he? Would it be enough? 

But he wasn’t saying anything. He simply maintained a brutal silence. His eyes were cold in a way she never saw before. Devoid of any human anger. It terrified her, and filled her with a sense of doom that this was all her fault and she would have to sacrifice the last reserve of dignity she had at his alter. At his church where she crawled to enter. She knew exactly where that dignity was that she had to give. She had discovered it that night, a power she didn’t even know she had, a sparkling, sizzling freedom that she had to part with too soon, for it was to be sacrificed to Lucero, like every other part she had already given him. In a way, she was happy, happy for him, that she had found something so valuable to give. It comforted her to think that she could give him what he wanted. And she had never hated herself more. The hate was growing too, but it confused her, it was unlike the emotion monster, it was a different kind of monster. It made her feel calm for the first time, but terrified in another way.

But she had no time to think or be calm. Because the calmer she felt, he was growing colder, and stronger, and she had never been more afraid. She tried very hard to stay still and composed, but her heart was burning for forgiveness. Oh Lucero, what have I done? She thought of the man she held when he was crying, of the man that didn’t want to live without her, the man that was trying. The man that was lost from losing his son. She had gone too far this time.

They fell asleep in silence. In the morning he woke up early to do chores and do his exercises. She found him meditating, he hasn’t done that since they first met. It was touching. They didn’t speak all day but in the evening he made dinner for the both of them. Isabel’s heart broke. It was her, it was all her fault. She felt like a monster. Her vanity was uncontrollable, it felt wrong. Her wandering eye was unhealthy, it was a form of avoidance, it was her trauma–she saw it now. She wanted to explain, if only he would forgive her. Would he forgive her? This was the only question that mattered now. Her life revolved around it.

He looked serene, almost vulnerable, and devastatingly wounded. There was a shadow in his eyes that spoke of her betrayal, he was a scorned man. 

“I’ve been thinking about myself a lot, and it was my trauma. I’m vulnerable and he knew it. I tried to tell him I had a boyfriend.”

She couldn’t tell if her explanation had landed. It felt too painfully obvious that she wasn’t sounding genuine. Why was her voice so fake and contrived? Was she losing her mind? She desperately searched Lucero’s face for a sign of recognition. 

Years ago when they first met, he told her about Jorge. And they never quite recovered.

“I swear I fell in love with you when I saw that necklace.” He was talking about her four leaf clover charm. 

“Yeah I remember, I knew you were falling for me because you acted like a little kid” she teased.

He had talked about his daughter but when she asked him if she was her favorite child, he backed off. 

“I had a son, he was murdered.”

She stayed quiet out of respect. But she gently furrowed her brows in understanding. 

He lit a joint. He wasn’t with her, he was somewhere else. A few days later, he revealed more of the story.

”He didn’t pick up the phone. I knew something was wrong. I looked for him for two weeks. I walked all over the jungle and fields. I knew he was dead, by then it was obvious. I prayed, please just give me back his body. I’m his father, it belongs to me. I knew then just where to go. I found him in pieces.

Why would they cut him into pieces? Who would do such a thing?”

He took a drag and exhaled, the smoke forming a screen between them, he was more than a man for a moment, he was the realest thing she had ever seen.

“I didn’t want to meet anyone for a year. I stayed on that spot,”—he pointed to the porch overlooking the sea—“and read all of Gabriel García Márquez books. Every single one. You know what I realized? They all connect. And I sold my car. Because if I had a means of leaving I would kill someone, and I couldn’t stop myself.”

One night, they had a fight. Maybe a year into the relationship. She forgot what it was about but she remembered putting on her yellow skirt with ruffles and her perfume, and going out alone. She drove her motorcycle and parked it on the beach. A few locals were half drunk and laughing and sitting by the side of the road. Their eyes watched as she passed. It was a warm night, the open air felt good and decompressing. She went to the pub and got herself a drink. She sat on the outside, the stool that was out on the street and faced the soccer field and the ocean beyond it. 

“Need company?”

A man asked from behind the table. His skin was dark and smooth. His face was unusually intense but also gave an impression of softness. She could feel his interest and she didn’t want to be disrespectful to Lucero but he was being reserved so she let him stay. They sipped their drinks while the ocean waves filled the silence. 

“Are you a writer?”

“I was, how did you know?”

“I just guessed. You were so quiet, thinking a lot.”

“Yeah I never stop.”

He didn’t ask her why she stopped writing or encouraged her to keep going. “I’m Juan. I’m a lifeguard down at the beach.”

She nodded. “Do you like your job? Sounds like it can get boring”

“The getting bored is part of saving people. So no, I don’t mind it”

And then he looked at her. I mean he really looked at her. With a look that she didn’t understand, like anger or something burning but it wasn’t anger towards her, but anger towards the world, and maybe even towards her but it was warm and restrained. In a moment it was gone and he was composed. For a moment she felt like she was falling into him and couldn’t control it, so she stopped herself. And the stopping herself felt wrong too. But it all happened very quickly and she dismissed it just as quickly. 

“That’s one way to feel alive.” she joked. She wanted to stay and talk to him longer but she felt it was time to go. It was long enough for her to prove her point to Lucero, the purpose of her outing had been completed. She left without giving her name or number and he never asked for it.

Lucero was sad, that was obvious, but he wasn’t talking about how he felt or engaging with it. He was responding with silence and ignoring her talking about another man, which was his go-to strategy whenever other men came up. But this made Isabel anxious because it was more than a passing interest, it was something couples were supposed to talk about. Right? But he wasn’t a regular man, there had always been something undeniably special about him, something that made him different, and something Isabel needed.

That night they made love because he initiated and she complied. She felt uneasy and disconnected from her body, and once she noticed it she couldn’t ignore it. She pretended to feel pleasure but inside, her mind and body were colliding and saying different things. For the first time she saw how far her body was from her perception, as if it was far, far away. A shipwreck under the sea. 

While she dreamt there was a young man whom she felt close to. The young man was sitting on a white jeep and smiling for a photo. “No, I’ll take a photo of you, dad.” He takes the camera from Lucero, and Lucero poses like a model, perfectly choreographed, exuding power and male mystery. Lucero’s entire left arm was black from a black colorblock sleeve tattoo and the son had a similar one in progress, but was only black halfway down the arm. “You look so cool dad. I wish I were just like you”

Jorge’s gaze fell. He thought about his young son, and the choices he made. He thought about the gang he joined and the people he killed, and how it would all catch up to him soon, and that time is coming closer and closer. He couldn’t make the chaos slow down, it had been chasing him his whole life. A tornado of emptiness, he never felt like he belonged and he never felt right.

Lucero looked at his son. He was losing him, but he didn’t want to think about that. That was hard, and he put it away with all the other hard things that he avoided his whole life. But more importantly, he needed Jorge, he was the only one who took care of him.

“Hey this car is really something right? Take another shot of me.”

 When Isabel woke up she could feel Jorge’s presence. His spirit was restless. He needed the love he never received but was unable to rest in peace each time his father used his memory for sympathy rather than engage in real grief. Because there was guilt there. The spirit wouldn’t leave her alone. He was a young man, but he was slowly turning into a child. And now he was a lost child, crying for a grown up. He tugged at her chest. 

It was 6am. She put on her bikini and went out to the ocean. She asked the ocean to cleanse her, and the saltwater washed it all away.

Walking back she saw Juan in his tower. She thought she felt him watching her but when she looked he was facing away. She thought about him. Maybe she liked him. Maybe. She felt strong now. She could leave Lucero, it was time.

The town had been preparing for Día de Muertos all month. In the last week, restaurants had closed while people stopped working altogether to shop for orange flowers and decorated loaves of bread and skull candies and crosses and more. Orange flowers lit up the streets like a jubilant wildfire.  

Lucero reached out his hand signalling Isabel to take it. She hesitated, she wanted to break the news to him and that would set the wrong tone, but she took it because right now, she didn’t have a choice.

“What’s wrong? I took you out like you wanted. I spent all this effort planning this out. You’re going to give me an attitude about it?”

“I want to break up.”

“You always say that. But you’re just avoidantly attached, we talked about this.”

She didn’t flinch. She remembered his silence the last few days and she knew this couldn’t be her life. She refused for this to be her life. She knew he wanted her upset like always and if she could stay calm and friendly this was how she could win. She wasn’t sure if she really wanted to leave but she was hoping that if she held firm enough it would force him to change. She was hoping that he would change. She didn’t think she could actually make it alone, not in her financial situation. And besides, she needed his protection from other men. But she had to force him to change, because he was becoming unacceptable. 

“I think we’d be better off friends.”

He noticed her calmness and his walking slowed down. He seemed set back. But he cheerfully responded, “I’m glad you can be so mature about it, I think that’s healthy. I’m really happy for you. Did you meet somebody?”

She didn’t respond of course.

“I’m happy for you. Actually I feel free, I feel better. Thank you for this. I never realized how much I needed this.”

Isabel lit up. “Oh Lucero I’m so relieved you get it. I was so worried you’d be angry.”

“We both love freedom and we can’t the tied down. We’re wild spirits.” 

The Halloween parade has started and a ruckus of trumpets conquered the air. 

“Come dance with me,” he gave her his hand. The rest of the night was a festive blur of drinks and spinning and sore feet. For the first time she felt relaxed. She teased him for the way he angled his photos to look taller and he smiled. “This is so much better for us,” he said. “We were giving each other too much pressure.” He has been charming all evening. When he spoke she felt a pang of regret and pain, but didn’t do anything about it. It seemed too late. But when he took her in his arms, she let him. And when she teased him and laughed and enjoyed herself, he let her. 

“Imagine if I opened a store and it was all just merchandise with my name on it. Everyone would be so confused. They would buy it just because they thought it was something to do.” She laughed, “I would call it the Isabel store.” Lucero chuckled. “And you could have your own store with just black shirts because all you ever wear are black shirts.”

He smiled. “I’m exhausted, let’s go to sleep now. Try to meditate.”

She was giddy and felt butterflies. She felt the way she did when she first fell in love with him. She felt nervous and strange. She couldn’t sleep. She went to her phone and wrote a poem for Lucero. The poem about how he made the pieces of her body fit together again, like a million stars. How sorry she was to break up and how sentimental she finally felt for him. All the things she never got to say. 

In the morning she started to cry. She wasn’t sure what the cause was but she felt that she needed to, her body needed to, so she did it. Lucero didn’t comfort her like usual. He was silent for a long time. She cried for a long time. She looked at the clock. She had cried for two hours. Eventually she broke the silence. “Are we getting brunch outside?”

“I don’t give a damn what you do, go do it alone. I don’t want to be involved in your plans”

Isabel was stunned. “But I don’t understand, what did I do wrong?”

“You’re so full of hate aren’t you? You don’t remember the disgusting things you said to me last night? About my family?”

“When? Tell me what exactly because I don’t remember. When I talked about your height? You were laughing.”

He didn’t say anything

“When I talked about the store?”

He didn’t say anything. 

“What was it exactly? You have to tell me what I said exactly or I don’t believe you”

He didn’t say anything and it was killing her. Did he think she was texting someone else? 

“I was writing a poem for you, that’s why I didn’t sleep”

“I don’t give a fuck about your poem” he got up and started to fold his clothes. 

So that’s it, she thought. He’s just jealous and paranoid. 

Her hands trembled. 

“Look, let me read it to you”

I will love you for

A long time

Maybe after you pass away

I remember how

You made the pieces of my body feel

Like a million stars

I can’t sleep at all

Because the chasm inside me

Makes me feel like I might fall forever

And I can’t look down

But tonight

I will find a way

To live without you

She nervously put the poem down and looked to Lucero.

“That’s complete bullshit. I see what kind of woman you are.”

Isabel couldn’t hold it in anymore. She went to the bathroom and and she cried. She sat on the floor with a toilet roll in one hand wiping her tears. She cried because she finally lost the game. Because she was finally broken beyond her own strength, and it felt good to stop trying and stop pretending to be strong but she couldn’t stop crying. She couldn’t erase the words he put to her poem. Her first poem in years. The one her voice trembled as she read. And she couldn’t take it. She cried forever. It was noon when she emerged from the bathroom. The brilliant blue sky and palms swaying, as if nothing had ever gone wrong ever. 

Lucero came from the kitchen with a tea in his hand. “Isabel, I’m so, so sorry. I don’t have the words. I’m so sorry.” He started to cry. “I have a problem with anger, I see it now. I will never get angry again. You showed me my pain. You cried for me. Thank you. Thank you for crying for me”

And then he held her from behind. She still couldn’t get up from the floor. She simply stared at the cobalt blue sky and the wind and for the first time in her life she felt happy. Weak but happy.

She turned around and hugged him. “You said you didn’t want me to touch you anymore. Are you sure it’s okay?” And she nodded and kissed him to show him she forgave him. Because it was over now, they made it to the other side of trauma. Everything was going to be better now.

They spent the rest of the day happy together. They felt exhausted and starved and went out for dinner. He bought her Italian food for her birthday and sang and took pictures for her. They got her a free cake for dessert. She felt beautiful and radiant. There was a strange moment when he got a meal better than hers and for some reason it enraged her, but she kept it inside. she was unsettled why the anger wouldn’t go away, the awareness of an unspoken rage lingering no matter how hard she tried to ignore it. But other than that it was a perfect night. And she smiled through the pain that was obviously hers alone.

That night she was so tired that she asked Lucero if he wouldn’t mind going to the last day of festivities without her. He said fine.

She fell asleep without a problem. Everything was finally okay.

She woke up at 5 and noticed Lucero hadn’t come home yet. She panicked but told herself she was just imagining it. Soon she heard his familiar motorcycle coming up the driveway. He came in with his sunglasses and had a hard expression on his face. she waved to him, and he looked up, with a look of heartbreak. She was deeply unsettled by this. She knew something bad was about to happen but she didn’t want to believe it.

“Lucero, talk to me, what’s wrong? What happened? Is everything okay?”

He sat her down, and calmly sat on the edge of the bed, facing away from her. 

“I have to tell you something. I don’t know how you’re going to take this or if you’re ever going to forgive me.”

“Please just say it, you can talk to me. You know I’m your safe person.”

 “You remember Janet from the salsa night? The one that’s really good. Well she wanted me to come home with her and I had too many drinks. One thing led to another and, I swear nothing happened. Although I really wanted to. I really did. She tried to make a move. And I wanted to but I stopped myself. I could have done it but I stopped myself. Well, I stayed all night because I wasn’t fit to drive. But I almost really fucked up.”

Isabel’s mind floated. It was untethered and searching for something to hold on to. He didn’t cheat, nothing happened, so nothing went wrong right? But everything had gone wrong and the rage from the previous night had been the only presence that lasted, and gave her something to hold on to. So she held onto it. She turned her back to Lucero and looked to the ocean, she looked for an answer.

A ray of sun had filtered through the palms and through the faint reflection in the window, she saw Lucero’s smug smile. Her heart and mind and body ached, but truth was all she needed, even when it was unbearable.

She packed her essentials. Toothbrush, passport, wallet, underwear.

Lucero simply watched.

She wasn’t shaking, she wasn’t doubting. She didn’t even have to think. She put on her shoes.

“What about your books?”

“Keep them.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Isabel kept walking. She got on her motorcycle and as she left the driveway she could hear him yelling “I didn’t do anything wrong!”

She drove to down to the main beach. She ran to the shore and let the waves lick her feet. She let out a long breath. She looked out at the sea. She felt completely empty, and it felt good. The thoughts were gone. Waves curled and crashed in a hypnotic motion. She turned around, and saw the watchtower. Juan was looking at her. Maybe even smiling. She didn’t have to think anymore. She walked towards the tower, dropping her shoes, her helmet, and her bag on the sand as she went. She felt lighter and lighter. 

---

based on real events