We had two beds in our tiny room. It was supposed to be me and Marguerite, the twins, on one and Violetta and Beatriz on the other. But as Beatriz got older, she wanted her own space, so the three of us ended up sharing. Mama had her own room of course. Javier didn’t really have a room. When he was younger there used to be a cot pushed between our beds but now Javier slept on the couch. Even as a child, I’m not sure that he really slept at all.
He didn’t that night. It saved our lives. All of our lives, except my mother’s. But in my dreams, sometimes I was the one that died instead. I’m not even sure I’d call it a nightmare, because despite the dark and the terror and that horror, there was something about death that I welcomed. Every now and then, as I hid in the closet with my siblings and that door opened, the guns pointed at our heads, I didn’t scream or cry as the sicarios gunned us down. I smiled. I wanted it. I wanted peace, that safety that comes with death. Once death takes you, nothing can hurt you ever again.
Death takes away your life. But it also takes your fear.
When I woke up from the dream, covered in sweat, I was disappointed to see the room was still dark. There was something so dreadful about waking up from a dream in the middle of the night, adrenaline still coursing through your veins, only to see you have half the night, half a world of darkness, to go. Suffice to say, I couldn’t go back to sleep. Even though I sometimes wanted death in my dreams, I didn’t when I was awake. When I was awake I was governed by fear, through and through.
I carefully pulled my covers back on to me since they were usually kicked off as I thrashed in the throes of my dreams, my body still sore and aching, and stared up at the ceiling. Maybe that’s why I was so attracted to Derrin. He looked like the sort who could protect me, who could take care of me. He was a soldier. Those were the types who never showed fear, who never ran from anything. For the most part they were honest and noble and brave.
I stayed awake like that for a while longer, accepting the fact that I wouldn’t fall back asleep, and thought about him. I thought about him to the point where I was sure I was obsessing – which wasn’t new for me – but then I let myself do it without judgment. It was a distraction and a most welcome one.
At some point I fell back asleep.
CHAPTER FIVE
Alana
“That’s what you’re wearing?” Luz asked as I opened the front door to her.
I looked down at myself. I was wearing jean cut-off shorts and a faded yellow tee with a vintage Coca Cola slogan on it. “What’s wrong with it?”
“Nothing,” she said adamantly. “It’s just I’ve never seen you so dressed down and casual before.”
“Yes you have.”
“But not for a date.”
She was right about that. “This isn’t a date.”
She rolled her eyes. “Goodness, just own up to it. It’s a date, sweatheart. Even if it’s coffee, in the middle of the day, with no sex, it’s a date.”
“Says you on the no sex thing.”
“Are you really going to fuck him the way you are? At a café?” She gave me a look and then shook her head with a raise to her lip. “You know what, don’t answer that, you’ve already told me your options.”
I grinned at her, quickly set the alarm and locked the apartment behind me.
It was a Monday and traffic was crazy congested as usual. I started to fret a bit, wondering if I was going to be late, how long he would hang around for, if he thought I was standing him up. The skin beneath my arm cast began to itch like crazy and I was flipping open the glove compartment to see if Luz had a pen or something.
“Will you calm down, you spazz,” she said, eyeing me out of the corner of her eye while laying down the horn in protest of whatever driver did something stupid up ahead.
“You calm down,” I retorted. “My arm is so itchy and you’re taking forever.”
“I’m taking forever,” she repeated, waving at the sea of cars on the highway, the thick dust that choked the side of the road. In the distance the jungle green mountains rose up from the dryness, offering respite. The area around Puerto Vallarta was always an interesting mix of the wild and the urban, the wet and the dry. “Do you want me to drive over the traffic? Because I totally would, you know, if I had a bigger car.”
I sighed, blowing a strand of hair out of my face as the car inched along.
Finally when we reached Nuevo Vallarta, we were already fifteen minutes late. All my sighing and foot tapping (the good foot, of course) couldn’t change that fact. I could only hope Derrin would understand.