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I don’t know how, but I did as he said. I got out of my chair and made my way around the table to the middle of the room where Jerry quickly pulled me into a hug. He handed the paper to me and made me smile with him at Manuel who had started taking pictures. I think I smiled anyway. I couldn’t even focus on the fact that my laugh, which I had been told was infectious, had gotten me an award.

I should have gotten an award for being a villain instead.

Chapter Fifteen

“Get up, sleepyhead.”

I groaned and opened one eye. The bedroom was filled with light. I slowly rolled over, hair in my face, to see Claudia sitting on the edge of the bed. I hadn’t even heard her come in.

“What time is it?” I asked, my throat raw as I reached for a glass of water from my bedside. My mouth tasted sour.

“It’s ten minutes before you are late for breakfast,” she said.

“Ugh,” I said after I drained the glass. “Can’t I just sleep all day? They know I’m sick.”

She gave me a look. “No, you can’t. It’s our second to last day. You felt fine when you went to bed.”

That was true. Seconds after I received the award for “best laugh” from Jerry, I was struck again by the need to vomit. I didn’t know if it was my nerves, the fear, or the food, but suddenly I was running for the bathroom and throwing up in the stall. After that, I wasn’t in the mood to hang around and party with everyone, and I really wasn’t in the mood to face Mateo, so Claudia took me home in Peter the Everything Man’s van. I went right to bed with a heart full of turmoil, tossing and turning for most of the night.

All I could think about was how hard I tried not to be the other woman. I couldn’t pretend anymore that I cared about Isabel’s well-being, because the honest bitchy truth was that I didn’t. I didn’t know her—all I knew was that she was wrong for him and he didn’t love her. But I did know what my parents’ divorce did to me, and I had no wish to do that to Chloe Ann.

But, as Mateo said, I didn’t seem to have a choice in it. My heart had fluttered when I thought about his words. That I had bewitched him. That I shone.

That I made him forget his vows.

How could such a thing make me both sick to my stomach and so extraordinarily blissful at the same time?

“Are you going to get up or do I need to get another glass of water and pour it on your head?” Claudia said, smacking my leg.

“Wow, you got mean,” I said. I slowly sat up and exhaled like I hadn’t let out a breath all night.

“How are you really feeling?” she asked me. She hadn’t said a word about Mateo last night, which I appreciated.

I shook my head sadly. “I don’t know. I don’t know how I feel.”

“What happened on the patio? I was dying for a cigarette but I didn’t want to interrupt.”

I crossed my legs under me and looked down at my hands pressed together. “He kissed me.”

I shot her a quick look to gauge her reaction. She was smiling broadly.

“Don’t smile,” I admonished her. “It’s not a good thing.”

“Not a good thing? Vera, what is wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with me?” Lord, where did I begin with that?

“Was it a bad kiss?”

“No,” I said, body trembling at the memory, my lips tingling with electricity. I lightly touched them with my fingertips. “It was the best kiss I ever had.”

“Then there is something wrong with you.”

“He’s married.”

“Is he?” she mocked, mouth open. “I had no idea. It’s like you never talk about that.”

I glared at her. “It doesn’t bother you?”

Her eyes roamed the room in thought. Finally she said, “No. Because I see you together and I know that there is something special there. It’s not silly or…what is the word…frivolous? It is real.”

“He said I made him forget his vows, that I’m already the other woman.”

Her eyes bugged out. “He said that? Wow. Mateo…he is really opening up.”

“Yeah, well, that’s why I don’t know how I feel. I just want to stay in my room here all day.”

“Away from him?”

“It would be safer.”

She smiled softly. “There is no safe anymore, Vera. You know that.”

“Then what do you propose I do?” I hated that she was right. The walls wouldn’t protect me, not the ones in this room, not the ones I had carefully built around my heart.

“You want my advice?” she asked. I nodded. She got off the bed and stared down at me. “I say, fuck it. Go for it. The damage is done. You’re leaving in a few days. You might as well spend the little time you have left together. Don’t regret anything. Go be with him. Soon, he will only be a memory.”

My eyes started to water at that. I nodded and exhaled loudly. The damage was already done. I could hide from him, leave him, leave Spain feeling that I never quite touched the stars. Or I could go for it, risk the cold of deep space for a chance to feel alive. If he was going to be nothing but a memory to me, if he was going to go on with his life and I was to go on with mine, I wanted a memory that would change me, make me born anew.

I looked at her, feeling stripped again. “Is it wrong that it makes me so happy to think a man like him could ever want a girl like me?”

“I told you that the heart has no regard for time,” she said, walking to the door. “The heart has no regard for what’s right or what’s wrong.” She paused in the doorway. “Forget Jerry’s table seating. I’m saving a seat for you so you better hurry up!”

She left the room, shutting the door. The walls crumbled around me.

* * *

At breakfast, everyone looked hung over. I tried to make eye contact with Mateo but he was sitting with Wayne, Eduardo, and Polly. I guess the whole seating rules went out the window and everyone was sitting with their friends.

True to her word, Claudia saved me a seat, and I sat with her, Ricardo, and Becca. Becca showed me pictures on her phone that explained why everyone looked so rough. After I left, the drinking and partying went on for a long time. A part of me was sad that I missed that, but I knew I made the right choice in leaving. I could have ended up like Sammy who, in one picture, was making out with Froggy Carlos, and in the next, she was making out with the mannequin outside of the restaurant, the sign now hanging around Froggy’s neck.

I barely ate anything at breakfast, which was all due to nerves this time. My skin felt like it was vibrating and my knee kept bouncing beneath the table. From time to time I glanced over at Mateo, hoping to make eye contact but Wayne’s big fat head was always in the way.

As soon as Jerry updated the schedule for the day, I was over there, looking it over in hopes that I had a session with Mateo.

I did. A business session after lunch, much like our first session together.

The siesta.

A shiver rolled down my back at the thought.

The next few hours ticked by like molasses, not to say I wasn’t enjoying myself. I had one-on-ones with Sara, Manuel, and Paco, which went fine. With Sara we talked about her job, with Manuel we talked about music, with Paco we talked about immigration issues in Spain. It was an amazing improvement when you thought back to how they were at the start of the month. Now we were all able to converse fluently, and like old friends.

I didn’t get to see Mateo at lunch either. He had come in late and taken the table closest to the door, unfortunately having to sit with Lauren. After a while I started to think that maybe he was ignoring me. Maybe he regretted what we did last night and decided he didn’t want anything to do with me. I wouldn’t have been surprised, considering the situation he was in, but I had to say the thought was slowly ripping me apart.