Then she says, “My father made an arrangement before I came here.”
I blink water out of my eyes.
An arrangement.
That is such a wildly unhelpful combination of words that for a moment, I honestly just stare at her and wait for the part where this starts making any kind of sense.
“What kind of arrangement?”
Her mouth presses into a thin line. She looks past me again at the tile wall, at the shampoo bottles over my shoulder, anywhere but my face.
“Natalia.”
“A marriage.”
The word doesn’t register at first. It lands somewhere near my ear, bounces off the inside of my skull, and disappears into the steam.
I actually laugh.
Not because it’s funny. Because my brain has apparently decided the best way to handle absolute bullshit is to reject it on impact.
“A what?”
This time she does look at me, and I almost wish she hadn’t. There’s nothing soft in her face now, nothing flushed or uncertain. Just a flat, terrible kind of resolve.
“An alliance,” she says. “Between my father’s organization and a cartel family in Colombia.”
My stomach drops.
“Nat—”
Her chin lifts.
“My father promised me to one of them. In two months I’ll be married.”
The water keeps running. Steam keeps rising. And something behind my ribs cracks clean in half.
18
JOHNNY
My heart is a hammer,threatening to crack my ribs.
The air is too hot, too wet, too heavy. The shower keeps running, beating against the back of my neck, my shoulders, the tile, the floor, and none of it can wash away the cold that just split me open down the middle.
My father promised me to one of them.
The sentence will not stop replaying. Each pass strips another layer off whatever I thought was happening between us thirty seconds ago, when my mouth was on her throat and the wordminewas the truest thing I’d ever said.
And she knew.
The whole time, she knew there was already something else waiting outside this room. Another man. Another future. Some arrangement with his name tied to hers in ways I don’t understand yet. She knew, and she still stood here with me, still let me touch her like none of it existed.
The feeling that tears through me is instant and ugly. Hurt first, sharp enough to make my chest feel caved in. Then jealousy right behind it, hot and irrational and mean. Some faceless man I have never met is suddenly in the room with us, crowding every inch of air, and the animal part of my brain wants to put my fist through the wall until it stops being true.
For one sick second I’m angry ather.
For not telling me sooner. For letting me stand here naked with her with my heart cracked open while she had this waiting behind her teeth. For letting me say things I had no business saying when she knew there was already another future waiting for her.
