Page 39 of Every Heartbeat After

“And why’s that?”

I chew on my bottom lip. Though it offers no solace, it buys me time. After a minute and some intense eye contact with the moon, I crack open the door to my heart ever so slightly. “I’m scared he’ll be another split decision I make that I can’t come through for, because it hurts too much. And where will that leave him?” Then, softer: “Where will that leave me?”

There. I did it. The thing I couldn’t admit to my best friend, because it felt too much like admitting it to myself. Now out in the open air for him to call ridiculous. Inconsequential.

But he doesn’t, of course. Mo would never.

“It leaves you with us,” he says.

In the quiet that follows, I swear I can hear the fissures of my heart cracking and splitting apart. A feeling like a fossil appears through the cracks. Something I didn’t even realize was there, waiting, just below the surface. It’s painful to look at. Impossible to ignore.

An invisible fist closes around my throat, and my stomach twists in on itself. I grab Mo’s hand and hold it tight so he can’t leave, even though that’s exactly what it feels like I’m doing by voicing the terrible feeling aloud.

“What would happen if I stopped coming here, Mo? To the Carmen, I mean.” I focus on the lone palm tree swaying in the breeze, caught somewhere between me and the glowing moon. “I just— What if it’s time for me to move on? To figure out what I’m supposed to be doing with my life, beyond grieving.”

He doesn’t panic. Doesn’t argue. He simply squeezes my hand twice and sighs.

“I’ve been running in circles,” I say, quieter now, like I’ll offend the universe if I speak my doubts too clearly. “And I don’t really know how to stop. Only that I need to, if I ever want to be able to hold on to anything or anyone long enough for it to matter.” The image of Kit rushes back to the forefront of my mind. Just as quickly, it’s replaced by that of my parents, whose handprints I can still feel beneath me in the concrete. My words catch up to me, roaring like a betrayal in my ears and in my heart. How ungrateful am I? How selfish?

I turn to Mauricio, pleading leaking into my voice. “I’m so sorry. I don’t even know what I’m saying. Please don’t tell Alex or Jenna or Mara. They would be devastated.”

Mo meets my gaze, brown eyes wide open and serene. The exact opposite of what I expected. “You want to know what I think, Tessa?” I nod, and he does, too. “The Carmen is just a place. But the memories you have made here, and how my family feels for you, will never change,querida.You could go anywhere in the whole world, and both of those things would still be with you.” He lifts our entwined hands to catch the stray tear that escapes my eye, smudging it with his thumb. “If you’re looking for something steady, let that be it.”

I swallow, but it doesn’t fix the thousand knots suddenly tying my throat. So instead I offer a trembling smile. My weakest yet. I’m a terrible actress tonight, and something tells me Mo never bought my performances anyway.

“Gracias, Tio.” I release his hand to pinch his cheek. “You are so wise.”

“It’s the gray hairs.” His white teeth flash in a quick smile. “You’ll see some day.”

I offer a close-lipped grin in return. “One can only hope.”

At that, I’m offered a second cigarette. And I accept.

ChapterFifteen

Kit

When I leavefor my jog in the morning, a Do Not Disturb sign swings from the brass knob on Tess’s door. It’s still there come lunchtime, long after I’ve showered and placed an overdue call to Zoey, who both accuses me of being a lovesick idiot and tells me how proud she is in the same long-winded speech. I’m not surprised that Tess is still in bed; the sound of her door closing at two in the morning woke me from a dead sleep. I don’t know how I knew, but instinct led me to the balcony, and there she was. Palm pressed against the dark pool deck and shoulders hunched. I watched long enough for a man I recognized from around the resort to arrive, and then returned to my bed to give them privacy.

Sleep wouldn’t take me back, though. Not until her footsteps thudded down the hall and the telltale squeak of her doorknob turning informed me she’d returned safely to her room.

By the time I spot her at a stool by the outdoor bar in the late afternoon, chatting with the resort owner in hushed tones, I’m feeling off-kilter. My days so quickly adjusted to revolving around her. I don’t know what to do with myself without Tess. Any other woman and I’d consider that a problem. But the syrupy-sweet relief that floods my veins upon seeing her takes up too much space in my head, leaving no room to overanalyze why everything’s different when it comes to her.

I step fully onto the patio, letting the glass door to the restaurant fall shut behind me. She hones in on me instantly. She mutters something to the owner, and his gaze tracks to me. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that’s pity on his face. And I’ve never been accused of knowing better.

Tess braces her ring-laden fingers on the countertop as she slips from her seat. She’s wearing flowy, white linen pants that shift and stir around her long legs as she crosses the bar to meet me where I’m standing. Waiting. Because I know an, I-need-to-talk-to-you face when I see one.

“Look at you, finally up and at ’em,” I say when she’s a few feet away. My joke lands like a cracked egg on pavement. She doesn’t offer so much as a courtesy laugh as she closes the rest of the distance, stopping only when there’s a respectable foot or two of awkward silence hanging between us. I cock my head, studying the tight set of her mouth and her wringing hands. “Is everything all right, Tess?”

She rocks onto her toes and glances sheepishly down at her brown woven leather sandals. Even if her absence today hadn’t been a dead giveaway that something has shifted, her complete lack of sarcastic commentary—or any commentary, really—would do me in.

So this is the part where she pulls away. I knew things were going too well, that I’d won her over too easily. Or if not won her over, at least convinced her that spending time with me wasn’t the end of the world. Now it seems even that fragile belief has been damaged.

The most masochistic part of me doesn’t want to accept it. I blame him for asking, “Do you want to talk about it over dinner? There’s a place close to the aquarium that’s got great reviews?—”

At the mention of the aquarium, her gaze flashes to mine. Her eyes are glossy with tears. The sheen dulls the Sprite-bottle green of her irises, giving them the appearance of tempered sea glass.

Her lips part, then close. Part again. This time, with a breathy voice, she says, “I’ve been thinking…”

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