Page 125 of Not For Keeps
I wake up the next morning with a sense of bliss washing over me.
Mateo is asleep beside me, one arm flung over my waist, his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm that calms every corner of me. I should be asleep, too, but my mind is wide awake, tracing over every moment that led us here.
I used to lie awake and feel a different kind of quiet. One that echoed with uncertainty. With grief. With the ache of everything I’d lost, everything I thought I’d never have again.
There were nights I couldn’t imagine a version of myself that wasn’t crawling through the wreckage—of Nico, of heartbreak, of loneliness.
Now I’m lying here with my husband. With a new name. With a heart stitched back together by the very same hands that helped pull me from the fire…figurately and literally.
I didn’t just survive. I lived. I laughed again. I kissed again. I let myself fall, even though it scared me. Even when I didn’t know if my legs could hold the weight of it. And somehow, we built a home in the middle of the mess. A home with Sunday pancakes, silly playlists, Ghostface masks, and glitter crowns.
A home with love etched in every corner. Mateo did that.
He shifts slightly, bringing me closer to his body.
I run my fingers through his hair and whisper, “I’m not going anywhere.”
Because I’m not. We made it. Something I thought was not for keeps became my forever. It wasn’t a perfect journey, and it wasn’t always painless—but we did it. Boldly. Together.
And now, until my very last breath, I get to wake up as a Rodriguez. As someone who finally stopped running from the fire and decided to build something beautiful in its place.
Epilogue
MATEO, 6 MONTHS LATER.
It’s been nine months since the fire. Nine months since I nearly lost the two people I love most in this world. Six months since I married Analyse and adopted Maya—since we finally made official what had already been written in our hearts.
And now we’re here.
It’s hard to believe that a year ago, Analyse asked me to be her fake boyfriend. Just for show, just to keep Nico at bay. At the time, I said yes without hesitation, not knowing that her request would change the entire course of my life. That pretending to be hers would feel more real than anything I’d ever known. That somewhere between the fake kisses and made-up stories, I’d fall harder than I ever thought possible—for both of them.
Back then, I didn’t realize how deeply I craved a family. How badly I wanted to be someone’s home. Analyse and Maya gave me that. They gave me purpose, laughter, and love. They gave me everything I needed.
The rental car is quiet, save for the soft hum of music playing from the speakers—something acoustic that Analyse picked, because she said the moment felt like it deserved something soft. California sunlight streams through the windows, warming my forearms as I drive, one hand on the wheel, the other laced with hers.
Her fingers squeeze mine gently, and I glance over. She’s looking out the window, but I can tell she feels it too. The weight of it.
This trip wasn’t easy to agree to. I haven’t been back since the funeral. I couldn’t. Not when the pain still felt like it might choke me in my sleep. But it’s time. Analyse said as much one night, curled up beside me in bed, her hand on my chest.
“I think they’d be proud of you,” she whispered. “And I think they’d want to meet us. All of us.”
So I booked the flights. Took the time off. Packed Maya’s little pink suitcase and steeled myself for a moment I’d avoided for far too long.
Now, as the cemetery comes into view, my pulse kicks up. My chest tightens. But I keep driving. Because this time, I’m not alone.
We pull up the hill and park under the shade of a jacaranda tree, its purple blossoms scattered across the ground like confetti.
“Are we here, daddy?”
Daddy.I still haven’t gotten used to how easily it falls from her mouth, or how right it feels.
“We’re here, princesa,” I say, lifting her out of her booster seat and offering her my hand.
She grabs it and holds tight as we walk up the path, Analyse on my other side, her arm looped through mine. It doesn’t take long to find the headstones. I know exactly where they are. Even after all this time.
There’s a quiet kind of peace up here. Wind rustling the trees. Distant waves crashing below. The ocean was always my mom’s favorite.
I stop in front of the three gravestones—Mom, Dad, and Maribel. My baby sister. The ache in my chest roars to life. I kneel, my fingers brushing over the engraved letters.
