Page 17 of After the Fire
After my grandfather was taken in the eighties, she had to figure out how to live without him. They were wealthy, well-off, so she was taken care of. Her group of friends supported her. It was such a tragic situation that everyone came out to help her. She had been—still was—respected by society and had Pedro walking with her every step of the way. He was like a grandfather—the one we never had.
And Susana really sacrificed it all. She loved my grandfather; his disappearance was hard on her in more ways than one. She was never able to replace him. I always thought that deep in her heart, she believed he was alive somewhere. Sometime in the nineties, there was a rumor going around that he was seen in Mexico, but that was only a case of mistaken identity. That had the whole family hoping, something they hadn’t done since his disappearance.
And then there was the photo. In Santiago’s family home, of all places. Why was life trying to bring him close to me when I wanted to be miles away—maybe even in a different world than him?
“Victoria?”Oh my god. Why?I rolled my eyes as I turned around and saw him standing there with his arms on either side of his body, smiling. That easy, slow smile that gave the butterflies in my stomach an invitation to take flight. “Good morning,” he added, his smile finally reaching his eyes.
“Seriously, I can’t get away from you. It’s like you have spies in this town that tell you where I am.”
He hummed softly, a sparkle in his blue eyes.
“You know that Iamfrom here, right?” he said as he scanned my face. “It’s also averysmall town. There are not many places you can go without running into people.Pueblo chico, infierno grande.”Small town, big hell.I wholeheartedly agreed.
I sighed, turning back to admire the view. The dark clouds were moving into town faster than what it looked like earlier that day. The wind picked up speed, and the trees across the way danced with urgency.
“You left quickly last night.”
“Uh-huh.” I looked down at my hands, my fingers moving nervously on my lap. I couldn’t look him in the eye because I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that I would tell him everything that was going on with me the minute his eyes were on mine.
Santiago was so different than what I was used to. He was happy. I had seen it all over town. IthoughtI was happy, but it was becoming clearer to me that the things I had—my relationship, my family, my memories—were superficial. A house of cards.
“Look at me. Stop avoiding me.”
Goosebumps covered my back at his commanding attitude.
“I can’t. It’s too much, I think. I made a mistake, and I don’t know how to fix it, and I’m humiliated and embarrassed and scared. Buried deep in a hole that I can’t get myself out of. And now, apparently, I’m babbling to the last person that wants to hear about my mishaps.”
“Why do you keep saying that, Vee? Isn’t it obvious that I enjoy your company?”
Vee.He called me Vee again. No one ever called me that. A few people called me Vicky growing up, but Susana shut them down immediately, saying that nicknames were beneath us and that Vicky was such acommonnickname. And we were anything but.
I couldn’t look at him still, but I could hear him moving, his body heat occupying the space to my right.
“Why are you here, really? What happened to you?”
“Well… um…” I licked my lips. My throat was completely dry, and I could feel a knot forming. I swallowed, hard, but the knot didn’t budge. If I said this out loud, it would automatically make it real. Could I maybe hold it in a little longer? Live in denial for maybe just a few more moments, making it real only in my head, only for me and my little universe of one.
My heart started beating fast. My pulse galloped, and sweat began collecting at the base of my neck. The hairs on the back of my head stood to attention. Santiago’s eyes swept my body, top to bottom, stopping for a fraction of a second on my eyes, lingering there almost like he was pleading with me to tell him.
“Manuel cheated on me, I think. No, actually, I’m almost one hundred percent certain he did. So I ran away instead of facing that head-on.” I buried my face in my hands, taking a deep breath, and kept going. “The morning of my wedding, I woke up to a text message from an unknown number. I thought it was a vendor that was most likely asking for last minute details and as soon as I opened it, I saw a photo of Manuel with a woman in bed—my bed. And, like, whatever, it could be anyone. Like, maybe it was doctored. But in the days I’ve been here, he’s not contacted me once.Not a single call, no voicemail. I’m sorry, butwhat?What the fuck, Santiago, who does that?If he wanted an out, he could’ve talked to me. We are in our thirties; we’re not kids anymore. We’ve been together for seven fucking years. Seven years of my life he just took from me, and I’m never getting them back. And honestly, I just want to laugh at this point. It sounds so ridiculous…” I breathed, realizing only then that I had just uttered the words without pause. “Sorry, I ju—I feel like an idiot. No, Iaman idiot because I let this happen to me. How did I let this happen? How did I even—”
“Stop.” He turned, bending his left leg and setting it on the seat. His whole body was now facing me. He moved his hands a millimeter, almost like he was trying to reach out for mine, but then placed his left hand on the back of the bench, his right one playing with his shoelaces. “Stop it, immediately. You are no idiot, you know that. Everybody that knows you, even for a minute, knows that, so stop. You calling yourself names changes nothing. So let’s move on from there.” He expelled a breath and looked to the left. “Who sent you that photo? Do you have any idea?”
All I could do was shake my head. My face was still buried in my hands because I was embarrassed, so deeply embarrassed.
“What do you want? Look at me,” he said as I turned my head to look into those eyes. His expression was serious. “What do you need from me? I’ll make it happen.”
Honestly, I didn’t even know because this was only, like, half of my problems right now. I hadn’t even told him about what I saw in his family’s home. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what was going on there.
“Tell me about your cases right now. I need a distraction. I think I need to figure this out on my own.”
He sighed a loud sigh.“Not something that I want to talk about right now, actually,” he added as he looked up at the sky, like he was trying to figure out where the clouds were coming from. “Do you want to know something that I’ve never told anyone?”
My ears perked up, not because of this strange admission and immediate intimacy, but because he had, so far, seemed so transparent, like he had never kept a secret. My eyes went wide, and I immediately scrunched my face.
“Uh… sure? I mean, do you trust me with such an important secret?” I winced as soon as those words left my mouth, and I tried to hide it with an awkward smile. Maybe he was only telling me this because I had been vulnerable with him? Like a secret for a secret.
He turned to look at me and cleared his throat.
