Page 76 of Fake Love

“You have nothing to be sorry about,” he says, bringing me closer to him and placing a small kiss against my hair. “I didn’t do it. I didn’t go looking for something that would ruin all my progress. You’re here, you’re safe and that is all that matters.”

All that matters.

We may have only known each other for a few months, but in those few months we have grown to care about each other.

I care about him and he cares about me.

He cares about me enough that not knowing if I was okay almost caused him to relapse and stop all the progress that he has made. Everything would have been for nothing. All because of me.

I don’t say anything after that. I just continue to lie in his arms and let tears flow until sleep takes me.

I’m not under the cloud of sleep just yet when he speaks again.

“This may be fake, Jennifer, but losing you will destroy me. Just like losing my mom would.”

In my dreams, I promise him that he will never lose me, not even when this arrangement ends.

22

JULY 11, 2022

Maddox

When she first told me that the aquarium was a safe place for her, I didn’t really understand it. I just thought it was a place where she made a lot of memories as a kid.

But as I watch her as she sits on the floor looking at the creatures in front of us, I see why she said it. I see why this is a safe place for her.

In the last two weeks, she’s been on high alert. Every little thing makes her jump and not wanting to spend any time alone, not even for sleep.

Since the festival she has either slept at my place or Selena’s, only going to her place to get clothes and making sure her plants haven’t died.

She won't say it but that day and what happened really messed with her head and my confession of what it did to me, sure as hell didn’t help.

Yet as she sits cross-legged on the floors, she’s calmer, a lot more relaxed.

Maybe it’s the environment of the place. Maybe it’s the two individuals that are sitting next to me that are looking at her with love and adoration.

Whatever it might be, Jennifer Zaragoza is in her element. So much in her element that I’m finding myself taking pictures of her just so I can capture her being in the moment.

Capturing her as the person that I’ve come to know and care about but haven’t seen much of in two weeks.

“That’s a beautiful picture,” Jen’s mom, Dana, whispers as she looks as I survey my handy work with the camera.

A small blush creeps up my face at the fact that I was caught taking pictures of her daughter.

All star break officially started yesterday after our afternoon game against Los Angeles. After the Miners won three to two, Jen and I got in the car and drove down to her hometown of Seaside to visit her parents. A short trip since we are flying out to Chicago early, but one she was excited about it.

One she needed, no doubt.

Given the amount of pictures of us together there are online, her parents were eager to meet me, so we thought that this would be a good opportunity.

It was close to a three hour drive since we drove along the coast, but the smile on Jen’s face when she opened the door to get out of the car made it worth it.

Her parents were so happy to see her, that they all hugged the second she walked into the house. The hugs lasting for a good five minutes before they remembered that there was someone else in the room.

Both Dana and her husband Javier, welcomed me with open arms. I guess their daughter had never brought a boy home and me being the first was a time to celebrate.

It was at dinner that I learned that Jen can speak fluent Spanish. It was the rapidness in how she spoke that left me in awe.

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