Page 74 of The Delivery

Miramontes cocks his head looking slightly confused.

“I don’t know what he told you about us. But I only came to him when he was a teenager. He obviously chose his drug-addicted mother over me when I gave him the chance. Even at six-years-old, he wanted nothing to do with me. His mother put too many notions inside of his head.”

“I thought you were a waiter,” I say, my anger leaking out between every word.

“No. I have always been a businessman. I started small and worked my way to the top. Moisés could have started at the top, but he’s too selfrighteous to accept anything from me.”

“He had me believe that he was looking for Brisa—that he thought she was dead.”

“He was looking for her. I contacted him once on his thirteenth birthday. I told him he could inherit my assets, be the next in line in the kingdom I’ve created. He nearly spat in my face. I told him Ana María wouldn’t make it to adulthood without him. He still walked away saying he didn’t believe me.”

I’m proud of Moisés for standing up to this man. I feel a fresh surge of admiration for Mo flush me with heat.

“He probably took that to mean you would kill her. Not that she needed an organ donation.”

“I paid him fairly for the surgery. I hope he recovers well. The man in there is not my son. He is foolhardy. An idealist. A belligerent one. Painting walls will never accomplish anything. My guess is he’s met his match, I hope you both will be happy. “

With that Beto Miramontes turns and strides away down the hall. I fall back into the chair and run my hands over my face. I hate being lied to more than anything else. But somehow my heartstrings are pulled even tighter for Moisés even though he didn’t feel like he could share his whole truth with me. I stand and numbly walk to the room he’s just exited. I put my hand on the door, but instead of pushing it, I lower my face and bang my forehead against it.

He says he wants to marry me but he can’t even be honest enough to share his identity. I’d love to imagine that he believes he’s keeping me in the dark for my own safety. Or that he himself was unsure of all these connections. But all of those things are excuses and not part of the reality I need to face.

I turn and walk away down the hall. My heart is so heavy with this painful burden called love. I’d like to drop kick it like a football with all of my might. Kick love for being so optimistic and eager and willing to forgive. Love needs to grow some balls and stop flitting around all flushed and tipsy from something he said—from-every-single-little-stupid-thingthat- he-ever-said to me. I spent three years of my life pining for him. Now I’ll probably spend three hundred regretting that I ever laid eyes on him.

CHAPTER 35

Iget in the taxi line outside of the main entrance. I try not to think about his paintings or his smile or the silver rings against his brown skin. I will myself to forget his smell and the way his arms feel when they’re wrapped tightly around me. I force myself to walk away from his wounded body and extinguish the need to go to him. One of the Miramonte’s security guards spots me in the line. He moves down the walkway with a meaningful gait, his jacket flapping open in front from the momentum. I turn my body to angle it away from him, even though he’s already seen me. I look like a fool standing the wrong way in line with everyone else facing me. We have a whispered yelling argument about my transportation back to the hotel. I prefer a taxi while he prefers dragging my ass out of line by the arm. I hit him in the bicep, which is like a bunny paw slapping a boulder.

“Let me go, you fuck! I’m done with this job, finished. I’m leaving today and without him!”

“I’m under orders to provide you security. If you just come with me then I won’t have to hurt you.”

There’s the heartbroken Lana who wants to give up because I don’t care if they kill me. Then there’s the Lana the fighter who wants to go live the best life she can just to show Moisés that she’s perfectly fine without him. I give in somewhere in between because I’m too tired to fight him and plus, he’s got a gun and all I’ve got is a sweaty t-shirt and a purse full of tissues and crushed vending machine donuts.

I’m silent in the back of the SUV on the way to the hotel. I lay my head back and meditate on trust and it’s necessity in life. I can’t have a relationship with Mo if he can’t tell me the truth. What would that even be? Like I’m going to marry some guy with a secret identity—a husband who lies to me.

I jump out of the car before the security guard can get down to let me out.

“Thanks for the lift,” I say, slamming the door. As I stride away from him toward the hotel, I look back to make sure he’s not following me and then I flip him the finger. It feels good, so I do it with both hands and hold them extended in his direction. I almost walk into a family exiting with two little children. I stuff my hands in my back pockets, nod “sorry” and then keep my head down, eyes glued to the floor.

Back in the room, I have to physically hold myself back from smelling his stuff. I dump my clothes in my rolling suitcase, dirty mixed with clean, and throw in all of the remaining hotel amenities. Now that I’m broke, I’ve got to take advantage of free things. I lie back on the bed and think about how I could have faired better if I were honest from the beginning. Honest with Mo, when I first met him. Honest with Dale about how I wasn’t in love with him. Honest with my parents about how much it sucked to support them. Honest with myself about not wanting this to be over. Ever. I’m not ready.

I’m splitting into a million pieces as tears rush down my temples, wetting my ears and my hair. I’m no longer a whole person, just a mess of fractured, meaningless orbiting pieces.

I don’t know where to go. I don’t have a plan. Anything I come up with only sounds miserable without Mozey. I’ll be relegated to toil the boring earth for eternity always searching to replace his singular beauty. Not only that, I’ll never meet anyone else who can tease me and make me feel silly and loved and turned on with a joke at my expense or a punch in my arm. I love how he laughs when I’m grouchy and forces me to speak about my feelings. I love how his searing kiss can steal the breath out of my lungs and the beat from my heart.

My phone rings. It’s Lex. I pick it up even though I don’t feel like being lectured.

“What’s happening, Lana? Did he pull through, is he okay?”

“What about “how are YOU feeling, Lana, after being nothing but lied to?”

“So he’s fine?”

I feel mean because I can hear the panic in his voice.

“He’s okay, he’s going to be alright. I just don’t think I can do us, because I don’t even know who he really is.”

I’m folding and refolding Mozey’s discarded shirt. I won’t let myself pick it up because it will cause me to do something pathetic like nuzzle my face into it and jam it in my suitcase so I can sleep with it under my pillow until it’s lost every trace of his scent.

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