Page 46 of The Last Sunrise

“Don’t say that.” There’s pain in her voice as my words land the way I intended them to.

I huff. “You know it’s true. So, you brought me here to get revenge on someone and ruin their family’s legacy? Are people’s livelihoods really such a game for you? Is money the only thing you care about?” I lean back in my chair and guzzle some of the wine. “I already know the answer, but I want to hear you say it.”

She mirrors me with her wine, except she downs the entire glass and waves the server over to order a bottle.

“I’m not here to get revenge on anyone. I’m here to make a deal for a valuable piece of land to build an in-demand resort on. Just like I’ve been doing for years. The family business that they’re both obsessed with protecting has been sinking for years. I know it’s easy for you to believe that I’m the big bad villain and everything in this world is black-and-white, right or wrong, but you don’t have a clue what you’re talking about regarding this situation.”

Anger bubbles in my chest. Julián’s family will be out of business, a business that spans generations. The very one he talked about, in detail, and it didn’t sound very small to me.I sat there listening to him talk about his life, his heritage—not knowing my mom was actively destroying that. I shudder, considering how many times I was oblivious to my mother and SetCorp doing this in the past. I knew they built fancy hotels and resorts all over the world, but I never thought about what or who lived and worked on the land before they came in with their bulldozers and checks. Her hundreds of business trips, promotions, and bonuses were all at the expense of someone else’s suffering.

“How did you meet him?” She repeats her question from when we first began. “Julián. Did he seek you out purposely?”

I shake my head, snarling at her audacity.

He didn’t, did he?

No way.I have to stop letting her get into my head.

I sigh heavily out of my nose. “No.”

“He appears to be as hotheaded as his father.” She tries to keep her voice steady, but I’ve been studying her mannerisms my entire life, always reading her body language, paying attention to the click of her tongue, the twitch of her brow, the way she looks at my nose instead of my eyes when she’s trying to hide emotion.

My throat is dry as I ask, “How on earth do you know his father?” My mind is rapidly attempting to put the pieces in order. Julián said she destroyed his life…

There’s something there, a deep history with Julián’s father. Something that she’s been suppressing for god knows how long. Julián said his dad has loved her since they were kids.

My entire body aches down to my bones as I try to piece the puzzle together. Was it possible that she once loved him?God, what are the chances? The first time I fall in love with a man—on the other side of the planet, at that—my mother and his father have history. Fate continues to be cruel to me, reminding me that no matter how good life can feel, it will always be returned doubly as pain. I’ve grown used to physical pain but thought I was numb to emotional agony. Clearly that isn’t the case.

“Tell me about his father: How did you meet him? Did you love him? Why would you do this to someone you loved?”

She’s growing tired and uncomfortable having her hidden past exposed to me. I can feel it before she gets to her feet. Defensiveness covers her like a dark cloak, and her eyes turn to slits.

“I’m doing thisbecauseI loved him.”

She yanks the bottle of wine from the ice bucket next to the table and takes it with her as she disappears from the restaurant.

When I get back to my room, it takes everything in me not to hurl into the toilet. I bet if I had eaten something today, that’s exactly what I’d be doing. My mind is a thick fog, my bones feel watery as I mechanically move through my hygiene routine, my mind both empty and overflowing. My ears throb as I wash my hair, not knowing if two or twenty minutes have passed. I step out of the running shower three times to check my phone for a reply from Julián that I know I won’t be getting.

If he would just let me explain… what would I say? That he should look beyond the fact that my mother is single-handedly destroying not just his, but his father’s and all oftheir employees’ lives, while I’m trying on designer dresses for a bullshit charity event?

It’s selfish of me to even think of asking him to look past this, to ever speak to me again. I know that, but it still makes my heart feel as if it’s been shredded into slivers, painfully floating on top of the sea, not heavy enough to go fully under and be swept away, but never to be whole again.

Chapter Seventeen

I wake up to my phone vibrating under my pillow. I grab it with haste, only to be disappointed when I see my mom’s name flashing across the screen. I ignore it, knowing damn well she’s going to call me back or come to my room, but I’m petty enough to smile as I swipe to ignore her call. I shut the phone off, a tiny act of useless rebellion, and walk toward the window. The sun is high today, the street vendors all setting up their carts and tables. My head aches at the temples. I groan and crack the window open, hoping the morning breeze will help.

The air is fresh, and the smell of bakers pulling out their breads and cakes for the day wafts through my room from the bakery next door. My stomach growls, wishing I could teleport a sandwich or pastry to my room. I guess I sort of can, using room service. Using my mother’s tainted money.

I scowl, slamming the window shut. I continue to stare out the glass, getting lost in the realization that everything in my life is dependent on my mom. Her money, her knowledge and rolodex of my doctors and scans and medications. I’d always thought I had done my best to learn to advocate for myself medically, but I really just discussed things withher, her always leading. I hadn’t done shit. I’ve let her steer my life, let her be the center of every major choice, every lack of having a choice. In a fairy-tale version of my life, I’d run to Julián, tell him I’m never going to speak to my mother again, and cut her out of my life. It’s not only impossible, it’s immature.

Everything about me feels immature and selfish… Even the pity I feel for myself right now is massively flawed and privileged. A sad rich girl who’s spending her summer in Spain in a luxurious suite, with a driver and nearly endless spending money, is sad because a boy she just met justifiably hates her and her greedy mother. I lightly bang my head against the glass, wondering how many times I’d have to do that before I have an episode, before everything goes black.

The way I feel isn’t only because of Julián, who I’m devastated about, but it does feel like I’m having an identity crisis. In my head, my mom was just a hard worker. A woman who set out to prove herself and became addicted to her job. But I’ve been sitting idly living off other people’s suffering and loss. On top of that, I’m all too well aware that I haven’t accomplished anything in my life and won’t have the chance to. Julián’s family being ruined by my mom was just the final crack in my delusional mirror of a life I’d pretended to live. I will likely leave the earth and no one except my mother, and maybe Lena, will care. The people my mother has paid to care for me might mourn a little, but I’d be delusional to think their worlds revolved around me. And to Julián I’ll always be known as the spoiled American girl who helped ruin his livelihood, if he even remembers me at all.

If banging my head against this glass actually killed me, my funeral would be nearly empty. No flowers, no one to mourn. My mom would probably take a work call and end it early. A flashback to one of my grief therapists warning me about these types of thoughts comes to the forefront of my mind. According to her and her extensive Ivy League education, the imminent question of “What was my purpose in life?” always catches up to you before you go. I had ignored it many times: when I woke up in the hospital after I seized in the middle of my audition for the best dance academy in Texas and bit my tongue so hard that the judges and screaming trainees thought I was dead; when I saw the tubers on the screen covering my right kidney, and my mother’s wailing nearly drowned out the doctor’s order to remove it; and most recently when staring blankly at my latest MRI results a week before we left to come here. The tubers in my brain had shifted yet again, making for an extremely dangerous surgery, one that stole my best and only friend’s memory and life, and my best option for my potential survival. I weighed the options and will keep my promise to Audra, to myself, that I would rather have my heart stop beating than my mind erased.

I climb back into bed, not knowing what the hell else to do. I can’t face Amara. I can’t stand to see my mother, and Julián can’t stand to see me. I should go back home to Texas. A relief washes over me. That’s exactly what I should do,go the hell home. I came here to have new experiences, to be excited for the time I have, even not knowing how short or long it may be, but now I’m just regressing and feeling sorry for myself. I don’t want my plan to find the joy in life, to relish the things that makelife worth living, forgotten because of my mom and her work, of all things.

I wake up to a knock on my door. The sheets are so cool and soft against my skin, begging me to stay wrapped in them, but whoever is at my door is insistent, unbearably so. I open the door to my mom and one of the women I recognize from my dress fittings, standing in the frame, a rack of dresses behind them. Now isn’t the time to tell my mom I’m getting out of here, that I want nothing to do with her plan or pretend charity, so I concede for now and step out of the way, letting them stroll in. The wheels on the rack creak as I greet the woman.

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