Page 88 of Jagged Line Paradise

“You’re right,” Andrés says, finally breaking the painful tension. “She was an emotionally abusive bitch, and her life wasn’t worth pennies.”

I stand and cross my arms over my chest, wishing there was enough room for me to pace. “Yes. That’s exactly what she was.” I lean down toward him, showing the fury on my face. “She was abitch.” I straighten. “And you know what? Screw her for trying to make peace or whatever on her death bed.”

“What do you mean?”

“She told me to let her go and to find happiness. She told me that…” I pause and my anger takes a break. “She told me about the flip-flops.”

“The flip-flops?”

“When you knew I was missing.” I whirl around and plop back down on the bed beside him. “She said you found my flip-flops and it’s how you knew something wasn’t right.” I pause, placing my sweaty palms on my thighs. “She said she alwayslikedyou. Can you believe that? She was always awful to you, just as much as she was to me.”

“Hmm.” His expression is curious as he tilts his head. “I’m pretty shocked to hear that actually.”

“That she liked you?”

“That she remembered me telling her about your flip-flops that night.” He nudges me with his shoulder. “And it wasn’t just the flip-flops.”

“Yeah?”

“Sure, the flip-flops and sneakers left behind made it pretty obvious that you were wandering around shoeless, which would’ve been unusual for you at best. But really, it was the lip balm.”

“The lip balm?” I shift, reaching into my pocket and pulling out a tube of my favorite brand of tinted lip balm that I’ve used literally forever. “You mean this?”

He nods, then looks down at his hands, wringing them together in his lap. His eyes narrow as his brow crinkles and I feel the pain of that memory wash over him—it washes over us both, really. “I’ll never forget that day.”

I study his face as he blinks through the stress overcoming him. I can see the way it hits him, the way it takes over his mind and soul. I wonder if anyone else would notice it. I wonder if I only notice it because it happens to me the same way.

The pain of those memories comes unexpectedly sometimes, and it hits hard. I fully expect to feel it hit me now—his pain feeding mine—but strangely, it doesn’t. I have strength because he doesn’t. It’s as if I can keep the blackness from creeping across my mind because my focus is shifting to supporthispain.

“Those first few moments,” he begins, his eyes cast downward, “were the most terrifying of my life, Avalon. I knew something was off when you didn’t show to meet me at the bluff for sunset, but it wasn’t until I found the flip-flops and the lip balm that I really knew it was something bad.” He turns his head toward me and smiles just a bit.

I smile back, but both of our grins fade.

“Sorry, sunshine. It’s all just coming back to me now. Your room hasn’t changed all that much in a decade.”

The space is silent because I don’t know what to say. It’s like a punch in the stomach to hear him talk about this because he never did before. The weeks following my kidnapping were all about me—my injuries, my healing, my terror, my trauma. And then he left, and I lost myself.

“Are you okay?” I ask him.

Have Iever asked him that before?

He looks at me, the skin around his eyes wrinkling as he scrutinizes me carefully. “I don’t think either of us really are.”

I pull my knee up onto the bed as I turn to face him, reaching for his hand and holding it between my palms. I look down at his strong hand, idly brushing across his knuckles and twisting our fingers together. “I missed you.”

Andrés sighs, leaning closer. “I missed you.”

“I don’t know how I would’ve gotten through this—my mom…everything—if you hadn’t come back. And I’ve been thinking…because I don’t want to think about it anymore, I don’t want to hold it or deal with it.” I sigh, frustrated with how words are failing me.

Andrés pulls his hand free from my grasp and wraps his arms around me, pulling me close, sinking his fingers into my hair and making me shiver.

I take in a steadying breath and spit out the words before I talk myself out of it. “I want to do the documentary.”

His hold loosens, but not completely. He pulls back just enough to look at me. “You do?”

“My mom wasn’t wrong. I need to find happy.”

“Find happy?”

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