He went back to Claudia, put his arm around her, and led her away to give me and Mateo privacy.

By now, the tears were spilling down my cheeks, my nose running. I quickly wiped it on my arm and almost smiled at how much of a mess I must have looked, my hair sticking to my wet face, my nose all red and snotty.

Mateo’s eyes crinkled, that beautifully soft look, and he came over to me with open arms. He swept me to him, embracing me as hard as he could. I gripped the back of his jacket like a lifeline, not caring if I was wrinkling it, and held on tight. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t feel my heart beat. I felt like I was stuck—trapped in panic, in pain, and the only reason I wasn’t falling to the ground and shattering like glass was because of his arms.

And then it all came out in a wet cry, the emotion unleashed. I needed to hold it together but my body was in a war of being so overcome with grief and sadness that it was locking up with the need to let everything go.

But I couldn’t let it all go. Not here. Not now. Not with him anymore.

That time was over. That little life I had for a month—that was over.

It was just a memory.

“Vera,” Mateo said gruffly into my ear, squeezing me tight. “Don’t give up on us.”

Then he relaxed, releasing me, and took a step back.

I caught my breath, gulping the air down. I stared at him, seeing the sorrow on his brow and in the tightness of his jaw. And I still couldn’t speak.

He raised his hand to wave.

I managed to wave back.

Then, using every ounce of will and energy I had left, I turned around and headed for the cab. The cab driver took my backpack and threw it in the trunk and gestured for me to get in the backseat.

I told myself not to look back.

But I did.

Mateo was still standing there, his hand raised. He then put his hand on his heart.

My breath hitched painfully and I forced myself to get in the backseat. The door closed, a barrier between me and the man, the love I would never see again.

We pulled away from the curb and I watched behind me, craning in my seat, until Mateo disappeared from view.

I’d gone crazy.

Absolutely assfuck crazy.

After eighteen hours, no sleep, three layovers, and abused tear ducts, I finally landed in Vancouver as a complete zombie, drained of emotion and numb to the world. Though it was a nice change from the hours of crying into my shitty airline food and downing beers in an attempt to drown my feelings, it didn’t help my mental stability whatsoever. I kept feeling this pain that wanted to come out; my brain kept wanting to dwell on things I was too afraid to embrace.

The culture shock, though, was immediately jarring. And surprising, since I had lived in Vancouver my entire life. Suddenly I was looking at things written in Mandarin and hearing Canadian accents spoken at a rapid pace. Everything was sterile looking, modern and boring. People barely smiled and they didn’t make eye contact. When I grabbed my pack from baggage claim and stepped outside to wait for my brother, I was hit with damp air and dark grey skies. It was July. It was raining.

Thankfully it didn’t take long for a black VW Golf, just as my brother had promised, to come roaring up to the curb.

Josh got out of the driver’s seat and raised his arms. “I’m here!”

And finally, I had my first smile in what felt like a very long time. Josh. Despite everything, I had fucking missed him.

“Shit, you’re tanned,” he said, coming around the car to hug me. When he got closer he grimaced. “You also look like shit.”

“Yeah, thanks,” I said, giving him my backpack. He threw it in the trunk then gave me a big bear hug.

For some reason I thought he’d look different after six weeks, but he looked the same as always. Josh had been a fairly awkward teenager until he was nineteen. Then he stopped growing (thank God, cuz he was 6’2” at sixteen), gained muscle, his face cleared up, and his stutter disappeared. He had my dad’s ice blue eyes and my mother’s dark brown hair which he died black. He had a lip ring that he sometimes wore, and full sleeves and a ton of other tattoos, thanks to my influence. I knew Jocelyn thought he was a total “bad boy hottie,” but that description of my brother honestly made me want to barf. Josh, in some ways, was a bad boy, but the hottie thing was beyond what I was willing to admit.

“Good to have you home,” he said. He pulled away and frowned. “I’m guessing the feeling isn’t mutual.”

“I’m really tired,” is all I managed to say.

I didn’t speak much during the forty-five minute car ride through the city to our house. I couldn’t speak. My chest felt empty, everything felt hollow inside me. It was like I was suffering the worst emotional hangover of my life. In fact, it was like a life hangover. Is this what it felt like to die? When our lives were over, did we feel this same loss, this same ache for all the experiences we had just gone through?

Josh talked though, conscious of how I was feeling and needing to fill the car. He was good at that, picking up on other people’s feelings. I didn’t listen, I just stared out the rain-splattered window of his new car. The buildings here looked so plain and boring, no history to them at all. Everyone was rushing to get somewhere, stomping through puddles. Though Vancouver was beautifully green, it looked dark and gloomy under the skies. Even the sight of the North Shore Mountains, normally breathtaking above the shiny glass high rises of downtown, didn’t stir anything in me. I was just a shell.

I really needed to sleep.

When we pulled down the alley toward the back driveway of our house, Josh told me our mother had planned a surprise that wasn’t really a surprise. She had ordered in sushi. Now, my mother didn’t cook and never had, so ordering in was nothing new, and we often ordered in or got sushi for take-out several times a week (you, like, have to eat sushi in Vancouver or they’ll boot you from the city). I knew he was just trying to make me feel better about being home, so I gave him a quick smile and then brought out my phone again. Now that airplane mode was off and I wasn’t roaming, I was desperate to see if I’d gotten any texts or emails from Mateo.

I hadn’t.

I sighed and put it away. Josh noticed as he parked behind the house and nodded to my purse. “I never saw you update very much on Facebook. I thought you would have been all over that. No drunk photos of the Spanish flag wrapped around you or drinking sangria. Nothing.”

I shrugged. “There wasn’t really any time to go on Facebook.” And besides, this life here didn’t exist at all when I was at Las Palabras.

Our house was pretty nice—a narrow three stories with a small front lawn and a tall solid fence for privacy—but the lot it was on was worth an absurd amount of money. My mother, being a real estate agent and all, planned on sitting on the lot so she would “really make a killing.” With the way the real estate market kept rising, then stalling, then rising again, it looked as if she’d be trying to make a killing for years to come.

Josh got my pack out of his trunk and swung it up on his shoulder with ease. Guess he’d been upping his workouts at the gym. “You never said a word about Herman.”

I raised a brow. “Herman?”

“My car. He’s German, ya?”

“Aren’t cars supposed to be chicks?”

He rolled his eyes. “You’re so sexist.”

“Look, do you really want to say, ‘I’m going to go take Herman for a ride,’ or ‘I love filling up Herman?’”

He shrugged as we walked through the single-car garage where Mom’s Volvo was kept. “I’m not a homophobe. Besides, Kit, Hasselhoff’s car in Knight Rider, that was a guy. Shit, so was Herbie in the Love Bug.”