Page 54 of Guarding the Star

Zoe hands me a coffee. Doesn't ask. She knows. That's what I love about this team. Almost all of my teammates just know what I need at any given moment. She doesn't say a word, just sits beside me with a look that says if you need anything, anything at all, I'm here.

Wesley comes back with his green ball and a crumpled drawing. He gives it to me.

It's the dragon Pola. Four legs. Fire coming out of its mouth. And next to the dragon, two stick figures. One tall with long black hair. Another with yellow hair and something that looks like a ponytail. They're holding hands.

“Iwis and Pola,” he explains, pointing with his tiny finger.

“Thanks, boss,” I whisper, and turn my face so he won't see me cry.

***

The days pass. Monday. Tuesday. Wednesday.

I show up to every practice on time. I score in the scrimmages. I train well. Hades says nothing, and I guess that means there's nothing to say. Tina catches my eye in the locker room. Lucía passes me the coconut shampoo without being asked. Jamie punches my shoulder.

Nobody asks about Paula. Nobody says her name. She's disappeared from all of our lives like a magic trick. A collective silence, an unspoken agreement that I'm grateful for and that tears me apart at the same time.

Some nights I sleep on the couch. No television. No podcast. Nothing. Just because it hurts less than sleeping in a bed without her. It'll pass. If anyone asks, I say I'm fine. But I feel completely hollow.

I guess the silence is where the truth lives, and the truth is I'm in love with a woman who left. It's ironic. The universe has a garbage sense of humor. I used to be the one who hurt people, the one who broke hearts, the one who never let anyone get close. Now it's my turn. Karma is a bitch, because there isn't enough noise or chaos in this world to cover how much this is going to hurt.

My eyes sting when I think of her, but I don't cry. Iris Vance doesn't cry. Iris Vance sits on a couch in the dark and watches the rain fall through the window.

I don't sleep either. My head fills with memories of a woman who has a mole below her collarbone that I once claimed as my territory.

Chapter 18

Paula

I switch jobs. I can't walk into my old firm knowing Iris could have died because of me. They assign me to protect the founder of a well-known tech company. A five-person team and zero emotional risk, with set hours.

Now all my days are the same. Up at six. Coffee. Run through Volunteer Park. Shower. Laptop. Reports. Make sure nobody gets near the person I'm protecting. Dinner. Bed. Repeat.

I don't watch soccer games. I don't open Instagram. I don't search her name.

On day ten, I call my grandmother.

I need to hear her voice. Tell what happened to someone who loves me without conditions, even when I screw up by falling for the person I'm supposed to protect.

But Mama Celo doesn't work that way. My grandma listens for a couple minutes and then cuts you off. After that, you're the one who listens.

“Tell me everything,” she says. “Not that ridiculous version you've been using to justify why you ran out of her life.”

So I tell her. Everything. The nights together. The small things. How Iris cooked for me, and I pretended it was delicious, even though it wasn't. I tell her about Wesley and his dragon named Pola. About the credentials I didn't check because I chose not to wake her. Derek Linden in the tunnel with the flowers. How instead of flowers, it could have been a gun, and Iris would be dead because of me.

Like Valentina.

My grandmother listens. Lets me finish. And when I stop talking, the silence stretches so long I check the screen to make sure the call hasn't dropped.

“With Valentina, you hid. You were with her, but in secret. You slept in her bed and went back to your post before sunrise. You felt something, but you never said it. Not to her, not to your firm, not to anyone. And when you don't say what you feel, everything goes to shit.”

“Abuela…”

“No, listen. If you had told Valentina what you felt, you would have stopped being her bodyguard, and you would have been her partner. And partners protect differently. They protect from beside you, not from the shadows. What failed with Valentina wasn't your feelings. It was keeping your mouth shut and burying them.”

I let out a long breath.

“And now you're doing the same thing, only worse. Because this time you did tell her. You showed her you cared. You chose to hold her through a nightmare instead of checking those credentials. You made a mistake. You've left your job. Don't also leave that woman when it's obvious you're in love. Don't hide. And eat something real, you're too skinny,” she adds.