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.
“I don't know, abuela. I think it might be too late to fix this,” I say.
“Nonsense. If you don't try, if you let her go out of fear, you'll regret it for the rest of your life. And I don't want a granddaughter who lives with regret. I want a brave one.”
She hangs up. Just like that. So I do what she says: I heat up leftovers from the fridge and eat them standing, staring at the wall, with no idea how to fix any of this.
***
Day thirteen, I get a text from Zoe.
“Iris is okay. She hasn't gone out partying… yet. She's training like a machine. She doesn't talk about you, which means she can't stop thinking about you. Wesley asks about Pola a lot. We told him you're traveling, but I don't think he bought it.”
The next day, Tessa writes.
“I'm not going to tell you what to do, but here's something: it took me seven years to stop running.
If you can do it in less, you're ahead. Though I'll warn you, if you wait too long, it might not work.
By the way, Iris went to see Jordan Hayes, the club psychologist. On her own.
She told her, 'I don't know why I'm here' and stayed forty minutes.
She seemed calmer when she came out. I don't know what they talked about. Do what you want with that.”
Iris went to therapy. Iris, who runs from introspection, who covers vulnerability with jokes and noise, sat down in front of a psychologist and said, “I don't know why I'm here.” She knows. We both do.
Day fifteen. I take the suit I wore to that game to the dry cleaner. It's been hanging in my closet, and I couldn't go near it until today.
I check the pockets out of habit. Sometimes there are coins, receipts.
In the inside left pocket, there's a crumpled piece of paper.
I pull it out. Unfold it. And I can't help smiling.
Lines of color. Lots of colors. Two stick figures that could be people or trees. A round ball between them. And underneath, in handwriting that someone wrote for him: Iris and Paula playing soccer.
I don't know when Wesley slipped it into my pocket. He has a habit of stuffing things in people's pockets: half-eaten cookies, rocks, loose socks.
I look at the drawing. The two figures. One beside the other. Not one behind, not standing in the star's shadow. Beside.
Partners don't protect from the shadows. They protect side by side.
***
Day sixteen, I show up at the Seattle Emeralds training facility. I don't know what I expect from this, but I have to try.
I stand on the sideline with Wesley's crumpled drawing in my pocket.
The players file out of the locker room. Lucía walks past me, locks eyes, says nothing. Tina is right behind her, opens her mouth, and stays quiet. Tessa comes out three minutes later with Wesley in the stroller.
“Pola!” the kid screams.
“Hey, buddy. I missed you. I'll see you in a bit, okay?” I hold my hand up for a high five, his new obsession. Or at least it was two weeks ago.
“Good luck,” Tessa murmurs before she goes.
One by one, they all file out, but none of them stop to talk to me. Team loyalty, I guess. It makes me feel like a piece of furniture. Hades gives me a quick nod from her office. Just a chin lift. I didn't expect a hug from her either.
Iris comes out last, talking to Jade about something. Wet hair, gym bag on her shoulder. She stops. Looks at me. Jade asks if she wants her to wait, but Iris sends her off.
She walks toward me. Slow.
“No,” she says. One word.
“Iris, can we just… can we talk?”
“No, Paula. You can't show up out of nowhere after two weeks and wait for me outside the locker room like you're in some kind of movie. That's not how this works.”
“I know. I just want to talk.”
“I wanted to talk too. Two weeks ago. When I found you after the game sitting on the bench, you never came home. That was your call. Not mine.”
“It was a mistake,” I say.
“Yeah, it was. But mistakes don't get fixed by just showing up. You break my heart, and it's over. Done.”
She doesn't yell. Doesn't raise her voice. Keeps it low. She always told me that when Hades was truly furious, she didn't yell, and that was scarier. This is the same thing. She turns on her heel and walks away.
***
Day seventeen, I try again.
Same spot. Same time. No plan. I'm just there.
The players come out. Lucía looks at me. This time she gives a small nod. The rest don't even do that.
Iris sees me and keeps walking.
After the whole team has left, I sit on a bench by the entrance and wait forty minutes for a miracle that doesn't come. Hades passes me on her way to the parking lot, rolls her eyes, says nothing.
***
Day eighteen, I come back, and I'm starting to worry that Iris will call security on me.
Same spot. Same time. Wesley's drawing in my hand this time, not my pocket, just because I need something to hold on to.
Lucía comes out first, as usual. This time she stops.
“Wow, three days straight, Paula,” she says, low. “If you come back tomorrow, I'll bring you a coffee. Seriously, you're putting in the work, but I don't think this is going to crack Iris,” she adds, shrugging.
Iris comes out early today, walking with Zoe, who gives her a nudge and tilts her chin toward me.
“What's that?” she asks from a distance.
I don't answer. She usually comes out last and I didn't have time to put the drawing away, so I hold it up. Two stick figures. Lines of every color. A ball. “Iris and Paula playing soccer.”
“Where'd you get that?”
“From the pocket of my jacket. Wesley stuffed it in there without me noticing,” I say.
Iris looks at the drawing for a long time. The two figures side by side.
“God, Wesley,” she sighs.
“I talked to Jason,” I go on. “I'm not going back to working as anyone's bodyguard, but he offered me a position as a security consultant. Mostly risk assessment. I'm telling you because… well, I'm staying in Seattle and…”
“And…?”
“And… look, I guess what I'm trying to say is I know I screwed up. Twice. First a professional mistake and then a personal one. The personal one hurt more. I got scared. I blamed myself, because of you, because of Valentina, and… I'm sorry, Iris. I really am.”
Iris looks at the drawing again. Then at me.
“I swear, if you disappear again, I'll rip your head off, no matter how strong you are. I'm not giving you another chance. This is the last one, and I think it's the first time in my life I've ever done something like this.”
“I know, just let me—”
“Shut up, idiot,” she murmurs against my lips. “And now we're going to call Zoe and have lunch at her place, because Wesley has been asking about you for two weeks and he's getting kind of unbearable,” she adds, taking my hand and lacing our fingers together as we walk toward the parking lot.