5 - Isa
The watched feeling has become my constant companion. A week now since my apartment was violated, and I’ve rebuilt my entire life around avoiding invisible eyes.
The diner on Third doesn't know my name anymore.
I stopped going there five days ago, the morning after I realized the waitress had started making my toast before I reached the counter.
Patterns are dangerous in Miami's underworld.
They make you easy to find, easy to hurt.
The waitress knowing my order shouldn't feel like a threat, but everything feels like a threat now.
Now I rotate between four different shops, never the same one twice in a row.
Today it's the Cuban place on Ocean, tomorrow the chain on Lincoln.
My routes to La Sirena change daily. Sometimes through the park, sometimes down the beach, sometimes doubling back through alleys that smell like piss and jasmine.
I track each variation in my head, a mental map of randomness that should make me impossible to follow.
The knife rides against my calf inside my boot, a cold comfort that makes me think of other things pressed against skin.
No. Focus. Three inches of German steel that doesn't change, doesn't vary, doesn't leave me questioning if I'm losing my mind.
My thoughts focus on the blade as I walk, a nervous tic I can't seem to break.
At least this pattern might save me instead of killing me.
The watched feeling hasn't gone away. If anything, it's gotten worse.
A persistent itch between my shoulder blades that no amount of route-changing can scratch.
Eyes on me, always. I catch myself checking reflections in store windows, studying faces in my peripheral vision, noting anyone who appears twice.
A man in a baseball cap at the corner. Gone when I look again.
A woman with a stroller who walks too slowly.
Different woman, same feeling. They follow without following, watch without watching, there without being there.
The new tenant in 4B. I still haven't seen her properly since the movers came.
Just shadows passing behind the door, the sound of footsteps through the wall.
Another thing to track, another potential threat.
Mrs. Villaverde should have told me she was leaving, but she didn't. Nobody tells anyone anything in this city until it's too late.
I'm being hunted. Or courted. Or I'm paranoid. The fact that I can't tell which is making me crazy.
My phone buzzes with the automated response I've been getting for a week: "Your passport renewal is being processed.
Due to high volume, delays are expected.
" High volume my ass. It's May, not exactly peak travel season.
But fighting bureaucracy means patterns.
Calling the same number, visiting the same office.
So I wait, and I vary my routines, and I pretend that changing my coffee shop means I'm taking control.
The Miami heat clings to me like a possessive lover, making my shirt transparent with sweat. Three more blocks to La Sirena, taking the long way past the boutique hotels where tourists drink fifteen-dollar mimosas. Their biggest worry is sunburn. Must be nice.
La Sirena's blessed air conditioning hits me like salvation.
Pre-opening is in full swing around me. Servers adjusting tables, the sound system running checks, a room about to fill with Miami's beautiful monsters in their designer suits.
The bar smells like expensive cologne and aged rum, underlaid with something darker. Smells like home.
I slip behind the bar, into the one place where patterns don’t get you killed. They make you efficient. Bottles in their spots, tools in their places, movements practiced until they're automatic. Here, I don't have to think about being watched. Everyone watches the bartender. It's part of the show.
Juliet Price sits at my bar before we're even officially open, those hazel eyes bright with something I don't want to decode.
The Disney princess of the Rosetti empire, all soft edges and genuine smiles.
She's been in Miami two months, and somehow she always ends up at my bar instead of bothering someone easier to talk to.
"Isa!" She beams like we're friends. We're not friends. Her warmth scares me. It reminds me of before, when I knew how to let people close without calculating exit strategies.
I slide her a glass of water without asking. She never drinks during service, just sits and watches like she's studying for a test.
"Where else would I be?" My voice comes out flatter than intended.
Adrian appears at my elbow with Cuban coffee, setting it down in that exact spot he always uses.
Close enough to reach, far enough not to interfere.
His fingers brush mine as I take the cup, and heat shoots up my arm.
Inappropriate, unwanted, but undeniable.
I hate that my body responds to him when my mind is trying to map escape routes.
The warmth of his skin makes something in my chest tighten, but I push it down where all the other inconvenient feelings live.
Adrian's coffee tastes like safety, and I hate myself for needing that tiny ritual of care.
"You look tired, carina," he says, those brown eyes seeing too much. "Everything okay?"
"Everything's perfect." I drink the coffee in one burning gulp. It tastes like routine. Like the one thing in my life that hasn’t changed.
He studies me for another moment, then moves away to work his magic on the new staff. That's Adrian's gift. Making everyone feel like the center of the universe while revealing nothing about himself.
Service hits full swing, and I lose myself in the rhythm.
Pour, shake, strain, slide. The bar fills with cartel princes mixing with trust fund dealers, everyone pretending this is just another upscale club.
The Montague table sits empty tonight. Unusual, worrying, another pattern broken.
Juliet stays through it all, occupying her stool like she's planted roots.
"You never go home," I observe during a brief lull.
She shrugs, playing with her water glass. "Home is a hotel room that smells like industrial carpet cleaner.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Your sister is a Rosetti.”
She cracks a mischievous smile, like she’s just been caught out.
“Fine. Home is a luxury hotel suite that has fresh roses delivered daily by the overly attentive staff, carpet so thick you could get lost in it, and is so close to the water I sometimes wake up and think I’m on a yacht. But even so, this is better."
I want to tell her that better is relative, that this place eats people, that she should run back to New York while she still can. Instead, I top off her water and say nothing.
The crowd thins as we approach closing. The stragglers nurse their last drinks while servers start the subtle dance of encouraging departure. Juliet doesn't move.
"We're closing," I tell her, though she obviously knows.
"I know." She doesn't move. "I'll help you clean up."
"I don't need help."
"I know that too."
She stays anyway, watching as I wipe down the bar, inventory bottles, count the till. Her presence should annoy me. Instead, it feels like something. I don't have a word for it that doesn't scare me.
"You're different from the others," Juliet says, breaking the silence I've been cultivating for twenty minutes.
"The others?" I sort bills, not looking at her.
"The family. This world. You're not…" She pauses, searching for words. "You don't seem like you enjoy it."
"And you do?" The question comes out sharper than intended, but she doesn't flinch.
"I didn't choose it. My sister married into it to protect me, and now here I am anyway." Her laugh is soft, self-deprecating. "The Disney princess in the murder castle."
The description is so accurate I almost smile. "That what you think you are? A Disney princess?"
"That's what everyone sees. Sweet little Juliet who needs protecting." She traces patterns on the bar with her finger. "But you see something else, don't you? That's why I like sitting here. You look at me like I'm just… normal."
Normal. If only she knew how far from normal I am. How the knife in my boot whispers promises about anyone who gets too close. How I count my steps in eights to keep the panic at bay. How letting her sit here, letting her stay, feels like standing at the edge of a cliff.
"I'm not a good friend to have," I tell her, the truth slipping out sideways.
"Good thing I'm not looking for friends then." She grins, and it cracks something in my defense I didn't know was there. "Just someone who doesn't treat me like I'm made of glass."
"You're tougher than you look." The admission costs me something, but her smile makes it worth it.
"So are you. Except you're also softer than you pretend." She stands, finally ready to leave. "Same time tomorrow?"
It's not a question anymore, and we both know it. She's claiming space in my life without permission, and I'm too tired to fight it. Maybe too lonely.
"It's a bar, not an appointment."
"Same time tomorrow," she repeats, not a question anymore.
She walks out, leaving me alone with the echo of her warmth. It felt dangerous, letting her that close. It felt like something I wanted anyway.
The empty bar presses in on me, too quiet after Juliet's chatter. I finish cleaning, each movement mechanical, but my hands won't stop shaking.
That's when Meiling surfaces.
Not a memory I choose, but one that breaks over me like a wave. Meiling at fourteen, laughing at something stupid I said, her black hair whipping in the wind. We were inseparable then. Best friends in that intense way teenage girls are, like the world would end if we were apart for more than a day.
I can still smell her shampoo. Coconut and lime. Feel her hand in mine as we ran through Miami streets, invincible at fourteen. Taste the guilt that rises like bile whenever I try to remember exactly how I destroyed her.