22 - Isa #2
"He's haunting me, Isa. Not physically, but in here." She taps her temple with a trembling finger. "I keep having these fucked up nightmares where he finds me, where he makes good on whatever that promise meant. I wake up at three AM checking the locks, convinced he's outside my door."
The terror in her voice is real, bone-deep. This bright, warm woman who chose my friendship is being haunted by a monster.
"It's been months and I still look for him everywhere.
Every black-haired man in an expensive suit makes my palms sweat.
Every time I smell that cologne he wore, something like a burning forest, I want to run.
" She presses her palms against her eyes, and I can see her shoulders shaking.
"He's in my head and I can't get him out. "
I watch a muscle in her jaw jump. "There's no shame in fear."
"But I'm so fucking ashamed anyway." Her voice cracks completely.
"Everyone thinks I'm this naive princess who bounced back from what happened.
But I didn't bounce back. I just got better at hiding that I'm terrified all the time.
That Santiago Zayas is haunting my thoughts and I can't evict him.
I hate that he has this power over me when he's probably forgotten I exist."
She looks out at the water, not seeing it.
"He probably has, you know."
"No, I don't know. That's what makes it worse.
Not knowing if he thinks about me at all or if he's planning something.
The uncertainty is killing me." She looks at me with red-rimmed eyes.
"How do you do it? Live without being afraid of the monsters in our world? Sometimes I wish I could go back to being my father’s coddled little prize, ignorant of all the rest of this crap. "
I lean forward, elbows on my knees.
"You know what I'd do?" The words come out harder than intended.
Juliet stills, watching me.
"I wouldn't live afraid of anyone.” My thumb traces the worn leather of my boot. “Especially not some entitled psychopath who thinks marking you with words means he owns you."
Juliet looks at me, eyes wide.
"You're letting him live rent-free in your head. Letting him haunt you without even being present." I turn to face her fully, conviction burning in my chest. "You want my advice? Confront it. Whatever hold he has on you, face it down. Stop running from shadows and deal with the actual man."
"Confront Santiago Zayas? Are you insane?"
"Maybe. But living in terror of someone who might never think of you again? That's insane too." The conviction in my voice surprises me. "You don't let fear own you, Juliet. You look it in the face and make it explain itself. You take back the power by refusing to give it away."
The words taste like blood from a bitten tongue.
My own advice catches on something buried so deep I can't even name it, just feel it thrashing to stay down.
Face the past. Stop running. Confront what haunts you.
For one horrible second I smell something that isn't there.
Copper and dust and summer heat so thick it chokes.
Then it's gone, leaving me gasping like I've surfaced from deep water.
"Easy for you to say," Juliet laughs, but there's no humor in it. "You're fearless."
"I'm not fearless. I just refuse to let fear make my choices for me.
" The cold feeling spreads through my chest like ice cracking over deep water.
Why does this feel like hypocrisy when it's the truth?
"Don't give Santiago Zayas power he hasn't earned.
Don't let him own your peace when he's probably forgotten you exist."
She's quiet for a long moment, processing. I watch her face, see the moment my advice lands despite her dismissive laugh. Her fingers drum once against her knee. She's actually considering it. The thought sends another wave of that strange cold through my chest.
"Yeah, right," she says finally, but her shoulders have straightened, that steel I knew was there finally showing. "I'll just walk up to Santiago Zayas and tell him to get out of my nightmares. That'll go well."
We both chuckle. The sound comes out of me brighter than I expected, filled with enough sunshine to earn a sideways glance from Juliet.
It feels good to talk shit about things we’ll never do.
Feels good to pretend we can stand up to people like that psychopath, Santiago.
Feels good to dangle my feet over the edge of a pier with a friend.
The sun drops lower as we walk back along the beach, sand getting into my boots with every step.
The rough grit between leather and skin grounds me.
Juliet links her arm through mine, an easy intimacy I wouldn't have tolerated from anyone else.
The gesture feels natural now, like we've been friends for years instead of weeks.
"Thank you," she says. "For today. For being the girl who pulls knives on assholes instead of calling security."
"That's what friends do."
"It's what you do. And I love you for it."
The word sits warm in my chest even as that strange unease persists. Love. From the pampered girl who stayed when the family split, who chose my side without hesitation. I have a real friend, maybe the first since…
The thought cuts off before it fully forms, leaving only that cold sensation and the echo of my own words. Face what haunts you. Stop running. Confront the past.
"You okay?" Juliet squeezes my arm. "You went quiet. Like, scary quiet."
"Just thinking."
"About Adrian?"
"Yeah," I lie.
But I'm thinking about my own advice, how easily it fell from my mouth when I've spent fourteen years doing exactly the opposite.
The words felt strange coming from me, like wearing someone else's clothes.
Why did telling her to face her fears make me feel unsettled, like I'd betrayed something fundamental about myself?
The ocean stretches beside us, endless and deep, and for one moment I have the absurd urge to tell Juliet everything. About the gaps in my memory, the guilt I carry for something I'm not even sure I did, the way certain things make my chest tight with panic I can't explain.
But the words won't come. They never do. So I gently extricate my arm from my friend’s and walk beside her, her warmth against my side, carrying advice I can't follow and unease I can't name.