23. Jules #2
“I missed you too,” I tell her. “I know. It’s been so hard without me. I understand.”
“Wow,” my sister says from the doorway. “Glad to know I rank below the dog.”
I look up, still clutching Angel like she might disappear if I loosen my grip. “You absolutely do. No offense.”
“None taken.”
I push myself upright too quickly, regret it immediately, then ignore the pain because Natalia and my literal child are somehow standing in my hotel suite in Barcelona.
“How are you here?” I demand. “You’re supposed to be home. With her. With my actual child.”
“I brought your actual child.” Natalia steps inside and kicks the door shut. “You’re welcome.”
Angel licks my chin again, personally offended by the suggestion that I ever left her.
I stare at my sister, then Angel, then back again. “No, seriously. How? Logistically, this is a lot of logistics.”
Angel sneezes directly into my face.
“Bless you,” I tell her solemnly. “So polite.”
Natalia laughs and drops her bag beside the door. “I didn’t do anything. Camille arranged it. Surprise.”
Oh.
Everything… stops.
Angel is still wriggling and trying to lick every available part of my face, but the rest of the room goes still around us.
“Camille?” I repeat.
“Yeah. Flights, hotel access, all of it. Some guy named Kevin handled most of the details. Super nice. Very organized.”
Kevin.
Of course.
I blink twice. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
Angel barks in agreement.
“I know, right?” Natalia says, completely missing the point. “It seemed a little intense for a surprise, but I’m not complaining. Camille said you needed cheering up after the whole dehydration-and-exhaustion thing.”
Right.
That is the story my family has been given along with the world: I got overheated during the show, collapsed, and hit the stage hard enough to earn a concussion and several bruised ribs.
Nothing supernatural. Nothing alarming beyond the usual nightmare of watching someone you love crumple in front of fifty thousand people.
Apparently Mamá has already told three separate tías that I work too hard and don’t eat enough.
I look down at Angel. She stares back with wide, dark eyes before licking my nose again.
“First of all, you are not allowed to be this cute while I’m trying to have a crisis.”
She barks.
“Exactly. That’s what I’m saying.”
My sister watches me, her expression softening. “She’s great, by the way.”
I glance up. “What?”
“Camille. She’s great.”
I stare at her.
“She’s kind of cold,” Natalia says, considering. “And a little intense. But…”
I wait.
My sister smiles. “She really loves you.”
Something in my chest tightens hard and fast, like I’ve been hit all over again, except this time my ribs aren’t taking the impact.
I laugh because that is what I do.
“Wow. Bold statement.”
“I’m serious. You should’ve seen how everything was arranged. No detail missed. She made sure I had everything I needed before I even knew I needed it.”
That doesn’t mean anything.
It can’t.
“That’s just her job,” I say.
The answer comes too quickly. Too sharply.
Natalia frowns. “Is it?”
Yes.
No.
I don’t know.
Angel squirms in my arms, demanding attention, and I redirect immediately. “Hi,” I tell her, pressing my forehead to hers. “Hi, my little angel. You’re perfect. You’re the only one who makes sense right now, you know that?”
She licks my cheek.
“Exactly,” I whisper. “You get it.”
My sister steps closer. “Hey. What’s wrong?”
Nothing.
Everything.
I shake my head. “Nothing. Just love. All the feelings, you know?”
She studies me without fully believing it, but she doesn’t push.
“Okay.”
Angel barks again, louder this time, apparently deciding the emotional tension is unacceptable.
“Correct,” I tell her. “We’re not doing that. We’re having a good time. Right? A great time.”
She wriggles harder.
“See? She agrees.” I look at Natalia. “So. Barcelona?”
Her eyebrows lift. “You were unconscious yesterday.”
“And today I’m conscious in Barcelona. Try to keep up.”
A reluctant smile breaks across her face. “You’re impossible.”
“Runs in the family.”
The rest of the afternoon blurs in the best way.
We talk. We laugh. Angel terrorizes every surface she can reach, including the coffee table, the couch, and my dignity. At one point, she steals my sock and sprints across the suite like she has committed a felony.
“Criminal!” I yell after her. “Get back here!”
Natalia is laughing. I’m laughing.
It’s easy.
Normal.
For a few hours, I barely think about Camille.
Not really.
The bond remains there, quieter now but steady. Every so often, it pulls just enough to remind me of her.
Later, after medical clears me for a short walk as long as I stay inside the hotel and don’t do anything “physically strenuous,” Natalia and I head downstairs to the small cluster of boutiques connected to the lobby.
I wear a baseball cap over my red hair, oversized sunglasses, and a loose jacket despite the warmth. It’s not a particularly convincing disguise, but paired with Natalia’s firm promise to stop me from taking pictures with anyone, it gets us through the lobby unnoticed.
Angel trots beside me on a pink leash, fighting it with the determination of a political prisoner.
“You can’t be trusted with freedom,” I tell her as she plants all four paws and refuses to move. “We’ve been over this.”
She huffs and attempts to bite the leash.
Natalia scoops her up. “You’re both exhausting.”
“And yet you flew across the world for us.”
“I’m reconsidering.”
My sister disappears into a clothing store a few minutes later, carrying Angel with her and leaving me near the entrance of a boutique.
Something in the window catches my eye.
A narrow gold cuff bracelet. No stones, no decoration, just two clean lines meeting at a precise angle near the clasp. Minimal. Structured. Expensive without trying to look expensive.
Very Camille.
I step inside without thinking and ask to see it. The metal is cool and solid in my hand, elegant enough for one of her cream suits but subtle enough to wear beside the watch she’s always adjusting.
She would like this.
The thought comes easily. Immediately.
I freeze.
No.
I shouldn’t.
I turn the bracelet over once more, my thumb tracing the sharp little angle in the gold.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” I murmur.
***
Natalia and Angel cannot stay long.
We leave for the next tour stop tomorrow, assuming medical clears me to travel, and Natalia has obligations back home that apparently cannot be abandoned just because I was dramatically injured on another continent.
Rude.
By the time her car arrives, Angel has worked herself into a frenzy over the suitcases. She circles Natalia’s feet, barks at the open door, then runs back to me like she has only just realized what leaving means.
“No,” I tell her, scooping her up despite the protest from my ribs. “Absolutely not. You cannot abandon me after one afternoon. I’m fragile.”
“She’s going home,” Natalia says.
“Traitor.”
Angel licks my chin.
“See? She agrees with me.”
Natalia hugs me carefully, avoiding my shoulder. “Try not to end up in another hospital before I land.”
“No promises.”
“Jules.”
“I’m kidding.”
Her expression says she does not believe me.
I hold on a little longer than necessary. Only because she flew all the way to Barcelona. Not because saying goodbye feels harder than it should.
Definitely not because my eyes sting.
When Natalia finally steps back, Angel leans out of her arms and licks the moisture from beneath my eye before it can be used against me.
“Thank you,” I whisper. “Destroying the evidence. That’s my girl.”
Natalia pretends not to notice. “Call Mamá.”
“I will.”
“Today.”
“Probably.”
“Jules.”
“Yes. Fine. Today.”
She kisses my forehead, then carries Angel into the hall while my tiny criminal twists around to watch me over her shoulder.
“Bye, baby!” I call. “Remember who loves you most!”
“I’m the one who feeds her!” Natalia calls back.
“That’s not love. That’s bribery.”
By the time I return to the room, it feels wrong.
Not empty. My things are still here, and Camille’s belongings remain precisely where she left them. But the air has shifted, as though something important has been removed and the room has not figured out how to compensate.
The quiet Angel leaves behind is worse.
I sit on the edge of the bed and stare at nothing for way too long as the afternoon replays in pieces: Natalia’s face, Angel losing her mind, and the stupid, overwhelming rush of emotion I am still refusing to name.
Beneath all of it, one thought keeps circling.
Camille arranged it.
I drag a hand through my hair. “This doesn’t make any sense.”
The door opens behind me.
Right on cue.
I do not turn immediately. I feel Camille the moment she enters, steady and contained, like the room recalibrates itself around her.
“Your sister made it to the airport without issue,” she says, setting her tablet on the desk as though she has not detonated my entire emotional equilibrium.
I turn. “You arranged it.”
Not a question.
Her eyes move over me in a quick assessment. “Yes.”
That is all.
No hesitation. No explanation.
Just yes.
“Okay,” I say slowly. “Cool. Great. Awesome. Love that for me.”
She reaches for her tablet again.
I push myself off the bed and step closer. “Do you want to explain why?”
“It was a low-risk intervention with a high probability of positive emotional stabilization. Your recent behavioral patterns indicated—“
“Stop.”
She does.
I shake my head. “Don’t give me the spreadsheet version. Just talk to me.”
Something flickers across her face and disappears.
“It was beneficial,” she says. “You responded well.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Her fingers tap once against the tablet. Then she adjusts her watch, quick and precise, as though she can reset something internal by straightening the strap.
There it is.
I track the movement before meeting her eyes again.
“You went out of your way. You found Natalia, got Kevin to coordinate everything, and dealt with international dog logistics, which cannot possibly be simple.”
“I do not dislike logistics.”
“You hate unplanned logistics.”
“That is accurate.”