34. Amalia
Three Months Later
Itry to focus on the code in front of me, shutting out the world around me in the café, but the music in my headphones and the view outside keep pulling my thoughts away.
Three months ago, on that ill-fated afternoon, Julia came back into our lives.
For the next few days when she was sitting in the hospital, Maksim and his brother Roman, the Russian pakhan from Chicago, held Lupe in a secure location until Julia was able to walk on her own.
She never blamed Lupe for pointing that gun at her. And honestly? Neither do I. I know the man who pulled the trigger manipulated her, I know he paid with his life for what he did to so many souls, and I know we started to heal. As a family.
But there are days that I feel like everything happened two minutes ago.
I can still feel the blood on my hands from when we rushed Julia to the hospital. I can still see Maksim’s face when she went into surgery, the kind of despair that doesn’t make a sound. I still remember Max’s eyes when he told me that tío Felipe was gone and how my chest cracked in that second.
Julia gives us space and doesn’t smother us.
Most of the time it seems to me that Lupe is simply going through the motions, but how could it be any different?
The betrayal I felt is nothing compared to everything she went through, and no matter how many times we tell her it’s going to be all right, I know her.
She won’t stop blaming herself, and she’ll bury it all under a mask of “I’m fine,” and I don’t know how to help her.
There is no remedy for everything that happened. The man responsible is dead, but the consequences of his actions are still reverberating, like a chain of dominoes that hasn’t finished falling.
Maksim has offered me a part-time position with their organization, which is working to pull as many victims as possible out of the trafficking network his adoptive father built, and I genuinely feel like I’m doing something that matters.
But then there are moments like this one, watching people walk down the street, talking, laughing, each moving in their own direction, when I think about how completely our lives changed in those twenty-four hours.
I’m glad we have Julia back, but my greatest regret is that tío Felipe never got to hold her, not even once.
He was the one who, week after week, sometimes with our hands in his, walked into the police station to ask whether they had any news about Julia.
He was the one who put posters of her face all across Puerto Vallarta, hoping someone had seen her.
And he was the one who, ten years ago, started lighting a candle on the windowsill every single morning.
He believed that in doing so, Diosito or the Universe would guide her back to us.
“You look conflicted.”
When I lift my eyes I see Weston, one of my schoolmates, sitting next to my table with a coffee in hand.
It takes my brain exactly 1.5 seconds to get back to reality, and then I look at my books all splayed across the table and at the lines of code that won’t compile for the life of me.
“Yeah, I kinda hate mobile applications.”
That earns me a smile, and instantly my mind drifts to another one. A smile that was always more reserved. More guarded. More appealing to my neurons, apparently, because I watch Weston and feel absolutely nothing.
Nada.
My heart is a block of ice.
“Do you need my help?” he asks, and it’s sweet, especially since I aced the exam on this subject and he barely scraped a B.
It’s not that I don’t get it. I do get mobile programming languages. I just don’t like using them. My time could be more useful spent helping children get out of the hands of monsters, but Julia and Maksim’s only condition was for me to finish my degree first.
I go back to staring at my screen when he speaks again.
“We have this project for Professor Lacrusse?—”
“I’ve already finished it.”
And there it is, the awkward silence that settles between us like a dropped equation with no solution. What does he actually want?
“Hey, I know you don’t usually get out much, but I was thinkin?—”
Holy Archimedes, no!
“I’m busy.”
His brows furrow, then his dimples show when he smirks.
“I haven’t mentioned a date yet, Amalia.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.” His eyes move to my hair, then to my glasses, and then he closes the distance between us slowly. “I really like you, Amalia. When that brain of yours decides to take a break, come find me.”
He winks and then strolls away, leaving me flabbergasted, because what in the name of Turing was that?
I’m not the one guys ask out. Like never.
But then I hear his voice: there isn’t a formula on this earth that could replicate you.
That’s good. We don’t need more idiots falling in love with their lying math professor on this planet.