The Saints of the Cross (3 page)

I find my phone on the dresser and, with trembling hands, text Javi.

*Javier, we have to meet tonight. I have to tell you something very important.

A few seconds later:

*Is something wrong?

*Yes.

*Tell me now, Corazón.

*I have to tell you in person. Meet me at the beach at midnight.

*My dad should be asleep by then. We can go back to your place, if you want.

*Okay, see you then.

***

At midnight, when I’m sure that the rest of the family is sound asleep, I tiptoe over to the window and nudge the weathered pane up. My heart quickens as the window creaks in protest. I cock my head, listening for any signs that my family is awake. Luckily for me, there is a wind storm blowing outside, which disguises any noise I make, especially as I’m climbing down the rose trellis. When I’m close enough to the ground to be confident I won’t break my neck, I jump. My jacket snags on a thorny arm of the rose bush, bending the trellis toward me. I yank the jacket free, and the trellis bounces back against the house, making an earsplitting, jackhammer sound. I freeze in place, with the wind whipping my curls straight up in the air around me.

Dad’s room is on the first floor, and his window is directly to the right of the trellis. My wits comeback to me just as a light switches on in his room. I duck to the opposite side of the huge rose bush and press my body as close to the house as possible. I watch the illuminated outline of the window pane on the ground and my dad’s shadow appears in the block of light. The silhouette stops for a moment, then turns back, and the light switches off again. I sigh in relief and run around to the back of the house.

Moments later, I’m walking down the dirt path leading to the beach below the cliff where my whitewashed house perches like a ghostly guardian over the Spanish coastline. Luckily, the moon is a bright silver dollar in the black sky, giving off more than enough light to illuminate the path. Through a break in the waist-high, rhythmically swaying sea grass, I spot Javier sitting on a blanket facing the ocean. I run as fast as my scrawny legs, the unforgiving sand, and the angry wind will allow. When I reach him, I collapse, throwing my arms around his neck and burying my face into his shoulder, hot tears streaming down my cheeks.

He wraps an arm around me and tips my chin up. His eyes are narrow and full of worry.

“What is it, Eva?” he asks, furrowing his brows. 

I suck in a deep breath. “We’re moving back to the States!” It takes every last bit of air I have left to get the words out over my sobs. I gulp another breath, and the salty air stings my lungs.

“What? When?” His face crumples and his black eyes glisten in the moonlight.

“Dad got transferred back to DC. We leave in a month.” I’m inconsolable. I press my face against his chest and sob uncontrollably. Javier pulls me closer, resting his chin on my head.

“
Sshhh
, Corazón. It’ll be okay, I promise,” he whispers into my ear. “This changes nothing about the way I feel. In just a year, you will graduate, and we can be together again.”

“A whole year. This isn’t happening!” My chest caves in on me, and I feel like I’m dying. Then I realize that I’m holding my breath, so I gulp in more air, but it goes to my belly instead of my lungs, causing me to dry heave. I double over, holding my stomach. My long curls fall forward, adhering to the tears on my face and forming a sticky, tangled mess.

“Eva!” Javier says, shaking me slightly, “You’ve got to calm down. It won’t do either of us any good if I end up having to take you to the hospital tonight. How would we explain it to your father?”

“I don’t care!” I snap back, yanking strands of tear-soaked hair off my face. “It would serve him right for doing this to me!”

Javier sighs in exasperation. “Eva, it doesn’t mean we will never see each other again. We just have to be patient.” He puts a hand to my cheek. “I will do everything I can to come visit you there.”

Suddenly, I have a brilliant idea. Why hadn’t I thought of it sooner? I sit up on my knees facing him, placing my hands on either side of his face. “Come with me, Javi.”

“Where?” His brows furrow and confusion darkens his face. I tilt my head and give him a
come on
look. “To DC?”

I merely nod, a self-satisfied smile turning up the corners of my mouth.

He whispers, “You know I can’t.”

“Why not?” I demand.

“For one thing, I don’t think your father would go for it.” He looks at me with soft eyes. “For another, there’s nothing in DC for me.”

“I’ll be there.” I deflate, knowing he’s right.

“And that’s reason enough, Corazón, trust me.” He leans in and kisses first my closed right eye, then the left. He adds in a hushed, apologetic voice, “But you know it’s not what’s best for either of us.”

I nod and sit down next to him. I watch as black waves, fueled by the wind, roll onto the beach. The waves spread out in all directions in the sand just a few feet from where we sit, and then retreat back into the dark, churning mass of the Atlantic Ocean. I’m pretty sure a storm is on its way from somewhere off in the unknown distance. I shudder against the cold night air, and Javier hugs me closer to him. I feel him reach into the inside pocket of his leather motorcycle jacket. He grabs my right wrist, gently turns over my hand, and places a black box into my palm.

“What’s this?” I ask, closing my fingers around its luxurious velvet.

“A small token of my love. Open it.” He smiles.

I open the box and find inside a huge, heart-shaped diamond sparkling in the silver-white moonlight. Javier laughs and places a hand under my chin to close my gaping mouth. I take the ring out of the box and inspect it closer. An engraving on the inside reads:

J & E, Amor Por Siempre y Siempre.

Love forever and always
.
I’m momentarily rendered speechless as my mind races with the possibilities of the gift’s significance.

“Is it—” I start, unable to take my eyes off the inscription.

“No, Corazón.” He tilts my chin up, holding my eyes with his. “It’s a promise ring. A symbol of a vow I’m making to you tonight.” He takes the ring and places it on my right-hand ring finger. By some miracle, the fit is perfect.

“What promise is that?” I ask with a smile.

“I promise to always love you, Eva. I will always keep you in my heart, no matter what happens, no matter the distance between us.” He lifts my hand to his mouth and kisses the ring on my finger. “This ring represents my heart, and you will always have my heart, for as long as you want it.”

To say I melt is an understatement. I jump into his arms, and he falls back on the blanket. I straddle him in an instant, planting kisses all over his handsome face. He raises his shoulders up off the blanket, catching my lips with his. I savor his sweet taste, a mix of salt and peppermint. He wraps his arms around my waist, moving his hands under my shirt and up my back. He pulls my chest down flush with his. My entire body delights at the sensation of his hands on the bare skin of my back. The impossibly thick mess of curls attached to my head whip furiously in the wind around us, and he laughs as he tries to push my hair aside. Finally, our eyes meet.

“Eres la más bonita chica en el mundo,” he says, tucking strands of hair behind my ears. He knows how much speaking to me in Spanish turns me inside out. It’s not so much the language itself, as it is the way it sounds coming out of his mouth, the way his lips move. That’s why I watch those lips so intently when he speaks.

We spend a few seconds in silence as I contemplate the consequences of what I’m about to do. “Let’s get out of here,” I say.

“Are you sure?” He looks up at me through thick, black lashes, eyes full of surprise. A wicked grin slowly spreads across his face, which is all the confirmation I need to justify my own intentions. There’s only one thing I can do to prove my love for him, and I’m ready to do it.

“I’ve never been so sure about anything in my entire life,” I say, my heart beating so fast I think it might explode through my chest. “Now, let’s go.”

CHAPTER 2

“I can’t believe you snuck out again with him last night, Evie!” Coralea tosses her head to the side in her usual display of disbelief and judgment. Cora may be my best friend, but she’s also my biggest critic. She’s half Filipino and half Irish, but she’s inherited the better part of her physical characteristics from her Filipino mother. As for her height, she’s “one pair of stilettos” shy of five feet tall, although she always insists she’s five-two. She has coarse, black hair that falls in ringlets to the middle of her back, fleshy cheekbones, and a protruding belly that doesn’t discourage her from wearing the more revealing clothing popular during the humid Spanish summers.

“Now what would’ve happened if your dad had caught you scurrying back up the trellis like some kind of freaky, overgrown, red-headed, woodland creature? You might’ve gotten shot!”

“Well, I didn’t,” I sigh. Her drama is near unbearable, and I’m starting to regret even telling her about my little unplanned adventure.

“Thank the sweet baby Jesus.” She makes a big production of signing the cross over herself, which makes me laugh under my breath. Cora takes her Catholicism seriously, and she probably
is
the most pious teenager I know. But her arsenal of non-swear swear words would make a nun blush—or lob an eraser at her head. “Now what the Mary and Joseph were you doing out after midnight with the hot Spaniard, anyway? My mom always says nothing good ever goes on after midnight—especially between teenagers.”

“We went back to his place in Cádiz.” I flash a wicked grin at her. “And trust me, it was good—”

“Stop!” she wails, clamping her hands over her ears and squeezing her eyes shut. “I don’t know if I wanna hear this. Oh, sweet Mary, my virgin ears!”

“Coralea, be quiet! Your mom might hear!” I hiss, pulling her arms down. Cora’s family lives in a two-bedroom condo with paper-thin walls on the northern border of Rota. Her mom is in the kitchen listening to the Beatles’
Revolver
and making lumpia for us. “Don’t  worry, your sainthood will remain intact. We only made out and talked a lot. My God, who
do
you think I am?”

“Well, I wouldn’t think that, if I didn’t know how crazy you are about him.”

I glare at her, but I don’t argue. There
is
truth in her statement. “I want to show you something,” I tell her.

“What?” she asks, raising her right eyebrow and taking a step back.

I cross the tiny room in a few steps and lock the door. I turn back to Cora, whose face is pinched in a look of uncertainty.

“I have a feeling I’m not gonna like this,” she says in a sing-song voice.

“Cora, just keep your voice down, okay?”

“Fine.” She folds her arms across her chest.

I pull my sweatpants down on my right hip and carefully remove the white bandage from my painfully swollen skin, grimacing with each tug at the tape. Cora gasps, eyes wide, and smacks her right hand over her mouth. Her gaze flicks from my hip, to my face, then back to my hip. After a few moments of silence, she lowers her hand from her mouth.

“Cora, I—”

“Holy Mary Mother of God! What on e
arth
were you thinking?” Her voice is three octaves above a scream, and her eyes are wide with disbelief.

“Sssh!” I plead, putting a finger to her mouth. “Cora, please, let me explain.”

“Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod! Your dad is gonna kill you!” she says, panicking. “Then when my dad finds out, he’s gonna kill me for having such a
skank
for a friend!”

“Cora!” I shake her by the shoulders, rather roughly, because I’m beyond exasperated with her. “You’re going to hyperventilate.”

She has passed out from anxiety attacks twice before, once in the middle of a Spanish oral exam—not a pretty sight. She had a goose egg on her forehead for a month from smacking her head on the desk when she face-planted. Plus, she had to go to the hospital for a head CT scan, because she was knocked out for a few minutes and they feared a concussion.

“Oh, sorry, no offense, Evie, but I’m just sayin’,” she stammers, calming down for a moment. “I mean, are you
insane
? You do realize it’s permanent, right?”

I turn and look in the mirror hanging over her dresser. The strawberry-sized, red heart encircling the black Old English letter
J
stands out against my pale skin like a knotted-up bruise, halfway between my hip and my belly button. I’m definitely not going to be able to wear a bikini around my family for the rest of the summer. I turn and sit down on the bed, a flash of pain shooting up my side as the waistband of my pants rubs against the still-raw tattoo.

“Where did you even get that tat done? You’re not eighteen yet.”

“There’s no minimum age law here,” I shrug. “Besides, we went to Javier’s friend’s parlor. He had a matching one done.”

“He got a tattoo of a
J
on a heart?” By the dumbfounded look on her face, I realize she’s serious.

“Um, no. An
E
, Cora.” I sigh, with a roll of my eyes. “You know,
E
for Evie. And it’s over his heart, on his chest.”

“Well, how should I know?” She throws her hands up in the air. They land back down on her hips as she takes her familiar authoritative stance—weight on the right hip, left foot extended out. “How are you gonna explain that to Nash?”

“I’m not going to explain anything to him,” I say and give her a warning look. “And neither are you, Coralea.”

“Please, Evie, like I would ever rat you out to your dad,” she says with an offended frown.

“I would hope not.”

“What did you do when you went to his condo? Something must’ve happened to make you think getting his initial stamped
permanently
on your body was a good idea.”

“Something happened
before
we went to the condo.” I reach into my pants pocket and pull out the diamond ring I’ve been hiding from my family. I place it back on my right ring finger and hold it up to Cora’s face. Her round jaw drops immediately, eyes bugging out of her tiny face.