Page 85 of Rogue Romeo
Delivered Victor at home, April Ninth
My chest tightens with a soul-deep sadness for my strong abuelita, knowing how the child she carried in this picture is a no-good, weak-willed degenerate, and I simply can’t reconcile how he came from the pure love that my grandparents shared.
I turn the page again, finding one last picture, and the emotion I’m barely keeping a lid on comes rushing to the surface.
It’s a photograph of me as the Sugar Plum Fairy backstage at the Pearson Christmas Gala on the night we’d performed with text beneath that both breaks my heart while simultaneously healing it.
My greatest achievement in this life, Manhattan
Sobs consume my frame as a deep, keening cry spills from my lips, and I bury my face in my hands, giving myself over to feeling everything I know that I need to feel in order to keep from sinking back into that bone-weary depression.
Her greatest achievement… Oh, Lita.
And that’s how Alex finds me when he opens the ensuite door moments later.
“Oh, Rey.”
He crosses the space, dropping onto the bed beside me to gather me in his shower-damp arms, allowing me to fall to pieces in his embrace.
“Shush, Sunshine. It’s okay.” He rocks me like he would a newborn, the gentle rise and fall soothing me until I’ve gotten myself mostly under control.
“Did you know? Did you read…?”
He murmurs softly. “Yes.”
“How did you get this?”
I turn my tear-stained face up to his, and he meets my gaze with a comforting warmth. “She gave it to me. At Sunrise Harbor, the day you danced in the courtyard.”
He swallows heavily. “She asked me to give it to you…but only when the time was right.”
My entire self fills to bursting with undeniable love for this man—my off-limitshusband—and I settle myself even farther into his arms, wanting nothing more than to embed myself so deeply underneath his skin that he can’t help but love me back.
“Have you read to the end, Rey?”
I shake my head against his chest. “No…I couldn’t.” I pluck the book from the sheets, turning my head to face him again. “Could you…would you, please—”
He gently takes the book from my hand, palming the back of my head with his other to pull me close enough to dust his lips across my forehead.
His whispered words are a balm to the ache in my heart. “I’ve got you, Sunshine.Always.”
I cuddle in against the width of his chest, and he reaches around me to hold the book open so that both of us can see. He moves past the picture of me onto the next page, where there’s a hand-drawn map of Costa Rica.
I squint my eyes as they dart from one marked location to the next.
Several small locations within Santa Cruz are marked with an X, and a list of each location is neatly written across the end of the page.
Realization dawns, and I sit up with an exclamation. “It’s a map of her life!”
Alex closes the book, tugging me close against him before burying his face in my hair to whisper, “And today, we’re going to follow her footsteps, Sunshine.”
* * *
Our first stop was the house of Lita’s childhood, followed by the Iglesia, where she had been a bride, but sadly both were no longer standing. However, even just being in the same place where she’d been was enough for me.
I felt her presence as clearly as I felt Alex’s hand in mine. As clearly as I’ve felt her since stepping off the jet.
The marketplace where she’d met my abuelo was teeming with vendors and tourists. And Alex and I spent several hours testing foods from different stalls and conversing with the super-friendly locals.