hello gorgeous

It’d been a tense couple of days, trying to reach him for any insight he might have over David’s case. Vanessa’s parents had gone down to the morgue, but the body revealed to them wasn’t his. He still remained missing even now, and Vanessa had to exist on this plane of purgatory, the continued question of his whereabouts gnawing at her attention.

She hadn’t even been excited when she mentioned a party she’d been invited to work, giving you no other details other than she probably won’t go. That worried you, exchanging a look with Carmen. Vanessa thrived off the attention, the ego boosts and heavy pockets these parties always gave her, but instead you’re left grasping at straws as you watch her wilt before you with each passing day.

“I’m getting more lemonade,” Carmen offers, “do you want some?”

The crescendo of dramatic music from the television is ignored, watching the listless, zombie-like movement of Vanessa as she nods and hands Carmen her glass. She disappears into her kitchen right as Rosalinda seems to make her decision. She wipes her eyes dramatically, tosses her hair and calls for the car. The driver appears onscreen and asks her where she’s decided to go. There’s another swell of musical score, a zoom of the camera as she opens her mouth and tells him…

The screen cuts to static, making even Vanessa sit up with a sound of confusion.

When the channel connects again, a stoic news anchor sits behind a desk.

“We apologize for interrupting your regularly scheduled programming, but we’ve just received an urgent transmission from our field correspondent, Valeria Valezquez.”

The anchor nods at the cameraman, and they’re replaced by a woman who fills up the screen. She sets the scene, explaining how a twelve-year-old boy was found murdered in the streets earlier this week, how it wasn’t just a freak accident but a coordinated attack. Then it cuts to an interview.

Vanessa lets out a wail of panic.

Carmen comes rushing out. “What, what is it?”

The glass of lemonade slips out of her grasp, shattering to the floor when she sees who’s on the television.

“How old are you?” Valeria’s offscreen voice asks.

“Ten.”

“I understand you’re quite a soccer player.”

The little boy lets out a nervous laugh, fidgeting in his seat.

The woman’s voice beside the camera continues. “Thank you for being brave enough to tell us your story, David.”

David’s eyes dart between where the voice is coming from, and someone else who is in the room.

“Tell me,” she coaxes gently, “who were the men who brought you to the building that day?”

He blinks, swallows. “They were Search Bloc policemen.”

“Do you know why they brought you there?”

“He…he said they were going to send a message to other kids.”

“Who is ‘he’? Do you remember his name?”

“Colonel Carrillo.”

Vanessa lets out another choked gasp, sinking further into the couch. You can hear Carmen’s worried murmurs from behind you, but you’re too frozen in place to offer either comfort, unease seeping into your bones.

“Who else was there besides Carrillo?”

Your heart shudders, eyes darting over to Vanessa who is rapturously watching the screen. A sweat breaks out along your neckline at how searing Carmen’s gaze now burns at the back of your head.

“A bunch of men. Some I heard speaking English. Americans. Like in the movies.”

Vanessa seems to stiffen next to you with realization.

“Are you sure they were police?”

There’s a pause, then David nods. “Yes.”

“How long did you know?” the cold question doesn’t come from the tv, but from the friend staring daggers beside you now.

You’re scared to meet Vanessa’s glare. “Van…”

“Answer the question.”

You look down at your hands instead. “I…I didn’t know David was there.”

Any attempt at rushing towards you is stopped by Carmen who pushes Vanessa back to her side of the couch. Vanessa lets out a disbelieving scoff.

“Of course you defend her.” She gets up, reaching for her jacket. “I need to find him.”

“Van, stop! She did nothing wrong.” Carmen blocks her path even as Vanessa tries to push past her. She holds up her hands appeasingly.

“Don’t you see?” Carmen points at the screen. “Those sick fucks used David. He’s just a kid and now they’ve identified him on national tv. The police are going to be looking for him too.”

Vanessa’s anger deflates at this, panicked glances between you and the door trembling her lip.

“Please don’t tell Javier where he is,” she settles on you with a pleading voice. “He’s only a kid. He…they’re going to arrest him or…or worse.”

The last tacked-on words, or worse, shoots a tingle up your spine, strikes through you like the gunshot that started this whole ordeal.

“I won’t say anything,” you promise. Vanessa nods, anxious tears finally rushing out, and then you’re up helping her leave. She’s talking a mile a minute about where David could be, you promising to help search for him again if her family doesn’t find him by nightfall.

In the commotion of getting Vanessa out the door you miss Carmen’s phone ringing, finding the result of the called conversation in her thinly pressed lips and worried brow once the lock clicks shut.

“What is it?” you ask quietly.

“That party Vanessa mentioned? I was just invited.” She looks at you uneasily. “They want to know if you’ll come too.”

“What?” You brush off the request by walking back to the living room, squatting to pick up the broken pieces of glass. “I’m not working anymore.”

“Well they think you are.” When your continued silence indicates your lack of interest, Carmen calls out your name, concern laced in the word.

“I don’t think this is a normal party,” she warns slowly once she has your attention. “They said it’s a big celebration.”

“What for?”

“They wouldn’t say anything except it’s…it’s something that hasn’t happened yet.”

Your mind stalls for a moment before it races with possibilities. Carmen cuts in to continue.

“They already bought out all the brothels from here to Cartagena, they’re flying us all out there. The paycheck’s their biggest ever.”

You swallow. “How much is it?”

You balk at the number when she tells you. It would cover the funds you needed for the fellowship twice over.

“It’s scaring me,” Carmen whispers, drawing nearer until you pull her into a hug. “I don’t know why but it feels…violent. Something bad’s going to happen.”

She pulls her head from your shoulder to level her gaze.

“Please tell Javier, okay? I think it’s going to be important.”

You nod, brushing back a wild stray curl from her fear-creased forehead. “The next time I see him, I promise I’ll tell him.”

When you hear your door open later that night, it’s not to the usual slow shuffle of his step, weighed down by whatever troubled him today.

He’s so light on his feet you have to look towards the entry just to ensure it’s actually him. He doesn’t notice you’re there yet, peeking up from your hideaway on the couch watching the black plastic bag in his hand swing as he adds a little sway to his step, the slightest hints of a dance to an imaginary song. Except it’s not completely imaginary because he’s…

He’s singing softly.

The sound is pleasant, so low under his voice you can’t hear the words. The back of your mind wonders if he’s been in some sort of accident that’s altered his brain wiring, at least enough to change his view of the world. You’ve never seen him this happy, this tranquil, an easy smile sitting gently on his face that finally spots your curious look from the living room. His body turns to yours with an open arm.

“Cariño,” he beams, “come over here.”

“Javi,” your puzzled laugh is apparent in your response, but you get up regardless. “What is all this?”

His arm loops around your waist to draw you nearer the second you’re within range. He sways you together for a moment, head dipping down for your lips to greet each other before he drags his up with a contented hum, pressing another kiss to your forehead.

“We’re going to celebrate tonight.” He remembers the bag then, hoisting it onto the counter and dragging the plastic down to reveal its singular content.

You look at him, bewildered. “Champagne?”

You don’t know how it’s possible that his smile stretches broader. “Everything’s about to change.”

He leaves you only to open your refrigerator, scanning the shelves before he’s satisfied with a home for the bottle of bubbles. He turns to you once more as the door seals shut, a questioning tilt of your head in response.

“What aren’t you telling me?” you venture to ask.

He pacifies the inquiry with hands coming up to cradle your face, drawing close to you once more as his smile relaxes back into a peaceful ease.

“I can’t say anything yet but,” he lets out a slow breath, expectant eyes searching yours for acceptance, “we might finally…this might all be over.”

The words ping through your chest, the beat of his contagious hope taking over the drum of your own heart now. “Really?”

He nods, barely-contained anticipation edging back into his voice. “I’ll be back to celebrate tonight, okay?”

Another chaste kiss and he steps away then, a quick check of his watch introducing a slight frown that disappears just as quickly when you turn towards him.

“It’s happening tonight?”

“Yes, the next time you see me,” he pauses, a resolute nod as the belief behind his words solidifies, “it’ll all be worth it.”

You smile at the idea, at Javier suddenly determined to reach the light at the end of the tunnel, that you almost forget your promise. It’s not until he’s reaching for the front door that your stomach twists in sudden remembrance.

“Wait, Javi…”

He turns back, and you’d do anything to keep that smile on his face. There’s a calm about him that you’ve never had the privilege to experience before, and the words Carmen wants relayed suddenly feel like daggers that will pierce the hopeful peace in Javier’s eyes.

You’ve yearned to see that look for so long, to give him at least one good night of it, and it's this desire that seals your lips shut from spewing out any warning. It can wait until tomorrow, you decide, and it might not even matter by then.

“Just be safe, okay?”

His face softens, and he pulls you in for one last kiss that expels any final worries with your sigh.

“For you, cariño?” he whispers. “Anything.”

Javier gives you a lingering look, full of a hopeful mellow expression spread easy across his face.

“I’ll see you tonight,” he promises, and then he’s out the door.

The atmosphere around the place feels different now after Javier’s presence, a quiet anticipation for the next time his spirit would grace your apartment. It’s buzzing just beneath your skin, bustling through your mind at what was going to happen next, at how certain he was that your lives were going to change after tonight. He’d planted that small seed of hope for a future, and it grew bigger and louder with each expectant glance towards the clock as the sun edged across the sky.

But you don’t see him that night.

Or the next morning, when you wake up to an empty bed and a breaking news bulletin when you turn on the tv.

You wished you had warned him.

No matter what channel you switch to, it’s the same scene over and over. Shattered car windows, spider-webbed designs of broken glass around bullet holes. Smoke and flame billowing from gas-slickened asphalt, the remains of a car explosion still being extinguished. The violence of the show now dissipated, reporters swarm the scene to reveal the aftermath. Thirty confirmed dead, the largest singular attack against Search Bloc, but they’re all there to talk about the main character. Their headliner, a demise so shocking it would be sure to rack in the ratings.

“Colonel Horacio Carrillo was pronounced dead this morning,” Valeria Valezquez drones on from your screen, “after a violent confrontation with the Medellín cartel. Locals report that…”

Whatever following information she dispels is barely comprehended, the memory of the kind face you met in Bogotá clouding your vision. His headshot is soon replaced by others on the television, pictures of the deceased presented one by one. You wait for the familiar brown eyes, that cocky smirk, your stomach in your throat every time your eyes flicker across each new image searching for recognition. It never comes.

But he doesn’t answer on the first ring, or the fourth, or the tenth. Your telephone cord has pretzeled with the amount of knots in it now, anxious fingers twirling and yanking through the curls every time you reach the answering machine. You’re about to shrug on a jacket, keys clattering into your hand when a shrill ring has you clambering back into the kitchen. It’s an American drawl that answers your shaky “hello?”

“Candy…” Steve pauses and you can feel your chest grow heavy, struggling for the next breath.

“Steve,” you have to close your eyes to escape your next intrusive thought. “Is he…is Javier…”

He pauses with a soft sigh and it feels like the entire world hangs on the thread of his next sentence.

“He’s safe,” he responds, but the deep set of a mouth frowning heavy with concern is apparent in his voice. “He just needs some time.”

“Of course,” is your immediate response of relief, but the selfish part of you can’t help but add on quietly, “how’s he doing?”

Another sigh. Another calculated pause.

“I wish I knew.”

“Okay,” you swallow dryly at your uneasiness, “just…just let him know I called, okay?”

“I will.”

“And,” the word wells in your throat like a lead balloon, “and I’m sorry about what happened. Steve, I…”

“It’s okay,” he tries to placate, but the delivery is empty. “He wasn’t the first, and he won’t be the last.”

Those words might be a common phrase to people like Steve, but it only sits heavier on your conscience as you hang up the phone. It remains there, in the back of your mind, through the days and nights you wait up for the chance encounter of a tall, dark stranger on your doorstep. You hope his specter would appear for you to wrap your arms around him, just to make sure he’s still real, just long enough for him to understand he did not have to bear his grief alone.

And as you pass by the military academy on the bus ride home each night, you consider getting off at the stop every time. If he’s been radio silent for almost a week, though, you didn’t even know if he’d be there. He’s effectively shut you out, and all you can do is wait to pick up the shattered pieces.

You can’t even be certain the voicemails you leave behind have any effect. Attempts to keep the worry out of your voice quickly deteriorating the longer the message plays out. Staggered pauses when you fail to find the right words, anything that would touch him when he feels unreachable. Each one ends with the same breathed promise, a soft refrain. I’m here for you, Javier. You know where to find me.

The only day you disregard the door is when the funeral rolls around, wishing you could be there in Bogotá to support Javier but instead bogged down by an intense deadline. The hours wane through the night and you only have enough energy to shuffle onto the couch and click off the nearby lamp before the heavy set of your eyelids pulls you under.

It’s well past the witching hour when you hear rustling and clinking from behind you. A blanket has been pulled over you now, the threadbare patches sliding off you as you sit up to inspect your thief in the night.

You almost can’t recognize him, slouched over your open refrigerator to sift through its contents. There’s an unnatural lean in his posture, a slight sway to his stationary legs that forces him to grip the door harder. The fridge light casts his face in sharp angles, gaunt features pulled down in a haggard expression. The effect in the otherwise dark room is otherworldly.

A phantom in the flesh.

“Javi?”

His reaction time is slow, saturated with the alcohol you can now tell he’s steeped in by the clouded gaze of his eyes. And even then, the sadness you find there is fathomless.

“Why aren’t you in Bogotá?”

His face seems to harden at that, coldness in his response. “I don’t do funerals. Especially…” His brow winces, mouth trembling shut.

“Javi…” you sit up further but he stops any progress with an outstretched hand. There were so many words to say, but how good were any of them? Your uncertainty pitches your voice when you speak up again.

“What happened wasn’t your fault.”

Javier almost laughs but it shudders through him, eyes screwing shut as he turns to rest his forehead on the fridge with a heavy frown. After a slow exhale, he shakes his head.

“You know, you can say all the right things,” there’s a slurred pause as he sways, a painful hiccup resounding from his chest, “it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference.”

His eyes glaze over, unfocused and away from you.

“I know what I am. I know what I can’t change.”

Something catches the corner of his eye and he staggers back down to the open refrigerator, clumsy hand coming to grip the neck of a bottle. He brings it up slowly, like he’s racing to jog his memory of the promised life in this gift.

“You kept it?”

It’s not an accusation at you, just a morose curiosity at the unopened champagne in his hand. A sad look at a future lost.

“I forgot it was there,” you offer, but the sight of the bottle, of its promise, has already fully claimed his attention. He pulls off the top with a brute carelessness, the whizzing cork making you duck back as it smacks against the opposite wall. Champagne spills out onto the kitchen floor and he’s quick to not waste another drop, tipping it back and drinking greedily, like he can still chase after what should have been with each gulp, slivers of foam slipping past his careless mouth onto his collar.

But you can smell the whiskey heavy on him all the way from the couch.

“Javi,” you try to plead, “I don’t think you should have that.”

The mouth of the bottle leaves his lips, edges of his mustache dripping and understanding darkening the eyes that train on you now. They seem to grow even more despondent when he nods.

“You’re right.”

He pitches towards the sink, leaning heavily on the counter for support as the bottle tips in his hand. Champagne splashes down the drain, his wrist twisting to pour it out until he lets it roll out of his hand to clang loudly into the recess of your sink.

“I don’t deserve this,” he slurs. “Champagne is for celebration.”

He turns, stumbling forward but something doesn’t work. A knee doesn’t catch him right, his center of gravity toppling to the left and he finds the floor instead, sinking down against the cupboard with a choked cry.

You get up then as he curls into himself, shoulders shaking under the weight of keeping it all in. Soft soothing sounds spill out of your mouth as you wrap your arms around him.

“C’mon,” you urge, “let's get you to bed.”

But his arms only come around you to pull you closer to him, crushing you into his grip as fingers curl into fists around the fabric of your shirt. He knocks the wind out of your lungs with his embrace, the entire pack of cigarettes he reeks of caught in your last breath as your ribs scream in protest. You try to readjust but the effort only makes him pull you harder to him, like he’s afraid of letting you go.

“Javi,” your voice is tinged with a slight panic. “Please stop, please. You’re hurting me.”

“I know,” he gasps out sharply, a pained sound. “I know I am. I’m sorry.”

He doesn’t let up, a shudder running through him as his brow draws even further together. His words tumble out broken, jagged edges catching in his throat.

“I’m always hurting people, aren’t I?”

He pulls away but you shift to lay your own hands on him, turning to cradle him. It’s this soft gesture that has him seizing up, frozen in your acceptance as he trembles in your arms.

His breath catches in his throat, and then it’s like all of the pent-up anguish he’s been holding the entire week rushes out at once. A broken sob escapes and he’s shaking apart, drunken wails muffled into your shoulder when you hug him tighter to you. You’re so close you almost can’t hear what he’s saying, only feeling his mouth move against you.

“It should have been me,” he cries, “it should have been me.”

His face is damp with spilt drink and tears as you rock him to and fro, broad shoulders crumpling and shaking with each pass of your comforting hand. He’s hugging you to him like you’re oxygen and he’s struggling to breathe, each ragged attempt only heaving him further into despair.

Any words of consolation catch thick in your throat – how could you ever encapsulate how glad you were that it wasn’t him? To imagine if it had been his face on the television, his funeral tonight…

Tears begin to blur your own vision, catching in the curls of his disheveled hair.

He’s here. He’s breathing. And that’s enough.

But Steve’s words come swimming back up too. Carrillo certainly wasn’t the first, and you had no control over Javier being the next.

Just like when you wake alone the next morning, you have no control over how long he stays. If he had even been here at all, or if he’d just been another dream. Another nightmare. But the crumpled shirt on the floor tells you otherwise, the spent cigarette in the bedside ashtray still smoldering enough to remind you that everything had happened, that you couldn’t take it back.

And as the sun began to peak through your curtains, it dawned on you. The party was Escobar’s version of a funeral for Carrillo.

And you could have stopped it. If you had warned Javier.

The flash of guilt builds, deepens, burning longer until it wasn’t just a momentary paralysis. It took on a new shape, forged in the determined footsteps you take towards the phone. It turned into revenge.

Carrillo certainly wasn’t the first, but you could make sure he was the last. You were done watching from the sidelines while this war ate away at everyone you loved. You had the golden ticket to burn it all down offered so casually, if you dealt your cards right. If you remembered how to play a part.

A pause at this crossroads occurs right before you dial the last number. You cannot return to the life you promised yourself by turning around on this progress, the finality of this sacrifice was certain. But if he needed you now and found you weren’t there, what good would that future even hold?

If Javier was burying himself into the depths of hell, you were going to follow him to get him out.

Your call is answered on the third ring.

“Hello?”

“Carmen,” you stare resolutely toward youar decision.

“Yes?”

“Tell me more about this party in Cartagena.”

--