Chapter 4, The Beginning.

When Katey and Javier were separated, they wrote everyday. Long letters about how they would see each other again. But then it got harder and harder to send things to Cuba, and it got harder and harder to get things out. In the shoebox Katey kept of her things from Javier, she kept all of his letters, including his last one.

My dearest Katey, it said

You have no idea how much it pains me to say this, all of this. But I have to. Every letter of yours that I get, it brightens my day. You are such a good letter writer. You should be a real writer! How are your parents, and Susie? She'll be something some day, let me say. She has your spirit. But you, how are you? I hope you are well. Your last letter said that you are sick, are you better now? I hope so. As much as it pains me to say this, I have to. Things are not getting better here. Castro is worse. Carlos is in the secret police, although I don't know why. He would know if I kept writing to you. Correspondence with America is not allowed. He would turn me in, Katey. I feel like such a coward, saying this, but I have to stop writing to you for now, and I ask that you will do the same. One day, Katey, we will meet again. I know it.

Yours forever,

Javier

P.S. I will wait for you.

Katey remembered the first time she had read that letter. She didn't cry, which was odd. After returning from Cuba, she had become incredibly emotional.

The next week she found out that she was pregnant. She fought with herself, wondering if she should write to Javier and tell him. She fought with herself for six months, while her parents fought with her to put the baby up for adoption.

But she couldn't. This baby would be all that she had left of Javier. And she couldn't tell him, could she? He would try his best to come to America, wanting to see his baby. And she couldn't make him leave his home. His family was there. His life was there. He belonged there. And she didn't. She couldn't just disturb his life. And….maybe he didn't want her to. Maybe the letter wasn't for his safety. Maybe he didn't want to wait.

Katey had been thinking of that when she was driving one night. Her dad had asked her to go out for groceries, and on her way back, she was thinking of Javier and got distracted.

She got into an accident. She hadn't been thinking and let the car drift onto the other side of the road. She ended up ramming into a tree

Flashback.

There were voices above her.

"Will she be okay, doctor?" Her dad was there.

The sheets in the hospital bed were pulled tight around her. She felt like she was in a coffin. A radio was on somewhere. She heard someone talking about baseball. She drifted in and out of conciseness for a week. Sometimes Susie was there. She could here her talking high and fast.

Javier was there. She felt his hand on her face, his breath on her skin, whispering her name.

"Katey," he was saying. "Katey, I need you. Your family needs you. Te amo, Katey." he sounded like he was about to cry.

Katey sat straight up in bed.

"Javier?"

But he wasn't there. Susie was there.

"Oh my God, Katey! We were so worried! Mom! Dad!" her parents came into the room. She was smothered with hugs and kisses and apologies from her father.

"Is….is…the baby okay?" she whispered. Susie and her parents looked at each other.

"Katey….you lost the baby." her mother said in a soothing voice.

"What?" Katey fell back against the pillows. Her head clunked against the wall and pained rocketed through the back of her skull.

"But…we made the nursery. I had names picked…." she lay down and pushed her head under the pillow, hiding from them.

When she first found out that she was pregnant, her parents were furious. Her mother wanted her to get rid of it, until a doctor explained the risks of abortion. Then she had pounced on Katey to give it up. She had tried to explain, subtly, that in their world there was no place for unwed teenage mothers. So Katey went and stayed with her grandmother in Massapequa until it was time to start Radcliff.

She was not a popular student. Teachers were cold to her and other girls shunned her. She didn't mind it much. Before, in St. Lois she hadn't been very popular. She was too…bookish, too awkward. So she threw herself into her schoolwork and making plans for the baby's arrival. She could almost see herself with a baby. She imagined herself sitting in an apartment in New York, with a baby on her lap. But there was always one thing missing.

Javier.

After she left the hospital she wrote to him and explained everything. About the baby mostly, but a little about herself. She said how she stopped dancing, because it seemed worthless without him. She told him that sometimes she would have nightmares, but them they ended with him being there, comforting her. She didn't mention that that made everything worse. For five pages she went on, until her pen went out of ink and her mind went dry. She mailed the letter, but he never wrote back. Maybe he didn't get it. Maybe it never reached him

But maybe, said a voice in the back of her head. Maybe he just doesn't care. Maybe he has a new life, one built without you in it.

And then she resigned herself to that thought. She pushed all of the memories from Cuba away. All of the clothes that she had worn there, and the dress her mother had had specially made for the dance final, were shoved into her closet back home. All of the film reels, the pictures, everything had been slowly and carefully edged out of Katey's life in New York. She built her life to keep thoughts of him out. And it had worked. Until now.

A year back Katey had been riding the bus home from St. Lois when a man asked if the seat next to her was taken. She moved her bag and he sat down. His name was Dave. They had hit it off and she discovered that he lived in New York, too.

He asked for her number, and they clicked. He was exactly the opposite of Javier, from looks to personality, which might have been why he appealed to Katey so. She could only imagine what Javier would think, but she put it out of her mind. Dating Dave was an escape from missing Javier.

She didn't tell anyone about Dave, and she didn't know why. She had a hard time keeping him from Susie, but she did. He was an extremely popular writer who traveled around the globe; her parents would have loved him, had they been informed of his existence.

She broke up with him the day after Christmas. She hadn't really planned to, but she had just gotten into a fight with her parents and was in a funk. That night he asked her out to dinner, and when she got there he asked her to marry him. She broke up with him then.

She dated a little after that, but not much.