After that day, Julio was not allowed to leave the house for a week. After he protested about how I was still allowed to "roam free", papa corrected him and said I had suffered enough. However, while I could still leave the house, I couldn't do so on my own. If I had to go to a shop or anywhere away from the house, I had to be accompanied by a family member. This was usually my parents or uncles, but a couple times Gloria offered to accompany me where I needed to go.

Still, the days I felt like leaving the house were few and far between. At most, I would venture into the garden and pick a few things. Leaving the house just didn't seem as exciting as it once was and the only reason I did leave the house beyond the garden was usually the result of someone almost pushing me through the door (usually Gloria). I also noticed meals now consisted primarily of foods I loved and didn't just pick at. I have a feeling this is my mother's way of trying to encourage me to eat after witnessing me barely eat anything the first two days after seeing Bruno.

There were multiple nights I stayed awake replaying that moment and correcting what I did. In my mind, I no longer froze up and instead turned my back to continue looking for my brother whom I now found in a matter of seconds. Or, if I didn't replay that scene, I would imagine everything I'm going say if I ever see Bruno again. "You know, there's this thing called…letters!" or "How's the mail where you went?" were just a couple things I planned to say.

With that said, I've also accepted the chances of seeing him again were very low. Between the already existing feud and the heighted "security" I've been given, I'd be surprised if any Madrigal was even aloud to look at our house. But, this also made me think of something else. Did Dolores Madrigal know she helped Rosa Castaño, an enemy of her family? If she didn't, would she have still helped me through the crowd if she knew? And if she did know who I was, why did she help? My family has done nothing for hers in 10 years and vice versa, she didn't have to help me. She could have asked someone else to guide me out and not even be involved in the situation. And that got me questioning myself, and if I would have helped if I saw a Madrigal in the same situation?

Soon after everyone in the house went to bed, I stayed awake in my room reading a book. I didn't feel tired at that moment so I hoped a little light reading would make my eyes heavy enough and get me ready for bed. As my eyes scanned the letters in front of me and new twists came up with every page turn, I found this book was causing the opposite of what I wanted to happen. I also found I was starting to be interrupted as I read on by a growling stomach.

"A small snack won't hurt." I thought as I set my book to the side. I slowly opened my door to release any creeks that may come from it and quietly closed it again. I began tiptoeing past my parent's and siblings' doors and down the stairs, again avoiding any creeks and cracks best I could.

I made my way to the kitchen and began to shift through the available snacks. However, while I was looking, none of the snacks available seemed of interest to me. I shifted my view to look out the kitchen window where I saw our dragon fruit cactus growing beautifully. "I don't think a dragon fruit before bed will hurt." I smiled to myself and slowly creeped out the kitchen towards the garden.

I began looking at the fruits and trying to find one that looked like it wouldn't make much noise when it was plucked. I hummed to myself as I scanned the cactus for the fruit that would soon be mine. But, as I was looking at the tree, I started hearing some rustling behind me and my ears perked up. I froze as whatever it was seemed to be coming closer and closer to me very quickly. I steadied my breathing as I braced myself for a fight.

When I turned around to fight my assailant, I almost lost my balance as I expected my hit to land on a body. Instead, there was no one behind me. "It's just ne-" I thought until I heard grass moving under me. When I looked down, I saw two rats at my feet looking up at me. I let out a tiny scream and ran towards the shed to grab a shovel and squash the vermin. But before I could open the shed, a hand grabbed my wrist and pulled me away. This reestablished my fighting mindset.

"Ro-" was all that was said before I quickly turned and tackled my new assailant to the ground. I grabbed onto what I believed to be wrists and jerked them above the attacker's black curls. I looked down at my catch and felt the frozen sensation from before return as I locked eyes with the man below me. Bruno.

"Nice to see you again." He said, trying to get his wrists out of my grasp. I kept staring down at the man, trying to get it through my brain who was under me. This time however, I was able to recover from my frozen state faster than I had previously and was able to move my hands myself from his wrist to his ruana around his chest.

"Bruno!" I said through gritted teeth, pulling him by his clothes closer to me face.

"Glad we're still on a first name basis." He laughed. A laugh that used to make me blush when we were younger, now filled my body with anger. I felt my stomach get hot from the anger and it slowly made its way towards my face.

I let go of Bruno's ruana and got off him with my face still burning hot. "How did you get here?!" I hissed, scowling at the man. Bruno pointed to the gate and I saw no one had ever locked it back after Julio and I went on our little "adventure". "Why are you-" I stopped myself before shaking my head "Leave!"

"I have to talk to you." Bruno said, walking closer towards me.

"If you don't leave right now Bruno-" I was stopped by a shuffling at my feet and I once again saw rats running at my feet. Only this time, they ran away from me and climbed up Bruno's leg into his clothes.

"Sorry, they wanted to come." Bruno smiled and patted himself, looking for the rats. I felt my eyes widened at the shock of how casual he was about rats just crawling on him. It also made my stomach uneasy as I thought about how many other rats may be hiding in his clothes.

While Bruno looked for his rats, I took this as an opportunity to turn away from him and go back to my house. But he noticed this and quickly grabbed onto my hand to stop me.

"Rosa!" Bruno said, turning me towards him. "I have a lot to explain. Please, let me-"

"I'm not talking to you!" I hissed again, trying to pull away from his grasp.

"I know, I had a feeling you'd say that. Which is why I brought Hernando with me."

"Oh no…" I thought, quickly remembering the man Bruno used to pretend to be when we were younger to make me laugh and smile. But now the thought of it made me close my eyes as I pinched between my eyebrows. "Bruno…"

"There is no Bruno here!" I looked back and saw Bruno with his hood pulled over his face with only his mouth visible. "Only Hernando!" Seeing this sent me back into a rage as I felt my face heat up again. I raised my free hand to slap Bruno before he quickly dropped my other hand and pulled down his hood.

"Hey, hey hey! Rosa it's me! I'm still here!" He once again started giving me puppy-dog like eyes. His words "I'm still here" rang through my ears. I slowly started lowering my hand and back to my side. "Is he?" were the first words that came to my mind. "This isn't the Bruno I used to know. This isn't my best friend anymore…or my fiancé. This is a rat-infested man who left me 10 years ago for God knows where…or who."

"No yo-" was all I managed to say before we saw a light turn on in the house and loud thumping from the inside. Without thinking, I grabbed Bruno by his ruana (which I'm pretty sure I felt a rat's tail move under my hand) and pulled him into the shed behind me. I left the door slightly ajar for both of us to peek out of and a little moonlight shown through the crack. Soon after, my papa walked out of the house holding his knife.

"I know you're out here!" he called out, looking around him. I felt Bruno's hair on my cheek as he put his head on my shoulder to look out crack too. Surprisingly (to me at least), it was soft and warm. Still, one side of me me wanted to push him off, but another side told me to let him stay. Probably because any type of movement would alert my papa to our location.

Unfortunately, as soon as I thought this I felt something fall between me and Bruno. When I looked down, I saw a rat from Bruno's ruana racing on the floor. In its panic, it started banging into gardening equipment on the floor, causing some of the supplies on the walls to fall.

"No-no-no!" Bruno whispered as he tried to get the rat with what little moonlight we had.

"Gotcha!" I heard papa yell and saw him start to come toward the shed. In an instant, I backed away from the door and grabbed onto the rat Bruno was trying to chase. While it wiggled under my hand, I moved it toward the door and pushed it out. I heard my papa's footsteps stop. I began looking back through the crack, seeing he was barely a foot away from the door. I watched as him and the rat stared at each other.

"Gloria said she put the traps out." My papa finally said, shaking his head. "That girl has been slacking on her chores way too much." He turned away from the shed and I could hear him mumbling under his breath about Gloria and losing sleep.

Once I saw he was in the house and all the lights go out, I slowly emerged from the shed with Bruno behind me. He picked up his rat and began to gently pet it.

"You almost got us in big trouble, you little guy." He cooed at the creature. "And I see your dad still hadn't changed his ways. Still a big guy with a-."

"You can tell Dolores I've repaid her." I interrupted Bruno, walking towards the gate and opening it for him.

"What do you mean?" Bruno asked, stuffing the rat back into his clothes.

"She saved my life at the rebuilding party, I helped her tío not get killed tonight."

Bruno walked over to me and I looked down at the ground, knowing he was going to have his puppy-dog eyes locked onto me. "Rosa, I still I have to tell you what-"

"I don't care." I said, tightening my grip on the gate.

"Rosa-"

"For 10 years," I interrupted again, tears slowly forming in my eyes. "I didn't know where you went, what happened, anything about you. I've never been apart from you for that long. You disappeared on our proposal night. I didn't just lose a fiancé, I couldn't care less about that, but I lost my best friend. The person who knew everything about me. The person I shared my first kiss with. I lost all that. I didn't get one single letter, letting me know what happened to you."

I saw Bruno reach down to try and grab my hand, but I pulled it away. "After you left," I started again. "Papa made sure neither family had anything to do with the other. He couldn't bare the shame of knowing his daughter was rejected for a proposal. Gloria couldn't play with Mirabel anymore, mama and Julieta no longer talked, no one was allowed to go to Camilo's or Antonio's ceremonies just to watch them get their gift."

"I'm sorry Rosa." Bruno said, pushing my hair out of my face. I quickly closed my eyes and kept my face down. "I can't take back the 10 years I was gone, but I can make the next 10 right, and that's why I'm here. To explain-"

"And I said I don't care." I pushed his hand away and started toward my house.

"Rosa?" Bruno said, shuffling his feet slightly towards me. When I got to the door, I put my hand on the doorknob, not having the mental strength to open it yet. "I love you." I heard him whisper.

I turned to look at Bruno out the corners of my eyes and saw him standing at the gate, staring at me. "…and I loved you." I opened the door as fast as I could and closed it the same way. I pressed my back against the door. In the distance, I heard a faint gate creek open and close.

I lost track of how long I stood in that position. I wanted to cry, shout, scream, do everything but stand there. But I couldn't do it. Whether it was because I didn't want to wake up my family, or because I didn't know which I wanted to do first, I'll never know. What I do know, is Bruno's "I'm still here." kept replaying through my head. Even as I trudged up the stairs and back to my bed.