A/N: Another time jump. As a reminder I don't differentiate between Spanish and English constantly because there is too much of it happening throughout the story.

You can probably figure out times when Spanish would be spoken (in certain countries, with his family, etc) and when it would be English.

Also, as I post this, FFN is still not sending out email alerts for story updates, so make sure you've read chapters 4-6 before starting in on this one.

August 29, 2010

My advanced knowledge of events usually benefited me. I had avoided mistakes that had left me with regret for years after. I saved several lives during my first four years in the Army, both civilian and military, and was working on ways to save a few more. I kept reminding myself of this as my body screamed in pain. This would pass. I tried to ignore the pain and focused my thoughts on the things I would be able to make better in the future.

In my last life, I had met Aarash Khan in 2008 when I'd been part of the 1/75 and had been deployed heavily to Afghanistan. He had been twenty-two, married for three years, and the father of a young daughter. He was a funny man who took his job seriously, but also knew how to keep the mood light when he thought we Special Forces guys were being too serious. I had seen him on multiple deployments during my time in that Battalion and then again later when I switched to the Regimental Special Troops Battalion. Like other interpreters, he was promised a visa to the U.S. for himself, his wife, and their children. But like too many others, red tape and bureaucratic bullshit kept delaying his departure. When he still couldn't get to the U.S. by 2018, I sponsored him to come over to work for me at Rangeman. I used him as an interpreter, saying I wanted to expand my business and his language skills would be critical. I pulled some strings and blackmailed a couple of people but got him over to the U.S. in 2019. I'd tried to get his family as well, but that was a bridge too far. But with him in the country he could sponsor them. He started working on that and hoped to have them out by the time the U.S. forces withdrew in 2021.

I'd watched the news in horror along with him as people begged for seats on flights out of Kabul. Some handed their young children to strangers hoping to spare them and possibly being reunited one day, and others clung to the outside of the planes as they took off, so desperate that they'd rather fall to their deaths than stay in the Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. He had been in constant contact with his wife and their four children for a few weeks after the withdrawal. But one day they stopped answering. After a week, Aarash talked to a neighbor who reported that his wife and children had been marched out of their home by Taliban fighters and hadn't been seen since. I hired local mercenaries to search for them and almost had to tie Aarash down to keep him from going back. The local hires kept hitting dead-ends, and shortly before I died in 2023, Aarash had started to not only accept that his family was probably dead, but he actually prayed for it. The alternative was too horrific to imagine.

I met Aarash in the same way in my second life and already had a plan on how to save his family. I started telling Aarash early that he couldn't trust the U.S. government to get his family out. They'd always find a barrier and it would put them all at risk. I told him he needed to have a back-up plan in place so if his family became targets, they could get out quickly. I was careful with what I told him because I didn't want to change the timeline too much. He was too crucial to our work to lose, but I wanted him to take me seriously. By the time I was reunited with him in the summer of 2010, he was telling me about his family's back-up plans. His wife was originally from Pakistan and they would be sure to register their children's births with the Pakistani government for citizenship. That way, they would have Pakistani passports and could leave Afghanistan quickly if needed. It may not get them to America any faster but would surely get them out of the grips of the Taliban.

I'd been relieved to see his plan and was grateful he had listened to me. It was one less worry on my mind as I hung limply in the dingy room in Colombia. I'd hoped to avoid being captured and tortured for three days again, but it had been one of the unfortunate times where I couldn't change things without major damage. It had come down to either the deaths of five other people or my current situation. I could live with the torture.

"How did you find us?" the large man in front of me demanded for the fiftieth time since my capture. He was a sergeant in a small FARC offshoot that had been holding the five hostages after hijacking the bus they were on. We'd been told the five people were civilians from an NGO, but if they were anything other than CIA I'd eat my own arm.

I didn't answer him, just as I hadn't responded the previous forty-nine times. In the past when I'd been in the unfortunate situations of being in the hands of the enemy, I'd gone the name, rank, and serial number route, and it had only pissed people off and helped me gain enemies along the way. This time, I wasn't giving them anything. The less my name was out in the world, the better. I didn't care to amass the collection of enemies I'd had in my last life. Some of them would find my name anyway, but I didn't have to help them.

Irritated by my lack of response, the man punched me in the stomach, knocking the air out of me. I caught my breath while he glared at me, trying to figure out just how long I'd been there. In my past life, I'd been captured for seventy-four hours, which had felt like a year. I'd lost track of any sense of time, so I didn't know if it had been twelve hours or thirty-six.

Even knowing what was coming, the pain and exhaustion was difficult. Last time, I'd been rescued with a dislocated shoulder, several broken ribs, a concussion, cuts, bruises, and burns of varying sizes and degrees, along with severe dehydration. I had the dislocated shoulder already along with many of the broken ribs and injuries to my skin. I hadn't been hit in the head yet, so that was still to come. I was definitely dehydrated. My lips ached from being cracked and bleeding. My throat and mouth were so dry I frequently gagged. I knew there was more to come and kept reminding myself I'd survive it.

I spent the time between beatings thinking about the people in my life. I didn't have Julie to consider this time but had Stephanie and Julio to think about in her place. Stephanie's short-lived marriage to Dickie Orr had come and gone. The divorce would be finalized by the end of the year, and she would change her name back to Plum. She was working at E.E. Martin and living in a nice apartment in Hamilton Township. She would be there until she got laid off and had to move to something more affordable. I'd checked up on her when I could to be sure her life was following the same path. I was thankful to see my brief relationship with her in college hadn't changed things. I would still meet her again in 2016 when she came to work for Vinnie, though the thrill I'd once felt at the idea had tapered off significantly. My memories of our time together in my last life were fading. I had important details written down to help us once she was in bond enforcement, but it was the smaller aspects that I was losing.

After realizing I was in love with Julio, I could appreciate the predicament Stephanie had been in when it came to Morelli and me. I'd always had some doubt about her claims of being in love with both of us. I understood now just how possible it was.

Even though I still loved her and there were plenty of reasons I wanted to be with her, I had started to question if being with Stephanie again was the right thing to do. I could still work with her, be friends, and help protect her without being in a romantic relationship. I still wanted to be with her, but I wanted to be with Julio as well.

I thought about the reasons I still wanted to be with Stephanie as three men came into the room, held me down and started waterboarding me. She made me laugh. She was kind, easygoing, intuitive, and didn't take life so seriously. She had been a balm for my damaged soul when I'd desperately needed it and had given up hope of ever finding it. It was because of Stephanie Plum that I was the man I was today.

And it was because of the man I'd become that I had allowed myself to be in a relationship with Julio and had even fallen in love with him. I wanted to be with Julio for all the same reasons as I wanted to be with Stephanie in addition to a significantly long list of other reasons. I hadn't seen him in person since our visit in Miami two years earlier, but we talked on the phone every Sunday afternoon when we were both stateside. When one or both of us was deployed, we had stuck to emails with a couple of Skype calls. Julio was currently on a six-month deployment to Afghanistan and was expected to be home in December. I hadn't spoken to him on the phone since June and didn't expect to talk to him again until he was stateside. I missed hearing his voice and laugh. After long weeks of intense training, talking to him had been a very welcome respite that always left me feeling refreshed and ready to face a new week.

There had been several times that I'd wanted to confess my feelings to him but had stopped myself. I was afraid it would lead to another falling out because he either would have moved on from his feelings for me or he would resent me for only just finally feeling this way after so many years. I wasn't sure I could stand his rejection and didn't want to risk our friendship. But as I sustained more beatings, waterboarding, and other forms of torture, I decided to tell him. I thought about the complicated relationship with Stephanie and didn't want to have that same regrets with Julio. I knew my path forward, but I didn't know his anymore. What if he got killed during a deployment or in some other manner that wouldn't have happened if he hadn't joined the Army? I also didn't want to risk him going down the path he had in his last life where he was in love with me but ended up marrying someone else instead. If he was over me, I would understand and move on with my life. But I couldn't know for sure without talking to him.

I had passed out at one point, and when I woke up it was to the sounds of multiple voices and Robert Kinsey's face leaning over me. Behind his head was a bright light on a white ceiling.

"Welcome back to the land of the living," he said. "You can thank us later."

My head was spinning, and my body hurt though not as much as it had. I looked to my left and saw an IV bag hung from a pole. I was getting hydration and something for pain. I could tell I was on a stretcher that seemed to be laid out on a hard table. As I came to, I remembered where I was. Once the team had extricated me from the rebel group, they had found a local doctor who served as a medical aid for the CIA whenever they were in the country. I'd been stabilized there before being loaded onto a plane and taken to a hospital in Bogotá. I would stay there long enough to get my shoulder put back in place and a course of IV antibiotics before being sent back to Benning to recover. My broken ribs coupled with my shoulder would have me out of commission for a couple of months. I would be stuck at a desk doing paperwork and would take part in mission planning even though I wouldn't be on those trips.

"How long did they have me?" I asked.

"Seventy-four hours," Kinsey replied. "We'd worried we might not find you in time. But Tank got a hold of one of their guys and beat the information out of him."

Tank came over to stand on the other side of me, and I gave him a weak fist bump.

"Thanks. I'll buy you a beer once I can stand up without falling over."

"I'll hold you to it," Tank said. He looked over his shoulder to see who was nearby. "Orin ain't normal. He was too excited to kill the men who had you."

"He wanted to set the building on fire and burn them alive, but we stopped him," Kinsey reported. "Fucking nut job."

I'd left the 1/75 and joined the RSTB in 2009, which had meant a transfer from Hunter Airfield in Savannah, Georgia to Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia. I had gone through a leadership training course that would allow me to be promoted to the rank of Sergeant and extensive training in reconnaissance in order to be part of the Regimental Reconnaissance Company. It was through this training that I'd been selected to lead a black ops team. We were officially still part of the RRC, but many of our missions required a lot of plausible deniability so we answered directly to the Pentagon. The unit had been together for five months and had completed a couple dozen missions. I'd been glad to be reunited with Tank and Kinsey but hadn't been looking forward to time spent with Orin again. I debated whether to get him removed from the unit early on, but we had too many missions where he had been critical, and I wasn't willing to lose my advantage because he was psychotic. I'd deal with him at the end of my service. I wouldn't let him go off to Afghanistan. That had been the tipping point in his insanity.

"The helicopter's here," Matt Harper said from the other side of the room. Harper, Orin, Tank, and Kinsey picked up the stretcher I was on and carried me outside. The chopper would take us to a nearby airport, where a plane would be ready to take us out of the country we were never supposed to have been in to begin with. I went back to sleep knowing there would be a lot of paper pushing and physical therapy in my future.

December 27, 2010

My platoon had been granted block leave beginning December 17th and ending on January 2nd. It was one of the rare Christmases I would get to see my family during my time in the army. I'd spent the first week of it in Newark with my parents and siblings. I had missed them, and it had been nice to catch up. Seeing my nieces and nephews as young children was surreal as they had been teenagers when I'd died. Oddly enough, I still thought of them as teenagers and when they'd been teenagers, I'd thought of them as little kids. I'd enjoyed my mother's cooking and tolerated Grandma Rosa's endless questions. I left Newark on the 26th to spend the rest of my time off in Miami.

"When does Julio get to town?" Grandma asked as she poured herself another coffee.

"Around noon. He told Mariana he's staying in a hotel because he had an argument with his dad and refuses to stay with him."

Grandma shook her head. "He could have stayed here with us. I swear, Jaime is such a..." she trailed off, seeming to think better of whatever name she had lined up for the man. She unrolled the newspaper that had been delivered that morning and started reading. "Ask him if he would rather stay with us when you see him tonight."

I finished my breakfast while Grandma read the paper. I was just getting up to put my dishes in the sink when a familiar photo on the front page caught my eye.

"Can I see this?" I asked Grandma, taking the front section from her without waiting for an answer.

Remains of missing Miami woman identified

Skeletal remains found on a property near Ocala in November have been confirmed to belong to missing Miami woman Rachel Hutchins. The eighteen-year-old Hutchins had gone missing on January 12,2008 after going to the home of Raymond Lewis, 30. Hutchins and Lewis reportedly had a one-night-stand after meeting at a party in November 2007 and she had become pregnant. Hutchins had told her parents that she would tell Lewis about her pregnancy, but didn't expect he would want to be involved, as she had learned he was married with two small children. Hutchins' parents reported her missing that evening when she didn't return home. Lewis, a youth pastor at Calvary Baptist Church, had denied ever seeing Hutchins after the party and had been interrogated multiple times before his arrest in November. As part of his cooperation with police, he told officials where to find her remains, which was in a wooded area behind his parents' home in Reddick. His trial date is set for April 28, 2011, though sources have reported he is likely to take a plea bargain.

I wasn't sure if I had intentionally sat back down or if my legs had given out, but I was sitting in my chair again as Grandma kept saying my name and squeezed my arm.

"Carlos? Carlos? What's wrong?" she asked, clearly concerned.

I set the paper down on the table, my whole body feeling numb as I tried to make my mouth work.

"That's Rachel," I said, pointing to her picture. "She's dead."

Grandma looked confused for a minute before realization set in and she gasped. "Oh, no!"

"She got pregnant by someone else at the party, and he killed her," I said, my voice not sounding like my own. "I thought—all this time I thought she was fine. Why didn't I check up on her?"

"Carlos, you couldn't have known this would happen," Grandma reassured me.

I couldn't swallow. I took deep breaths, trying to contain the anguish. I felt Grandma squeeze my arm more and heard her voice, though I couldn't focus on what she was saying. Rachel was dead. Murdered. All because I didn't want to feel guilty.

I felt the tears fall despite my best efforts to push the feelings down. I felt Grandma put her arms around me as I buried my head in my hands. As much as I didn't want to do it, I let myself cry. This was the one place and one of only two people who I could talk to about this. If I didn't get it out now, I didn't know what I would do when I had to go back to work. The guilt I'd felt about not having Julie was now tangled up with guilt over what had happened to Rachel. I'd just wanted to do right by her. Why couldn't the universe give her that? She should be finishing college and enjoying her twenties. That's what was supposed to happen.

Be careful. The universe has a way of wanting to keep things the same.

Grandma's words from six years ago played on a loop in my head over the next few hours. Did that mean Rachel had been meant to get pregnant that night even if I wasn't there? But why did it have to end in her death? Why couldn't it have been someone else who married her and took responsibility for their child? Why him?

Grandma refused to let me out of her sight for the next few hours, insisting that she wanted to make sure I was calmer before she left to check on the bakery. I convinced her to leave shortly before one, saying I wanted to get a shower and relax before going to Mariana's house later. I needed to get my head on straight. I couldn't explain to the group what had happened. I could tell Julio, but it would need to be away from the others.

I groaned as I thought of Julio's arrival. I'd been excited to see him, prepared to tell him how I felt. I decided against telling him today, simply because I wanted to be in a better headspace for it. I would tell him about Rachel today and my feelings in a day or two.

After a hot shower, some Advil for my pounding head, and a quick nap, I was functioning well enough to go to Mariana's at five without looking like I'd been run over by a bus.

"Finally!" Mariana said as a way of greeting when I arrived at her house. "I can't believe you've been here since yesterday and I'm just seeing you for the first time."

I pulled her into a hug, which was slightly awkward because of her enormous pregnant belly. She would give birth to her third child, a boy they would name Mario, in less than six weeks.

"Sorry," I said, not feeling especially apologetic.

I followed Mariana through the house, which was comfortable and clearly the home of young children. Drawings and colored pages covered most of the refrigerator. A small table with two chairs sat in the corner of the room with crayons, paper, and coloring books. Toys were strewn across the floor as though the toy box had exploded.

"Olivia! Elena! I told you to pick up your toys!" Mariana shouted. "Eduardo brought his new girlfriend, Louisa," she told me. "I like her. I hope she sticks around."

I was glad to have Louisa around again. I'd always liked her. She and Eduardo would be married within a couple of years and go on to have three kids.

"There's that handsome son of a bitch," Eduardo said to Louisa when I walked into the backyard. "I'm the only one in the family who's better looking."

Louisa rolled her eyes, and I couldn't help but smile. "Nice to meet you, Carlos. I'm Louisa," she said, extending a hand. "I'm glad I can finally put names to faces. I've heard all about you, Julio, Mariana, and Paolo."

"He lies a lot, so don't believe everything you've heard," I replied, clapping Eduardo on the back.

"Even if I didn't already know that, his comment about being better looking than you would have told me."

I greeted Paolo and was given a few options for drinks. Water, lemonade, iced tea, or seltzer.

"No alcohol," Paolo stated after going through the list. "Julio told us about getting sober, so we want to support him in that and not drink while he's here."

I was glad he had told the rest of our friends, as I'd known this would be the result. I told him I'd take a bottle of water and went to sit down with Eduardo, Louisa, and Mariana.

I listened to Louisa and Eduardo talk about how they met, having to pretend it was new information. Mariana talked about the kids, the bakery, and Paolo's job. Paolo chimed in occasionally but was busy setting up the grill and watching the girls. I answered questions about being in Special Forces and regaled them with a few stories I was allowed to tell while we waited for Julio to arrive. I'd been able to compartmentalize Rachel's death for the moment so I could enjoy my time with my friends. I was finally starting to relax when Julio showed up.

"It's about fucking time," Eduardo said, earning him a scolding from Mariana since the girls were nearby. "Sorry. It's about time."

I was just opening my mouth to say something when I realized there was a woman with him. For a moment I'd thought it was Jasmine, who had recently moved back to Miami, but quickly realized it wasn't. This woman was around our age with short blonde hair and blue eyes. She was curvier than Jasmine would ever be and wore a blue and white sundress with sandals. My stomach did a flip when I realized Julio was holding her hand.

"So this is my girlfriend, Tori," Julio said to the group, referring to the blonde. "Tori, that's Mariana, Paolo, Carlos, Eduardo, and I'm assuming Louisa," he said, pointing each of us out. Louisa nodded in confirmation.

What had I done to piss God off? Was it everything from my past life or was it something more recent? As if today hadn't been bad enough, now Julio had a fucking girlfriend.

I gave Tori a tight smile and shook her proffered hand when she got around to me. I avoided looking at Julio as we all sat back down. I moved from the loveseat I'd been sitting on, since I'd been hoping to sit with Julio. I grabbed a chair next to Louisa instead, leaving the loveseat for the couple. Mariana rattled off the drink options and returned a minute later with a lemonade for Julio and iced tea for Tori.

"Why didn't you tell us you were seeing someone?" Mariana asked Julio once she was seated. Tori didn't seem offended by the fact that no one knew about her.

"We'd only started seeing each other back in April and then I left for Afghanistan in June. I wasn't sure if she'd still want me around when I got back," he explained, putting an arm around her. "But she did. Not sure what I can say about her taste, but I'm not complaining."

"You're a good guy," Tori told him with an elbow to the ribs. "He never seems to believe me when I tell him it's rare to find men out there as good as him. He's so sweet to me."

I gritted my teeth as I listened to Julio and Tori talk about how they'd met (set up by mutual friends), their first date (dinner and bowling with said friends), and how they'd kept the relationship alive during his deployment (weekly video calls and daily emails). Tori was a dietician at a hospital in El Paso and also helped take care of her disabled sister. I was reminded of Stephanie referring to her sister as Saint Valerie because she always did everything right, and that was how I was starting to think of Tori.

Paolo interrupted the conversation to take grill orders. Julio and Eduardo asked for steak. Mariana, Louisa, and I wanted chicken. Tori told Paolo she was a vegetarian and asked if he could grill some vegetables. I fought the overwhelming urge to roll my eyes. I didn't begrudge her being a vegetarian. It just felt like one more miracle to add to her sainthood.

"How's your shoulder?" Julio asked me once Paolo left. He had been trying to catch my eye since he arrived, and I'd been avoiding it.

"Better," I replied. When I didn't elaborate further, Tori asked what had happened.

"I was invited to a party I didn't want to attend, then ended up as the piñata," I told her.

Her eyes went wide. "That's awful!"

I shrugged. "Part of the job."

There was a moment of awkward silence before Mariana started asking Julio and Tori about what they'd done for Christmas. I was barely listening as I finished my water. All I wanted was to be put out of my misery. My efforts at compartmentalizing my feelings on Rachel had gone to waste once Julio and Tori had arrived. I was barely keeping the Rachel box closed and now I was trying to stuff all my feelings about Julio and Tori into a separate one. It wasn't working in my favor. My headache was returning, so I asked Mariana where she kept her medications and excused myself to get some. It wasn't until I was in the bathroom and had shut the door that I let the façade drop.

Why was it whenever I was ready to tell someone how I felt about them they were in a relationship with someone else? At least with Stephanie I'd known of Morelli's presence in her life. Julio and I had talked on the phone nearly every Sunday between their first date and his deployment and he'd never once mentioned any woman, let alone her. I was angry, even though logically I knew I had no right to be. He didn't know about my feelings, so it wasn't like he'd been sneaking around or trying to hurt me. But then why hadn't he mentioned her? Why keep her a secret? There would be no reason to hide her from me. I wasn't Mariana, who would ask a hundred questions and push him to be more committed nor would I have tried to discourage him from being with her, even if it hurt to see him with someone else.

I took some Advil and splashed water on my face before leaving the bathroom. I didn't know how much longer I could stand to be here with them. Resolved that I would make my headache an excuse to leave after dinner, I opened the bathroom door and found Julio leaning against the wall opposite from me. The guilty look on his face told me he was well aware of the reason for my mood.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you," he said immediately.

"Why didn't you?"

He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jeans and looked down at the floor. "I don't know."

I had nothing to say and waited a few seconds for him to elaborate. When he didn't, I made to leave, and he grabbed my arm to stop me.

"Please don't be mad at me."

"I'm not," I said, unsure if that was the truth.

"I don't believe you."

The air between us felt heavy with the weight of all the things left unsaid. My resolve to tell him about my feelings had vanished as soon as he introduced his girlfriend. I didn't know if I could ever tell him now.

"What do you want me to say?" I asked.

Julio screwed up his face as though he was having some sort of internal battle over what he wanted. "Anything. Just — anything."

Everything I wanted to say was lodged painfully in my chest. "I don't have anything to say."

A hurt look passed over Julio's face. "What did you want to talk about? You said in your email you wanted to talk about something in person."

I shook my head. "Nothing. It doesn't matter."

His hurt expression seemed to almost turn hopeful. "Yes, it does. What is it?"

"It's not important. I—," I hesitated, wondering if I should tell him about Rachel. Perhaps it would explain away my mood. "Do you remember me telling you about my daughter in my past life? How her mother had been a one-night-stand at a party?" Julio nodded. "I read in the paper today that she'd gotten pregnant by someone else that night, and when she tracked him down to tell him two months later, he killed her. They just found her remains last month and made the formal identification."

"Oh, fuck," Julio said, sagging against the wall. "I'm sorry, man. That's awful."

"Yeah," I said. "It really shook me up. I don't think I'll ever be able to forgive myself."

"This isn't your fault," Julio said immediately. "You couldn't have known. If you'd thought something bad would have happened, you would have made sure it didn't."

"I could have still gone to the party and slept with her, just used a condom so she didn't get pregnant," I explained. "Instead, I avoided it all together. And now she's dead."

"And that isn't your fault. It's the fault of the motherfucker who killed her."

I felt my throat tighten and took a deep breath. "Anyway, that's been weighing on me today."

Julio wrapped his arms around me, and it was all I could do not to relax into him. I'd missed him. An hour ago, I'd wanted nothing more than to be this close to him. Now I couldn't wait to get away. I pulled away and took a step back. "We should get back outside."

Julio looked like he wanted to argue, but I walked away without looking back. He followed without further comment.

I tried to relax as dinner was served and we sat around the patio table eating and talking. Louisa and Tori were talking the most as the unknowns to the group at large. I listened politely while I ate, not really tasting my food. I was busy calculating how long I would need to stay after dinner before leaving so that I didn't piss off Mariana. I was seated at the end of the table next to her and across from Julio. Every time I looked up, I found him watching me. I avoided his gaze and looked down the table at whoever was talking instead. I felt him nudge my foot with his at one point and looked up to see him giving me a look that was clearly pleading me to talk to him. I pulled my legs back under my chair and turned my attention back to my dinner.

Once dinner was over, we returned to the seating area and conversation continued. Eduardo regaled Louisa and Tori with stories from high school, exaggerating about his own accomplishments and efforts. Everyone except Tori rolled their eyes. She was gullible enough to believe him. Louisa was not.

I kept an eye on the time and exactly one hour after dinner was over, I made the excuse that I was still fighting a migraine and needed to go back to my grandmother's house. I told Tori and Louisa that it had been nice to meet them, thanked Mariana and Paolo for dinner, and promised to stop by before New Year's Eve, when we were all supposed to be together again to ring in the new year together. I was almost to my car when Julio caught up to me.

"Damn it, Carlos," he said angrily. "Fucking talk to me. What's wrong? I know it isn't just Rachel."

"Don't," I said. I felt terrible and just wanted to be alone. "I can't do this right now."

"Mariana told me you were acting just fine until I showed up with Tori," he snapped. "She even asked me why you'd be upset that I had a girlfriend. I told her you'd found out about a friend dying and it was bothering you."

"Which is true."

"But it isn't the whole story," Julio said. He had me blocked in between the open door and the car. "Tell me the truth."

We held eye contact for a beat, but the intensity behind his gaze was too much. I looked away and glanced around the neighborhood. "It doesn't matter."

"Stop saying that," he said through gritted teeth. "Why does it bother you so much that I have a girlfriend?"

"It doesn't."

"Don't fucking lie to me!" he snapped. He closed his eyes and took a breath. "Tell me," he whispered, the anger gone from his voice. "Please."

Neither of us spoke for a minute, the sounds of city traffic and nocturnal animals filling the silence. He clearly knew why. I didn't need to say the words out loud.

"I can't," I said. "Not now."

Julio screwed up his face and backed away, fists clenched by his side. He paced beside my car and ran his hands through his short hair. He was taking deep, shaking breaths and alternated between looking down at the ground and up to the sky. The anguished look on his face was too much to bear. I climbed in my car and drove off without another word. I couldn't stand to be there any longer.

I spent the drive back to Grandma's worried that I'd just ruined the friendship we'd worked to rebuild over the last two years. I sent up a quick prayer that regardless of whatever I'd done to anger God I might be forgiven just enough to not lose Julio again.

A/N: Sorry to end on a bit of a cliffhanger. This was originally one very long chapter that I decided to split into two. I'll post the next chapter in a few days.