“So, on a scale of one to ten, how traumatized are you from your hotel experiences in Rosarito?” Alex asked.
“Six,” I said and gazed at the small sailboats making their way back into Rosarito’s harbor toward their slips. “You knew, didn’t you?”
“Knew what?” He slurped his lemonade and tried to hide a smile.
“You suspected that these hotels would be a bit of a nightmare.” I kicked his bare shin with my foot.
He laughed. “Guilty.” So I kicked his shin again. But this time he caught my ankle, held it between his hands, and pulled me and my beach chair toward him while I squirmed and kicked at him with my other foot.
“Bastard! Release my leg immediately!” I said. “What are you doing?”
“Moving you closer to me. Where you need to be. It’s Mexico, Bonita. Mexico is beautiful and amazing and magical. But if you hit the wrong place at the wrong time, you could be a name in one of the news stories about twenty bodies without heads they found in a dump ten miles from here. That said? My family’s had this place for years. We love it. And for the most part, it’s safe. Except if you are taken prisoner.” He tickled my foot.
“Stop it!” I squirmed. “Let me go!”
He wouldn’t and even had the audacity to laugh. “Hah! You’re mine! I’m in charge of this pretty foot with the flower on the big toe. I get to say when and where it will go. I will squeeze your toes better than any Chinese foot reflexologist ever could.” He massaged my foot, pulling my toes.
“Ouch! Competitive much?” I shook my head. “You’re the biggest dork I’ve ever met.”
Alejandro laughed. “You’re the biggest dork I’ve ever met. The biggest, cutest, funniest, Cheesehead dork.”
I started laughing.
He dropped my foot. “Race you to the water. Whoever gets there first wins.” He stood up and strode toward the ocean.
“What do I win?”
He turned and stared at me. “What do you mean, what do you win?”
“Well, if I have to go to all this effort, at least I should get something pretty spectacular if I win.”
He grinned, stripped off his T-shirt and tossed it onto the sand. The sun glimmered like a mirage across his half-naked body: his built shoulders, tanned muscular, wide chest with just the right amount of dark chest hair. His abdomen was ripped and the hair narrowed into a thin line, a tiny V below his belly button and disappeared beneath the waistband of his boardshorts.
Dear God, kill me now.
The sun on the waves reflected onto his smile and caught the sparkle in his hazel eyes. “If you win? You get to kiss me.” He winked, then turned and jogged toward the surf.
“Go ahead!” I yelled. “I don’t swim, remember?” I frowned and tapped my foot on the tiled floors.
“Who said anything about swimming?” He swiveled, faced me and jogged in place. “Don’t you want to kiss me, Bonita?” He threw his arms out. “Like seriously, you’re hurting my manly feelings.”
“Fine.” I stood up and strode out onto the beach toward him. The sand was soft and squished under my feet and between my toes, slowing me down.
“Nice acceleration. I’d estimate you’re moving about two miles an hour. You’re never going to win that kiss,” he said. “And, I’m not bragging or anything, but it’s a really good kiss. Because I like you something fierce. You’re beautiful inside and out and you make me laugh, and that is so rare in my world. Seriously, you’d be missing out on something pretty darn great.” He jogged toward the ocean.
I was too far away from him and completely out of the running on winning our current bet. Unless….
I put my two fingers to my mouth and whistled sharply. “Alejandro Maxell Levine!”
He whipped turned and regarded me, curious.
“If this was football, technically, you are offsides. I call a flag on the play. Ten yard penalty.” I walked toward him, widening my strides. “Come on.” I beckoned to him with my index finger. “You need to give me back those ten yards. What’s fair is fair.”
His eyes widened for a second and, shocker, he actually stopped in his tracks and then walked ten yards back toward me. I applauded and he looked surprised.
Game on, Alpha Boy.
I jogged toward him until we stood next to each other—still for a moment. He smiled down at me: full lips, white teeth, high cheekbones, a cleft in his chin and those freaking crazy-beautiful hazel eyes. He reached out, caught the waist of my beach cover-up and pulled me flush against him. My breath caught in my throat and my heart bounced around in my chest.
“Screw who gets to the ocean first. I’m kissing you now.” He leaned down toward me. The second before his lips touched mine I ducked, tickled his waist and wiggled out of his grasp.
I raced toward the ocean, my legs pumping like a wide receiver headed toward the goal line. I stuck my feet in an inch of surf and jumped up and down on the sand. “I win!” I thrust one fist up in the air. “I win this one!” He strolled toward me. “I won.” I repeated, breathless.
“I know. Thank God for football.” He drew me toward him, wrapped one hand around my waist and the other hand behind my head. And he kissed me. The surf that lapped over my feet was cold. His breath against my lips and face was warm. He tasted sweet.
He was better than sweet. He was my Alejandro.
“You’re my prisoner, Bonita,” he whispered into my ear. “I’m not letting you go back to Wisconsin. You belong with me.”
I don’t know if it was him or the chill in the salt air, but I shivered and my skin tingled. Everywhere. I closed my eyes as he kissed my neck, his fingers tracing my skin down into the hollow of my throat while his other hand cupped my face. His fingers slid my sleeve down my arm and he kissed my bare shoulder. I felt a pulsing in my lower abdomen.
I fluttered my eyes open and spotted a small tattoo tucked in the curve under his chest muscles, right where they met his shoulder. It must have been the tat he had told me about earlier on Venice Beach. The one I’d never seen before. It consisted of three words and was inked in cursive.
Que nunca olvidaré.
What did that mean? I blinked and saw skinny, light-faded scars spider veining out from underneath his tat, wrapping below and over his collarbone. There was a larger, almost completely faded scar that jagged across his side ribs onto his shoulder. Another one that looked like a four-inch long surgical incision.
“Alex,” I breathed. But his lips were buried in my shoulder. “Alejandro.”
He looked up at me, breathless, a hungry look in his eyes. “What? Not a good kiss? Should we start over?”
“Best. Kiss. Ever.” I traced his tat with my index finger. “What does ‘Que nunca olvidaré,’ mean?”
He froze. In a heartbeat, he lost all interest in kissing me and instead reflexively clamped his hand firmly over his tat and scars, like he was attempting to squelch the bleeding of a gushing wound. He squatted, gazed out at the water and then dropped his head in his hands.
I had completely screwed up a perfect moment. Had I pried too deeply? If he’d wanted to share with me, he would have. How could I have been so stupid?
“I’m sorry,” I said. “You don’t have to tell me anything. I don’t want to invade your privacy.” I touched his arm.
He flinched.
And I cringed. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I’m so sorry, Alejandro. You are good and kind and sweet. And I adore you. Never in a million years would I want to hurt you.” I paced back and forth in front of him as tears leaked from my eyes.
“It’s fine,” he said. “I only tell people I trust.” He stood back up and held out his hand to me. “So, it’s past time I told you.”
* * *
The hacienda’s living room had wood beamed ceilings and terra cotta pavers on the floor. A thick woven cotton rug rested in front of a Mexican tiled fireplace where a few logs were lit and burning. The room’s west wall was primarily glass and shored up with beams that overlooked the patio we’d lou
nged on earlier. Sliding glass doors with full-length screens were built into their frames. The furniture was large and simple and comfy: Big chairs, big couches, big pillows. A large thin TV was mounted high on the wall. The surf crashed low on the beach.
I sat on a couch and leaned forward toward Alejandro. Once the sun had set, the beach fog rolled in and the temperature dropped almost twenty degrees in twenty minutes. We had changed into warmer clothes: jeans and long-sleeved cotton T-shirts. Funny that we’d picked basically the same outfit.
Alida had called ahead and the family help had stocked the kitchen with fresh fruits, veggies and ingredients for fajitas, juices and breakfast foods. A few small platters of food sat in front of us on a coffee table. Technically it was late for dinner. We both should have been hungry—but neither of us ate.
Alejandro sat on a chair close to me but wouldn’t look me in the eyes. “‘Que nunca olvidaré’ is Spanish. It translates to, ‘I will never forget.’”
“Okay,” I said.
“When I was seventeen I was your basic high school kid,” he said. “I had decent grades. Partied with my friends. Experimented a little bit with drugs, sex, alcohol and pushing my parents’ limits.”
“Sounds about right.”
“One night changed everything.”
I knew that night well. It was the night after I got my MS diagnosis.
“Jackson got a last minute invite to a party on the top of the mountains on Mulholland Drive. He lived the closest, so I drove to his place in Malibu. We’d been friends since middle school and staying over wasn’t unusual. I told my parents I’d be couch crashing at his place but didn’t tell them about the party.”
I nodded. Triple M and I had been sharing pajama parties forever.
“His friend, David, lived with his dad who had to leave town last minute. He usually stayed with his mom, but she had a new boyfriend and was occupied. David texted a few friends, who texted their friends, and the word spread like wildfire that it was the party to go to.”
“We did that too,” I said. “That’s kind of a normal high school thing.”
Alex nodded. “Jackson drove me, his sister, Lauren, and her friend Danielle up the mountain in his dad’s SUV. The night was beautiful. Cool but not cold. The views that high up in the mountains are amazing: the lights from the houses below looked like reflections of the stars above. I could vaguely make out the canyons hundreds of feet below the cliffs. There was awesome music and decent munchies. Beer, Patrón margaritas, shots and some medical grade weed. Everyone had a great time. Almost everyone had a little too much. Except for Jackson. He had way too much.”
“It happens,” I said.
“But this wasn’t the first time it happened. He was on a strict curfew.” Alex dragged his fingers through his hair, stood up and paced in front of the fireplace. “I knew I had to get him home or his father would ground his ass forever. I also knew there was no way in hell he could drive. Lauren and Danielle were somewhere between really buzzed and toasted. I’d only had two beers. I felt fine. I wasn’t slurring, stumbling. I wasn’t even mildly buzzed.”
I flashed to the photo of the crumpled SUV in his mom’s office, as well as a different shot of the same car on his wall in his pool house. I held my breath.
Alejandro squatted in front of the fireplace and rocked back and forth on his heels. “I haven’t told anyone this story in three and a half years. So, forgive me if I meander a bit.”
“Take your time.” I stood up, walked the few steps and sat down next to him. Our knees touched. I brushed a lock of his hair that had fallen in front of his eyes across his cheek and tucked it behind his ear.
“I need to tell you. No more secrets,” he said.
“Okay.”
He sat down next to me. “I took the keys from Jackson and I drove. Malibu Canyon Road gets dicey in areas with all the switchbacks and drop offs. The girls were singing along to Pink. Jackson was passed out in the back seat next to Danielle. There were signs warning that the road was narrowing to one lane. I’d seen it on the way up, it was scary, but I could handle it. I stopped at the stop sign. Flashed my brights. Didn’t spot any headlights from the other side. Didn’t hear another engine. I inched the SUV forward. There were chewed up holes in the road and the shoulder was barely a foot wide with scrub brush clinging to the edges. It was all so freaking narrow.”
I shuddered. “That would have scared the hell out of me.”
He shrugged. “Once I navigated through that one lane, I was so happy that I hollered. The girls cheered and raised their fists high in the air toward me. I turned and we fist bumped. That must have been when the deer ran out in front of the car.”
I inhaled sharply.
“Danielle saw it first and screamed. I turned, spotted the animal in the headlights, slammed on the brakes and yanked the wheel, hard. I felt a thud. Heard the deer shriek. The next thing I knew we were flying off the road through the air. It felt like an eternity. It felt like a heartbeat.” He sat down, hugged his knees into his chest and his entire body started shaking.
One of my hands flew to my heart. The other to his shoulder. This time he didn’t flinch. Tears seeped out his eyes and down his cheeks as he dropped his forehead into his hands.
“It’s okay. It’s okay, you can tell me.” I leaned in and wrapped my arms around his shoulders, cradling him. “Tell me the rest.”
“The girls screamed. I slammed my arm over Lauren’s chest, pushing her back against the passenger seat. She never wore a seatbelt. She hated them. I don’t know why.”
“Oh, my God.” Tears coursed down my cheeks.
Alejandro kept rocking. I held onto him. Tight. Firm.
“We landed nose down on a rocky cliff. We hit hard and the SUV rolled. My air bag deployed. I thought it was over. But we skidded off the incline and dove again. My head and shoulder smashed against the driver’s window. My left arm twisted and punched through the glass and metal. I heard the windshield shatter and felt a weird crunch as my arm and my collarbone splintered. I tasted blood in my mouth. Jackson was silent. I prayed he was still passed out—not anything worse. Danielle screamed, ‘My leg, my leg!’ And I blacked out.”
“It’s okay.” I pulled him closer to me, if that were even possible.
“I came to in hazy pain. Like, I knew it was bad, but there was this weird element to it that didn’t feel real. Danielle kept complaining about her leg. But she wasn’t screaming anymore. Just stumbling over her words, like she was out of breath, really tired. I twisted, glanced over my left shoulder and saw Jackson out of the corner of my eye. He was unconscious and propped up by his seatbelt. The pain in my shoulder and arm was fierce. I swiveled back and looked to the right at Lauren in the passenger seat. But she wasn’t there. She was just gone. I passed out again. The next time I surfaced was in the ICU.”
All this time he drove me and I didn’t know. This strong man, this sweet man, this man I was falling for had been through hell.
“The only thing the docs and my parents told me before my shoulder surgery was that everyone lived. Everyone in that car was still alive when I went into surgery.”
“Oh my God, Alejandro.” I rested my face on his good shoulder and cried.
He clutched me around my waist and I hugged him back. “I came out of the surgery with screws and plates in my arm. I was messed up from the pain and the anesthesia and the painkillers. When I could finally wrap my brain around what happened, I asked my folks for more details. Jackson escaped with some mild sprains and strains, a few cuts and some bruises. He had walked out of the hospital the next morning with a really bad hangover. I was so relieved.”
“What happened to Lauren?” I asked.
“She flew through the windshield after our first impact. She broke her back and her spinal cord was totally messed. She’s had surgery after surgery but she’s still in a wheelchair. Lauren forgave me. Jackson thanked me. It took about a year, but eventually their parents forgave me, too. I think they fig
ured if Jackson had been driving, all of us in that car would be dead.”
“They’re probably right, Alex.” I wiped a tear from his cheek, then one from mine. “What about Danielle? Her leg was broken, right?”
“Yeah. Her leg was broken. Her spleen was ruptured. Her liver and kidneys were torn. She had emergency surgery.” He broke down and started to breathe from the bottom of his lungs—guttural. “She died on the operating table. She didn’t make it. She was nineteen years old.”
“Oh my God, Alejandro. I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry.”
“That’s my secret, Sophie. I’ve been living with that in my heart, in my head, every single waking moment of every day since the accident. I not only broke one person—I killed another.”
Chapter Twenty-one
Alejandro’s usual smiling face was grim. He appeared tortured, haunted. His entire body shook.
“I was arrested when I was still in the hospital and charged with DUI and involuntary manslaughter. There’s zero tolerance for under aged drinking. I spent a year in jail. After that was,probation, my license was suspended for another year. I paid a fine and performed community service. The best part of my messed up journey was meeting Nick, Tyler and Nathan. They’d been through something different, but in their own way, similar.”
How he met his friends, the other Drivers—it finally made sense why they did what they did.
“We talked about a way—even if it was grassroots and small—a way we could make a difference. We unofficially banded together to start the Drivers. It’s my way to make amends. So now you know my story. Feel free to run for the hills.”
He had been through so much. He owned it. He made amends. I shook my head. “I’m not running anywhere. Everybody screws up. Everybody has secrets.”
“I never planned on meeting you, Sophie. I hooked up with girls, but frankly, I don’t date. But you were different and you weren’t from here. There was a crazy part of me that hoped, that in spite of the Internet and YouTube and Facebook and Twitter, that you could just get to know me, not already see or know me for the stupid asshole that I was. There was a part of me—I guess it was my heart—that hoped you wouldn’t look at me with disdain or disgust and think—Alejandro Maxwell Levine—what a monster.”
The Story of You and Me Page 18
