“How did he even find you?”

I shrugged. “I don’t even know.”

“Did you report that at least? Did you get a good look at his face?”

“No, and no.”

“Do you even know this guy?”

“I do now, but when he came to see me, I didn’t. He’s someone I go to school with. He’s new. I already confronted him on stalking me when he told me who he was. He said he wasn’t stalking me at all. He was passing by when he saw what happened and wanted to help. When he came to see me, he really was only making sure I was okay.”

I left out the fact that Daniel hadn’t only visited me that night. I could already feel Zayne getting antsy beside me and I didn’t want to trouble him more with that little information. I also didn’t mention that Daniel took me to his house first to tell me. Zayne would be livid.

“Is that why you haven’t been sleeping? Are you having bad dreams about that night?”

I wanted to tell him about the glass in the bathroom at school, but I still chalked that up to a sleep deprivation induced hallucination. “Yeah,” I answered him.

“You need to go back to your doctor.”

My head snapped to the right so fast I could have strained something. “What? No!”

“You’re not sleeping and you’re obviously not eating enough. When I came to see you at school, I couldn’t believe it. You looked like the walking dead.” I couldn’t even argue because I knew I looked awful. “I don’t think you should be going back to work. You’ve never been one to obsess about your body or your weight but going in front of the cameras when you’re not in the best headspace isn’t going to be good for you.”

“I can do my job just fine, thank you,” I told him sternly, slightly offended. It was the double-edged sword that came with being friends with Zayne. He was blunt. While I loved his honesty, sometimes I really didn’t want to hear it. “I can handle myself, Z. You didn’t come back here to be my Prince Charming.”

“No, but what kind of friend would I be if I knew you were having a hard time and did nothing? Your fake smiles are so transparent. I know you’re going to hate me if I tell Leanne, so I want you to start taking your pills again.”

“They don’t work!”

“Because you took them for a week and then gave up!” he said, voice rising in frustration. He seemed to have been trying not to yell from the beginning of the conversation. “You can always come to me, but even if you hate me, I’m always going to do what I think is best for you. Right now, I’m asking you to do the same. You nearly broke when your parents died, and I was thinking you were getting better, but then you started drawing away from me. At least now I know why.”

“I don’t want to see a doctor. I don’t want to take any more pills.”

I felt crazy talking to those doctors, like I wasn’t supposed to be there, and they were all judging me, pitying me. The sad rich girl who lost her parents and is suddenly seeing a psychiatrist for mental health. We weren’t even blood related. Cris and Diego had more of a right to be upset, not me.

I stared down at the water whose surface rippled with every movement my feet made. I wished it would part like the Red Sea and swallow me whole. Just as the thought entered my mind, it might have been one of those hallucinations again, but I could swear the water started to take on a pinkish hue. With an audible swallow, I pulled my feet from the water. And just like that, it was gone.

“Are you listening to me, Nina?”

“Huh?” Had he been talking to me all this time? I really needed to take a nap if I was zoning out at a time like this. “I’m sorry. Can you repeat that?”

Zayne’s sigh of annoyance didn’t escape my ears. “If you won’t see a doctor or pick up on the medication again, then you need to let more people in. You’re drowning in a sea of I-don’t-know-what, and you won’t let anyone help you.”

“I will.” The only option I had was to agree. If I disagreed, there was no telling what he would say to Leanne. I wasn’t lying, and though I didn’t want to admit it, talking to Zayne did make me feel less tense. By no means did talking about what happened make me all better, but maybe letting someone in wasn’t that bad. “I promise,” I continued when he gave me an uneasy look. “I promise I’ll try.”

We talked about Natalia after. There wasn’t much to say about her, but Zayne didn’t talk much. He hated talking bad about people and tried to avoid doing so by simply not saying anything at all. When I brought up Austin again, I had to pry information about their relationship out of him. I could tell he wasn’t used to talking about his boyfriend, but I wanted him to get comfortable with it. At least around me.

Eventually, we ended up taking a swim, but I was too tired to stay in the water for too long. I left him in the pool after half an hour and went to take a much-needed nap. I didn’t wake until Cris came in all dressed to go out with Leanne.

The hopeful look he gave me shook my resolve. I didn’t want to see Diego. I wasn’t ready. But if I wasn’t ready to see him now, when would I be? In a month? Three months? Six? As angry as I was at him for ditching us, I wanted answers. I wanted to know why he thought that running away was the only solution. We were all grieving. Wouldn’t it have been better to stay together?

I stared out the window as we pulled up to a skyscraper of a building. My hands started to shake slightly and feel clammy. Cris sat behind me, eyes on his tablet with his knees up to his chest. I knew he preferred Diego to visit us instead of us going to him. He was not as prepared as he thought he was to leave the house. In the past six months, he had gone no further than the park a few blocks away from our house, unless he needed to be at a doctor’s appointment.

Stepping out of the car, I pulled my leather jacket tighter around me. My canvas sneakers made soft thuds on the pavement as I walked towards the double glass doors of the building. Nervousness had sunk into my bones as the wheels of the car moved over the reddish brick roads that was telltale sign we were almost Downtown. I hadn’t expected to feel so nervous.

The glass double doors slid open, and it was then that I paid attention to the name of the building. Plan’d. It was a company designed to help those in need find jobs by teaching them the skills necessary to obtain and keep one. It mostly served members of low-income families, but anyone could walk in and seek help.

I felt claustrophobic as we entered the elevator. It didn’t help that the doors had closed painfully slow, making me feel trapped inside the metal box. As we neared the top floor, my heart beat quickened, and I had to keep rubbing my palms on my jeans. I hadn’t seen Diego in so long. Six months might not seem like a long time, but I had never been away from him for that long. I wondered if he changed in any way.

The doors parted, and I had the sudden urge to press the button for the lobby the second Leanne and Cris exited the elevator. My plan of escape was most likely printed on my forehead because Cris held my hand and pulled me out of the elevator with a look that said, “Don’t you dare try to run”.

We walked up to the first desk we saw where a girl with thick coily hair sat. She looked so welcoming that I was smiling back at her before I knew it. She looked gorgeous in the green dress she was wearing, standing behind her desk with a phone pressed to her ear while scribbling something down on a notepad.

“Have a nice day Mr. Donaldson,” she said with a smile and bit her pink tinted lips. “Good afternoon, how may I help you?” she greeted, and I couldn’t help but notice how white her teeth were.

Leanne pushed me forward gently and I smiled back at the gorgeous woman in front of me. “Hi, we’re here to see Diego Vásquez.”

“May I have your names please?”

“Nina and Cris Vásquez, and Leanne Aleksandrov,” I answered.

She slid a laminated, high lighter pink paper out from under her keyboard and looked it over, then quickly picked up the phone to dial a number. “Mr. Vasquez, you have visitors. Last names Vásquez and Aleksandrov… Uh-huh… Yes. Alright then.” She hung up and returned her attention to us with a smile. “You may go see him in his office. It’s almost his lunch hour.” She stood and gestured for us to follow her.

The space behind her desk was a maze of cubicles, but she seemed to know exactly where she was headed. After a few turns, I began to wonder if I could find my way out myself without difficulty because there seemed to be endless hallways branching off the one we were walking on which also seemed like an endless hallway itself.

On our last turn, she politely let us know to keep conversation at an acceptable volume because there were others working around us before gesturing to the only person working on the right side of the room.

“Hey, Diego,” Leanne greeted as we approached him.

Diego turned around to face us, a large, familiar smile on his face. “Aunt Leanne, it’s so nice to see you again.” When he stood from his desk to hug her, I was reminded of how tall he was. He hadn’t changed as much as I thought he would have. I had expected to look into the face of a total stranger. It had only been months, not years after all. He was clean shaven with shorter hair, but I would know my brother anywhere.

He buried his face in her hair as he hugged Leanne closer, but when he opened his eyes as he was going to pull away, he stopped, and his eyes grew slightly. I doubted he had expected Cris and I to come along. Leanne pulled away fully and looked up at him before looking back at us.

Without saying anything, Diego rushed forward and embraced Cris and me in a tight hug. I hugged him back and tried to fight the tears that were threatening to escape my eyes. It was like all the anger had melted away once he had me in his arms. I wanted to scream and yell, but in the moment, I forgot about what.

After a long time, he pulled back. “Nina, Cris, I missed you two so much,” he said, and I saw the unshed tears in his eyes. In all my years, I’d never seen Diego cry. He was always the stronger one. “You don’t know how happy I am to see you guys. I wanted to stop by the house numerous times but, I don’t think I could bear getting rejected by you.” Cris raised an eyebrow, and I gave him a questioning look. “I thought you would ignore me after I left like that.”

“Which is why I honestly wasn’t too hyped to come here, but I’m glad to see you again,” I said softly.

He smiled. “How about you, Cris? You’re quiet. Are you mad at me?” He asked.

Uh oh. This is something else I was afraid of. He didn’t know. Cris hung his head a little and leaned against the wall behind him. “Diego, he’s not going to say anything,” Leanne said before I could respond.

“Why not?” he asked. When he looked at our serious expression, his face fell. “Is something wrong with him?” he asked, looking at me.

“He doesn’t talk,” I said, getting right to the point.

Diego’s breathing went shallow. “He can’t talk?” he whispered.

“Won’t,” I corrected. “He doesn’t want to talk anymore. We all went through crap, you know. You coped by getting some alone time, and Cristóbal stopped talking.”

He sighed and ran his fingers through his now short wavy hair. “You don’t know how sorry I am for leaving you guys like that. Let’s get out of here,” he said. “I don’t have any more workshops for the rest of the day, and I want to go to lunch with my family.”

Cris and I left the confines of Diego’s office first and I was just going to head to the elevator when I heard Diego say something that made me stop.

“Have the signs started?” he asked, voice low.

“Not yet. Or at least I don’t think so. She still has a few months but as far as I know, nothing has happened.”

“She trusts you as much as she trusted Mom and Dad, so I’m sure she’ll say something when the time comes. Did you notice? She’s not wearing her locket.”

“She doesn’t usually take it off. Let’s go, they’re waiting.”

After that was the sound of soft footsteps and I hurried to the elevator, waved to the woman who had helped us before, and pressed the button for the lobby, holding the doors for Leanne and Diego.

Not wearing her locket. I touched my chest where my locket usually sat. I had taken it off earlier this morning because I didn’t like wearing it in the chlorine water of our pool when I swam. Were they really talking about me? What signs? And what did my locket have to do with it?

“Nina!” Leanne said shaking my arm a little to bring me back to the present. “Are you okay?” she asked when I looked at her.

“Y-yeah,” I stuttered.

“Did you hear me?” she asked. Diego eyed me with concern as I shook my head no. “What food do you want? Which restaurant?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I muttered. I was much less tired than I had been that morning, but my appetite was still poor.

Downtown was full of nice little bistros and family-owned restaurants, so we picked one we had never eaten at before. Even though I was slowly relaxing, I couldn’t stop thinking about what I’d heard Leanne and Diego say back at Plan’d for the entire meal. What did they mean?

“Nina, where is your locket?” Leanne asked halfway through lunch, after finishing her second summer roll.

“Home. I took it off this morning and forgot to put it back on. Why?” I asked.

“You never used to want to take it off, so it’s obvious when you do,” she said smoothly.

“Oh,” I said, poking at the noodles on my plate with my chopsticks.

“Just don’t lose it,” she said. “You might regret it if you do.”

“Why?” I asked again. I didn’t miss the small glance she and Diego shared, and it was agitating me a bit like there was something they were both not saying.

“Mom and Dad gave you that locket,” Diego chimed in. “You’d probably kick yourself if you lost it. I still wear Dad’s watch, and I’m sure that the leather bracelet Cris has on is the one Mom gave him when we went to Hawaii.”

I sighed, noting Cris’ bracelet. I wasn’t sure he ever took it off. He had begged for that bracelet along with a necklace that had a shark tooth for a pendant. He got excited when he was told that he could get his name on the bracelet. He thought it was cool. “Sure. I’ll make sure to keep it safe I guess.”