“This way.” He grabbed my hand and steered me to a small wooden shack in the jungle.
The palapa-thatched roof protected us from the passing squall. I dropped to the ground, soaked to the bone, trying to catch my breath, but failing miserably because I couldn’t stop laughing at Damian’s muddy, hobbit feet.
“Dude, for someone who is so compulsive about moisturizing his feet, you need a pedicure. Bad,” I said, sobering up when I realized he wasn’t laughing anymore. “What?” I asked. He was looking at me with an intensity that was making me squirm.
“You still laugh the same,” he said.
I froze and dropped my gaze to the wicker basket on my lap. I didn’t want him to see how these brief, small bursts of familiarity made me want to throw my arms around him and tear down the walls that kept us from the easiness we’d once shared.
“Same laugh, except for that gap between your teeth,” he continued, stretching out beside me.
“I’m still the same girl, Damian.” I put my head down and we lay on the floor, wishing for the simplicity of childhood, the wholeness of hearts, the sweetness of pure, unadulterated life. Muddy puddles and chocolate faces and skinned knees and skipping rope; me hiding behind MaMaLu’s skirts after painting his face ballerina pink as he slept under the tree.
“The day you visit MaMaLu’s grave—is it the same every year?” I asked.
He nodded, staring at the dried up palm fronds that lined the roof. “I used to wait outside the prison. One day I heard her singing. It was the last time she sang for me. It was so clear I could hear it over all the noise and chaos, like she was right there, singing in my ear. I think that was her way of saying goodbye. I go every year on that day.”
I wanted to reach for Damian’s hand, clasp his fingers in mine. I wanted to tell him he’d been a good son and how much MaMaLu had loved him, but I couldn’t get past the lump lodged in my throat.
We listened to the rain subside as the mud dried on our feet.
“What is this place?” I asked, looking around.
The shack was sparse, but with remnants of use: a lantern hung from one of the posts and there was a makeshift bench with tools and rusty screws and nails on it.
“It’s kind of a workshop now. I set it up when Rafael and I first got here. It was just a grass shack then, but we got some wood and patched it up. Eventually, I built the house and outgrew this place.”
“You built it yourself?”
“A little at a time. Lugging supplies over to this place was tough. It took a few years, but I like coming out here, working with my hands, having the time alone.”
“How MacGyver of you.”
“Mac who?”
“MacGyver. It was my father’s favorite show, about a bomb technician who could pretty much fix anything with a paper clip and a Swiss army knife. I bet he could have shown you how to install glass in the windows too.”
“What makes you think I didn’t leave it out deliberately?”
“True. You never did like glass in the windows,” I said, thinking of all the times I had to open mine so he could sneak in.
I knew he was recalling the same thing because he didn’t move away when I touched the back of his fingers with mine. It was the closest I could get to holding hands with him.
“Remember the yellow flowers that fell from the trees?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I smiled, because the rain had collected on the roof and was seeping through the leaves, falling on our faces with big, fat plops, but we stayed there, not wanting to move, pretending they were wet, sunny blossoms.
“Damian,” I said, keeping my eyes closed, “I know I have to go back to that other world, the world you abducted me from. And I don’t know what happens between now and then, but this right here—this rain, this shack, this island, this moment—I want it to go on forever.”
Damian didn’t reply, but he moved his fingers away. It was okay though. In fact, it was more than okay, because Damian Caballero was struggling with the one thing that scared the hell out of him. Me.