The air was cold, but his arms so warm. I could see his breath in a thin white cloud, and his bright smile just beneath it. I shivered as his fingers laced with mine.

Snow dusted the domes of the Buda Castle and the sleeves of Juan’s thick winter coat. Ice crackled beneath my feet, crystalline drops trickled from the bare branches of sleeping trees, as they melted under the last rays of daylight. As the Sun set beyond the horizon, it turned the Blue Danube a beautiful shade of gold.

He pressed the tip of his nose against mine, both red and stuffy from the cold, and left a soft kiss on my frozen lips.

This was the happy ending I deserved– his hand in mine and my mind in heaven, as I watched the golden lights of the Chain Bridge slowly flicker on.

He pressed the tip of his nose against mine, both red and stuffy from the cold, and left a soft kiss on my frozen lips. I scratched my cheek against the stubble on his chin, grown out by weeks of being on the run.

We were cold, exhausted, aching from every inch of our tired bodies, but we were free. We didn’t own much, not even a pair of gloves, but as long as he held my hand, he’d keep me warm all throughout the cold winter.

“Thank you,” I whispered. “For saving my life.”

He didn’t say anything. He just smiled, and squeezed my hand a little more.

But when night fell, and we wandered around the narrow stone alleys of the city, shadows followed in our steps. I felt a weight on my shoulders and a pit in my stomach every time we turned a corner. Juan’s fingers tightened around mine and he hastened his pace, but kept his lips shut in an emotionless line.

A feeling of unease grew within both of us, I could tell by how his ice-cold hands turned clammy. I could hear boots pounding the ground behind us, their loud, steady breaths blowing like a dark blizzard creeping in.

We weren’t safe and never would be. Wherever we ran to, Pablo would find us, and not even the city’s thick stone walls could keep him away from me.

Hearts racing, panting with fear, we turned another corner, just to find another empty street. The nightly fog was so thick we couldn’t see past the other side of the road, and in the second it took us to decide which way we should run, someone grabbed me by the arm.

“You wanted to see me?” Mafer asked.

I was still in Pablo’s garden, sitting by the pool next to my empty glass, soaking in the sunlight before the grey clouds on the horizon covered the sky. Winter was a long way away, and sadly, so was Budapest.

“I was wondering if you could do my hair for the party tonight,” I answered.

I bit my lip and spat it out. I was so deep in my daydreams I’d forgotten to find an excuse to see her, and I regretted not coming up with a better one.

I remembered what had happened the last time I’d let Mafer style my hair, but I figured it couldn’t end up looking worse than it did right now. The sweltering humidity had turned it into a frizzy mess, and my sweat had stuck a few wild wisps to my cheeks and forehead. Besides, I had a mission to accomplish, and to do so, I needed to spend a few minutes alone with Mafer.

I knew she’d worry if I told her about my plans, even more so since I’d made them with Juan. I didn’t want to get her involved again, and so I had to keep my next attempt to escape a secret.

First, I had to find a way for her to keep Majo busy, while I snuck up to her room and covered up the security camera like I did the last time. Second, I wanted to say goodbye.

“Are you working tonight?” I asked innocently, once I’d settled down on a chair in Pablo’s bathroom. “At the party?”

She ran a comb through my hair and untangled the worst knots with the magic gentleness of a fairy.

“Only until nine,” she answered. “I need to help get the food ready.”

“And after that?”

“Majo said she’d wait for me to eat dinner, so after that, I suppose we’ll hang out for a bit, and then I’ll go to bed. I’m working early tomorrow.”

“Where are you going to eat?” I said, and prayed she’d give a helpful answer before this started to sound like some kind of interrogation.

“In the kitchen,” she shrugged. “I eat in my room when I’m alone, because it gives me more time to read and study, but there’s not enough space for two.”

I let out a quiet sigh of relief. That was convenient. Amazing, really. The first step of my mission was accomplished, and it had been easy-fucking-peasy. Just after 9 PM, when Majo would be outside of her room and keeping herself busy in the kitchen, I would sneak in. The next step of my plan was now the hardest.

All of a sudden, I felt like I didn’t know anything about Mafer. I didn’t know anything about her family, or how her life was growing up. I didn’t know if she planned on ever leaving this dangerous job and becoming an interpreter like she’d always dreamed of. I didn’t even have time to find out who her boyfriend was, if it was José Galdamez or some other guy, or if she ever planned to marry him and run off and live happily ever after as she deserved.

“How is your boyfriend doing?” I asked.

“Pretty great.” She grinned. “He said he’d come and see me soon.”

“I would have loved to meet him.”

“You could if you want to,” she said. “And if he wants to, of course. He’s a bit shy, but if I tell him you’re a really good friend of mine, perhaps he’ll agree.”

Her words made me smile just as much as they twisted the blade of guilt that had planted itself in my heart. What kind of really good friend was I, leaving her without so much as a spoken goodbye, disappearing forever without an explanation?

I wanted to tell her how grateful I was for everything she’d done for me, but I was too afraid that Pablo had hidden a microphone in his bathroom, and that it would pick up on our conversation. If his men found out she knew about my escape before it happened, they’d kill her. So, the less she knew, the better.

“I’m sure you too would get along well, too,” she continued with a dreamy grin. “He’s just like you. Very smart, and very funny.”

I held back a sniffle. Mafer would never know how much she meant to me. How many times she’d saved my life or sanity. How when she walked into the room, my heartbeat steadied and I forgot my worries. She’d held my hand all the way through Hell, and it was hard to let go. Mafer was my guardian angel, and I was going to abandon her.

“That’s nice,” I whispered.

She wielded the curling iron like it was a sword, running it on the same strand of hair four or five times in a row, and I wondered if she’d burn one off. Yet, I never asked her to stop, I couldn’t bring myself to say it was enough. I just wanted to spend a little more time by her side, and perhaps ask a few more questions, but the words never came up.

“All done,” she finally beamed.

I could already hear music playing and guests chattering in the garden. I looked up into the mirror and tried my best not to wince. The hairdo only looked a little bit better than what she’d come up with the last time. Now that my hair was brown instead of blonde, I looked more like one of those terrifying vintage porcelain dolls, and less like a blow-dried poodle.

“Do you think this dress is fine, or should I wear another one?” I asked.

“I think you should put on something warmer,” she replied. “They say it’ll be cold outside tonight.”

I walked over to the closet, to slip into something with long sleeves and thicker fabric. I watched her on the other side of the room, staring out the window with her nose pressed onto the glass as if she dreamed of being down there, dancing alongside the partygoers. She quickly wiped away the mist her breath had left on the pane with a corner of her white apron.

I felt a lump grow in my throat as I walked back towards her. This was the last time I’d ever see Mafer. Juan and I had already decided we’d be leaving tonight.

“You flattened down your hair,” she murmured, scrunching my curls between her fingers.

Without a word, I hugged her. Perhaps I squeezed her a little too hard, because she squeaked like a chew toy, but I didn’t care. I had to hug her hard enough to make up for all the embraces I’d miss. I needed to feel her silky hair on my cheek one last time, and breathe in enough of her perfume so I’d remember her whenever I ate a vanilla cupcake.

“Thank you,” I breathed, and she gently pat my shoulder.

“I need to get back to the kitchen,” she said.

I nodded silently, and held back my tears until she left the room.

I pulled my passport out from under Pablo’s mattress, where I’d hid it about a week ago. It fit snugly between the waistband of my lingerie and my stomach, and if I wrinkled my dress a little around my hips, you could hardly see the rectangular bump it left beneath the fabric.

My eyes were still red when I reached the garden. I stopped to let Pablo kiss my neck as I walked past him, then made my way towards Juan, and grabbed him by the elbow.

“What the fuck happened to your hair?” he asked, choking on his glass of wine.

“Don’t mention it,” I muttered as I dragged him away from the girl he’d been talking to.

“What were you doing?” he chuckled. “Sticking your fingers in an outlet?”

“Just talking with someone.”

“Who?”

“Someone who doesn’t ask so many questions,” I mumbled.

“Gotta be Mafer,” he snickered. “You don’t have any other friends here.”

“Rude,” I hissed.

He slowed us down by digging his heels into the ground, and looked at me with a furrowed brow.

“You didn’t tell her anything, right?”

“No,” I whispered, shaking my head. “I just made sure she’d keep Majo distracted all evening.”

“I could have done that myself,” he muttered.

“Please don’t bring back that horrible memory,” I sighed. ” And anyway, you’re supposed to be waiting in the driveway.”

“Right next to the red roses,” he nodded, repeating the plan we’d spent weeks rehearsing.

“Exactly,” I replied. “Just after 9 PM. That’s our window of opportunity.”

“I can’t wait,” he whispered in my ear as he wrapped an arm around the small of my waist.

“Don’t hold me like that,” I murmured. “Someone might see us.”

“Sorry. I’m just excited.”

I sent him off with a slap on the chest, and slipped back into the crowd, to drink and mingle as I waited for the time to come. I glanced at every phone screen I could see, checking as hours ticked by painfully slowly. Half past seven. Eight. Quarter past eight.

Pablo walked up to me, wrapped his arm around my shoulders, and asked me how I was doing. I spat out a few, disinterested answers to all the questions he showered me with, which whizzed into one ear and out the other. I wriggled away from his hand every time it brushed past my stomach, praying he wouldn’t feel the shape of my passport under my dress.

I kept staring at Juan, who jumped from one conversation to another as if he was trying to speak to as many people as he could, checking his phone more and more often.

Half past eight. Quarter to nine. Ten to nine. Five to nine.

Juan walked back into the house without looking back, and I wondered how he felt. He’d grown up in this home and around these people. He was leaving behind his friends, family, and twenty-seven years of memories. He was leaving his fiancée, just a few weeks before their wedding.

Perhaps it was a bittersweet farewell, the Death of life as he knew it, or maybe he felt like he was embarking on the adventure of a lifetime. I wondered if he had any regrets, if he’d managed to say goodbye to everyone in his own way, or if he felt like dragging his cold feet.

I had planned to wait for exactly seven minutes after he left, counting the seconds in my head, but I gave up halfway. I was too jittery, too nervous, and couldn’t stand in place.

“Where are you going?” asked Pablo.

“Bathroom,” I muttered.

I headed straight to the maid’s quarters, rushed down its empty maze of corridors. I stood outside of Majo’s bedroom for a few seconds, waiting to see if I could hear anything inside. I didn’t, and so I slowly opened the door.

The room was empty, aside from the mess Majo had left there. I felt a little ball of jealousy burn in my throat as I glanced at the bed where she’d laid with Juan. I swallowed it down. He was mine now, waiting for me in the driveway, ready to run away with me and never look back.

I picked a clean-looking sock off of Majo’s bedroom floor, and opened the window. Having learned my lesson, I didn’t even try to move the camera, and just carefully covered the lens with the sock.

The night breeze hit me like freedom’s fresh embrace. Mafer was right, it was cold today, and I was glad I’d changed my dress. I leaned out of the window, just to check if any guards were roaming around this side of the house. I couldn’t hear any footsteps crunching in the gravel, just an orchestra of crickets and the distant thunder’s rumble.

My next destination should’ve been the pantry, but I remembered that the last time I’d tried to sneak in there, the gate that led down to the stairway was closed.

Majo’s bedroom was on the first floor. The window was close enough to the ground that I could jump out and land unscathed, but too high for me to climb back through it, in case our plan failed and I needed a way back in. I took a deep breath, and paused a second to think.

I trust Juan.

We’re going to make it.

I crawled out of the window, hung on the edge for as long as my fingers could hold. I closed the window as much as I could, and I let go.

I had made it out of the house. I congratulated myself with a proud grin, and patted my stomach to check if the passport was still there. Everything was going smoothly. Juan would have been waiting for me right now, sitting in his car as it idled in the driveway, next to the red roses where he said he would meet me.

Everything will be fine, I repeated to myself, so as to calm my racing heartbeat. All I had to do now was meet up with Juan, and then curl up in the suitcase so he could smuggle me past the gate. In a few days’ time we’d be out of the country, and perhaps already in Budapest.

He’d assured me the suitcase trick would work. He’d had it in the back of his car for a while now, and the guards only checked it the first three times he brought it through the gate. They’d ignored it the last eight.

The first raindrops fell from the sky, staining the gravel a darker shade of grey. I checked the path to my left and my right, then glanced up at the window above my head, looking for any peering eyes or signs of danger. I didn’t know whether it was pearls of rain or cold sweat I could feel running down my forehead.

I spotted a small hole in the hedge’s foliage I could fit through, but as I crawled into it, I felt a sharp tug on my dress, and heard the unmistakable sound of ripping fabric. I could feel it tear where a spiky branch had scratched my leg, from my hip down to the knee. Rather than groan, I just giggled– Juan would probably like it.

I kicked off my kitten heels and carried them across the lavender field, holding my breath as if the smell of the flowers was a poisonous gas, keeping my chin high as if looking down would make me fall in.

The red roses were halfway down the driveway, and I walked with such determination that I reached them quite quickly. They seemed to shine like a beacon of hope in the faint moonlight, and I ran the last few steps that kept me away from them. As my chest filled with joy and trepidation, I peered through the bushes.

The road was empty.

No car, no Juan, no sign of him. Not a sight or sound other than the falling rain. I frowned. He was supposed to be waiting here.

I tried to stay calm, because things had gone well so far, and I knew everything would be fine in the end. I sat on the ground, next to the bushes, and I waited for him to come.

Maybe he forgot something.

Maybe his car broke down.

Maybe he got cold feet.

The pitter-patter of rain turned into a roaring monsoon. Dampness seeped through my dress, through my skin and my flesh, soaking my bones and the pages of my passport. I sat still, slowly sinking in a sludge of mud and dark thoughts. I waited for what felt like forever, and Juan still didn’t come.

Without Juan, I had no way out, and no way back into Pablo’s home. He couldn’t let me down now. He couldn’t leave me on my own. If Juan wanted to run away with me, if he was trying to help, whether it was because he loved me or just wanted to be a hero, he couldn’t do this to me. Not here. Not now.

But perhaps he never cared at all.

Finally, headlights shone through the downpour. I jumped out of the bushes, my shoes in my hand and my heart in my throat. The car’s brakes screeched and it came to a halt, and I stood in the middle of the road as he slowly rolled down the passenger-side window.

“Emilia!” Andrea squeaked, peeking her head out of the car. “What are you doing out here all on your own?”

I bit my tongue until I could taste blood. Perhaps Pablo wasn’t the worst person alive, after all. Juan Sandoval had just kicked him off that throne.

“I’m on drugs,” I lied. “I think I’m lost.”

“Oh no,” she babbled. “Did you relapse?”

I pretended to stumble as I walked up to the car. Oscar was sitting in the driver’s seat, staring at me.

“How y’all doing?” I asked awkwardly.

Oscar didn’t answer, he just kept on glaring, tightening his fingers around the steering wheel. Andrea let out a loud sigh.

“This is the worst day of my life,” she ranted, pointing at a large stain on her chest. “Some maid spilled a whole platter of red wine on my dress.”

“That’s awful, I’m sorry,” I gulped.

“You should have seen the look in her eyes,” she hissed. “She was so jealous. I swear she did it on purpose.”

“She just tripped, baby,” Oscar muttered. “Em, get in the car before you get sick. It’s pouring with rain.”

I shook my head. Perhaps I was an idiot for not giving up hope, but maybe Juan was just late. He could show up any minute now, and I’d miss the best chance I had at finally leaving this place.

“Don’t worry about me,” I said. “I can walk back.”

“Are you sure?” he asked. “I’m just going to drop Andrea at my house, five minutes away. You’ll get home faster.”

“I’ll be okay.”

He nodded, and the car sped off, vanishing in seconds behind thick curtains of rain. As its taillights faded away in the storm, the hope in my heart dwindled all the same, and I was left alone in the darkness.

Juan wouldn’t come. I wanted to scream, to cry, to run, but I couldn’t move. I was frozen in place, staring into the void. The rain kept falling mercilessly, washing away my dreams. I was alone, truly alone, with nothing but the sound of my own heartbeat, and the bitter taste of regret in my mouth.

I felt foolish for ever believing that Juan would save me, that he cared enough to risk everything for me. It was all a delusion, a mirage in the desert of my desperation.

My tattered dress clung to my shoulders like a heavy rag, weighed down by all the water it held. The hairdo Mafer had given me was ruined, and so were all the chances I had at a better life. I wished I could have melted into a puddle, and been washed away into a ditch like the rest of the dirt on the ground.

Oscar came back, and Juan still hadn’t shown up.

“Come on, Em,” he said gruffly. “Don’t stay out here.”

Emptiness had never felt so heavy. Getting into the car felt like climbing a mountain, and I sank like a stone into the nice leather seat. Oscar handed me a clean towel to soak up some of the rain in my hair, and glanced at me with a pitiful frown.

“Drugs, eh?” he scoffed.

“Yeah, I found a pill, and I–”

He cut me off before I could finish my lie. “You’ll have to try harder if you want him to believe you.”

I gulped, and nodded, staring down at my frozen, muddy feet like a scolded toddler.

“Do you think he’s found out yet?” I murmured.

Fate had a funny sense of humor tonight, and just as I spoke out the words, the screen of Oscar’s phone lit up with an incoming call. He sighed and picked it up.

“Have you seen Gordita?” Pablo’s voice crackled through the speaker.

“Yeah,” Oscar mumbled into the phone. “I’m looking at her right now.”

“Where is she?”

“She’s in the car, with me,” he answered, glaring in my direction. “She was just chatting with Andrea to help her calm down.”

Pablo grunted, and hung up without so much as a goodbye.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

Oscar dropped his phone on his knees, and buried his face in the palm of his hands.

“Why would you put me in this fucking position?” he blurted out, and let out his frustration by slamming his fist on the side of the steering wheel.

“It’s not like I wanted to jump in front of your car,” I muttered.

“Really?” he spat. “Whose car did you want to jump in front of, then?”

I’d never seen Oscar this angry, and the way rage distorted his face made him look just like his brother. He seethed in silence until we reached the end of the driveway, and parked the car in front of the house.

“You better get changed before he sees you,” he barked over the sound of roaring rain as he stomped toward the front door, and I struggled to follow. “I did you a favor, so don’t fuck me over, Emilia.”

The storm had chased the guests out of the garden, and they’d gathered inside the main hall. Glasses clinked, champagne sparkled, women laughed, and men ogled, oblivious to my misery.

Oscar discreetly pointed to one side of the crowd, and headed in the opposite direction. He walked up to his brother and put on a fake smile, pointing to the sky to try and distract him with some small talk about the weather, but despite his best efforts, Pablo glanced over his shoulder.

I ducked my head and pressed my step, hoping I was far enough that he wouldn’t notice the scratches on my face and stains on my legs, shameful marks of the time I’d spent crawling through mud and bushes.

Juan was right there, standing beside him, a beaming smile on his face and a half-empty champagne flute in his hand, whispering something in Manée’s ear. He pretended he hadn’t seen me, but I could feel his gaze follow me up the stairs.

Juan Sandoval was a traitor, and I was the world’s biggest idiot.

Pablo’s stupid portrait stared at me as I made my way upstairs, and a mocking grin seemed to grow on his face. Tears streamed down my cheeks harder than the rain could ever fall from the clouds.

I held back a scream, and it grew in my chest, threatening to burst through my ribs. I clenched my jaw, ran to the bedroom, and I’m sure everyone in the hall heard how loud the door slammed.

As I fell to my knees, I felt myself shatter into a million pieces. I couldn’t shout, or walk, or stand, or breathe, or think. Sobbing, choking on tears and wet strands of hair, I dragged myself towards the bed.

I’d never felt so broken or alone, not even after a month of solitary confinement. I was slipping again, stuck in an infernal downward spiral, with no way out and no one to help. I couldn’t even find any comfort in the fact that Oscar had stood up for me, because it didn’t matter.

The flowers on my nightstand had already been replaced with a fresh bouquet of lavender.

Cold Feet

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