TW: This chapter contains mention of human trafficking (again, sorry). Reader discretion advised.

“Are you hungover?” asked Pablo.

I shook my head. If anyone was hungover today, it was Juan. His bachelor party had quickly turned into pandemonium. He had tried to drown his emotions by downing half a bottle of tequila and spinning around a stripper pole. He’d lost his balance and brought three dancers and an entire tower of champagne down in his fall.

His pants had ripped and his hand started to bleed again. Leaving behind a trail of blood and chaos, he’d gone and passed out in front of his father, with his head snug in a cute redhead’s lap. The party ended shortly after that.

Pablo combed through my hair with his fingertips, and I felt a soft tingle run down the back of my neck.

“You look hungover,” he added.

“And you’re as charming as always,” I muttered.

He laced his fingers behind his head, and sighed. “I’m hungover.”

“Stop saying hungover.”

“Well, now you sound hungover,” he chuckled.

I turned away from him, pulling the covers over my head to shelter my eyes from the sun and Pablo’s dumb face.

“I’m not,” I groaned. “I only had three drinks.”

Pablo lifted the sheets, and stared at me with a sly grin.

“Maybe you’re just getting old,” he said. “It’s easier to get hungover, when you’re old.”

I tried to push him away by pressing my cold feet against his leg, but all he did was grab me by the ankle to pull me closer.

“If I’m old, you’re paleolithic,” I spat.

He let out a laugh, as his arm slithered around my back. “I don’t even know that word.”

“It means you’re a fossil.”

“Would you marry a fossil?” he asked.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I huffed.

The smile on his face faded a little. “See, I really think you had more drinks than you remember, because I specifically recall us having a conversation about marriage, early in the night, when we found Juan in the garden.”

“I know, but I didn’t say I would marry you,” I mumbled.

“Well, you didn’t say no.”

“I couldn’t say no,” I protested. “Juan was right there with us.”

“Oh, okay,” he murmured. “Yeah, that makes sense.”

He slowly let go of me, untangling our bodies as he moved over to the other side of the bed.

It was a quiet morning, the birds were singing. The air was neither too hot nor too cold. Sunlight poured in through the windows, painting the room a thousand shades of gold.

The room smelled like the sweet pastries we’d eaten for breakfast, and their itchy little crumbs still stuck to my skin beneath the sheets.

In the monotone calm, I could feel the tension rising, running up Pablo’s spine and popping out of his knuckles.

“So if I ever proposed, you would say no?” he asked.

I threw him a deadpan glare. “Are you fucking dumb?”

“Alright, alright, I’m sorry,” he sighed, his hands rising in defeat. “Geez.”

He sat up at the edge of the mattress, and swallowed a lump in his throat when he looked back at me.

Sat on the edge of the bed. Swallowed a lump in his throat when he looked back at me.

“Listen, I’m sorry if that came off mean,” I sighed. “But, it’s just–”

“No, you’re good, I get it. The kidnapping, all that,” he muttered. “Kind of a dealbreaker.”

I cautiously slumped back into the soft pillows. “Yeah. Kind of.”

“Yeah,” he echoed.

Pablo stood up and dragged his feet toward the window, as his hands rubbed up and down his thighs, trying to hide away in the pockets his pajamas didn’t have.

“Do you know what you’re going to wear tonight?” he asked, his voice a whole octave higher than usual.

My forehead scrunched up. “What’s happening tonight?”

“Juan and Manée’s wedding.”

“Oh,” I breathed, sinking deeper under the sheets. “I forgot about that.”

Whenever someone mentioned the wedding, it was my brain switched off, and the feeling only got worse as the deadline grew closer. It wiped any memory I had of the event’s preparation, angrily wielding a broom to shove out any thought of Juan marrying another woman.

It wasn’t that I wished he’d marry me instead– we were still far from that kind of commitment. Juan and I weren’t even together. Hell, we’d never even kissed, no matter how hard I’d tried to make it happen, during those few times we’d found enough privacy to try and get intimate.

It was the way my stomach churned when I pictured him slipping a ring around Manée’s bony finger, how my head began to ache when I thought of him kissing her plump lips. How my ears would start to buzz when I imagined a whole crowd clapping in celebration of their loveless marriage.

I knew Juan would smile throughout the whole ceremony, and I’d have to sit there, watching with a forced grin as he happily swept another girl off her nicely pedicured feet, and ran off to a silly, romantic honeymoon. Then I’d have to push back our plans for an escape to yet another indefinite date, and stay home with Pablo who probably wouldn’t shut up about when it would be our turn.

And what if things worked out between Juan and Manée? What if he got her pregnant and made his father proud again? What if, as unsufferable as she was, he figured she’d let him sleep with anyone anyway?

If so, it would be easier to stay, fucking around and enjoying the parties, rather than run away to a new country with me and living penniless and in fear for the rest of his days.

I’d understand if he gave up. If I were him, I’d do the same.

“I think everyone forgot,” Pablo shrugged. “I mean, it just happened so fast. They barely knew each other a year ago, and before I even knew her name, he put a huge diamond on her finger.”

I felt my throat tighten up. “That fast?”

“Yeah,” Pablo sighed. “He was so happy to find a girl his Dad thought was worthy, he didn’t care whether he liked her himself.”

“You don’t think he likes her?”

He paused for a second, scratching his neck and jutting out his bottom lip.

“I mean, I don’t see why he wouldn’t. She’s really hot, as long as she keeps her mouth shut, and luckily she doesn’t talk that much,” he said. “She also pretends he doesn’t cheat on her, even when he does it right in her face. So if you ask me, it’s a match made in Heaven.”

I could feel my heart quivering deep in my chest, and a bad taste spreading inside my mouth. Either my worst fears would come true, or Pablo had a bunch of microscopic spies living inside my head, and he was using their intel to kill all of my hopes. Frankly, I didn’t know which option I preferred.

“Anyways, what are you wearing?” asked Pablo.

I loosely gestured towards the closet and all its tacky dresses. “Whatever fits me, I guess.”

“You can’t wear whatever," he groaned. “Gordita, this isn’t the States. You can’t wear jeans and a T-shirt to a wedding.”

“I don’t think I own any jeans or T-shirts,” I muttered.

“You know what I mean, Gordita, just wear something nice,” he replied. “I’ll tell you what, Andrea is down in San José getting some retouches on her dress. I’ll drive you there and you can choose some fancy ballgown or whatever.”

“Fine,” I sighed. “Just let me throw something on and we can go.”

“Great,” he grinned as he eagerly walked to the door. “I’ll make you some coffee, you know, for the hangover. Meet you outside in five minutes.”

I didn’t even bother brushing my hair or putting makeup on. It wasn’t worth putting in any effort to attend such a stupid event.

Whatever happened, I knew how the story would end. Juan wouldn’t be mine, he’d tie the knot with another, and everyone except for me would live happily ever after.

I had to face it, I was jealous.

Just thinking of the wedding ripped the wings off each and every butterfly fluttering in my stomach. When Juan would say his vows, I’d remember every promise he never kept. When they’d be proclaimed husband and wife, I’d have to watch Manée kiss the lips I wanted to keep for myself. If he so much as smirked as she walked down the aisle, I’d surely burst into bright green flames.

•••

“Windows down, right?” asked Pablo.

I nodded, and silently let out a deep breath as I felt the wind blow through my tangled hair.

Pablo’s fingers rhythmically tapped the steering wheel, humming along to a cheery cumbia.

“You’re awfully quiet, today,” he mumbled.

“Am I?”

I took a sip of coffee, and winced at its bitter taste.

“I told you, I knew you were hungover,” jeered Pablo.

The car almost swerved into a ditch when he tried to playfully nudge me with his elbow.

“Can you just focus on driving?” I hissed.

“Why are you so grumpy?” he whined, still keeping his eyes on me rather than the road ahead. “What’s wrong?”

I shook my head, unable to come up with a compelling answer. Pablo’s eyebrows arched and drew closer together.

“Is it because of the wedding?” he asked.

My whole body tensed up and froze, and I tried my best to keep my eyes from popping out of my head when I stared up in horror.

Before I could say something, the car flew over a pothole, and I cried out in pain as hot coffee splashed down my cleavage.

“I feel you,” Pablo said softly. ” I hate weddings. All you do is sit in church for three hours singing Ave Maria and not knowing if you’re supposed to stand or sit.”

“I know, right?” I answered, my voice muffled with disinterest, as I tried to wipe the coffee stain off my shirt.

“The reception will be fun, though. There’s loads to drink, and Hernan flew in some Michelin-star chef from Paris to cook the dinner,” he added.

“We should just skip the ceremony,” I suggested.

“I wish, but he’s my godson, Gordita,” he sighed. “Hernan would never forgive me.”

“Hernan’s not the one getting married.”

Pablo replied with a breathy chuckle, and blocked the steering wheel with his knee while he lit up a cigarette.

“You know what’s the worst part? We have to sit in the front row,” he complained, blowing out an acrid cloud of smoke. “If we were further back, and it wasn’t so obvious if we left in the middle of the mass, I’d say we could sneak out and make love in the confessionals. Check that off our bucket lists.”

My face scrunched up with disgust. “Oh my God.”

“Yeah, that’s what you’d be screaming,” he answered with a sly grin.

“Shut up,” I spat.

“And that’s probably what I’d be saying,” he snickered. “There’s too much echo in those Catholic churches.”

To avoid any other gross or embarrassing conversations, I didn’t speak until we reached San José.

“Have you ever been here?” asked Pablo, nodding and the bustling streets and the bright buildings that lined them. “Pretty, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” I answered curtly. “Like, yesterday.”

“Oh,” he chuckled nervously. “I forgot about that.”

He stopped the car in the middle of the road, and walked around to open the passenger-side door. He brought me to a fancy-looking shop, whose facade had enough columns to put a Greek temple to shame, and whose big windows were filled with colorful dresses covered in beads, glitter, lace, and mile-long trains.

Andrea stood in the middle of the shop, propped up on a pedestal like a mannequin, with her back arched at a painful angle to stop a dozen needles from piercing through her skin.

“Hey Andrea,” said Pablo as he kissed her on the cheek. “How are you, darling?”

“Great,” she replied, with one of her shiny pageant smiles.

“Can you help Gordita pick something nice?” he asked. “She doesn’t know what to wear for tonight.”

Andrea excitedly clapped her hands, and gave him an eager nod. Her nose scrunched up with pain as one of the pins that held up her dress poked the side of her arm.

“I’m not going stay long,” whispered Pablo. “I didn’t park well.”

A symphony of car horns was already playing outside, and a line of cars stretched just behind Pablo’s pick-up truck, ending further than I could see up the street.

“Sure,” I muttered. “See you later.”

As soon as Pablo left the shop, Andrea spun around, with her back still bent in the same awkward position.

“I haven’t lost enough weight,” she mumbled. “I’m never going to fit in this dress.”

She must have been drunk again, because the dress seemed to be too loose for her tiny chest. The neckline sagged around her bony shoulders, revealing the top of her protruding ribcage. I could hardly see the slight curve of her hips through the thick fabric.

It wasn’t really flattering. The color wasn’t eye-catching, and the way it fit her body made it look like she’d been shoved inside an old sleeping bag.

“You could just wear another one,” I suggested.

“Ugh, I wish. It’s so ugly,” she sighed, bunching the dishwater-colored tulle in her fists. “But Manée told me I had to wear this one.”

I searched through the racks, picking out a dress that seemed decent enough. It was pink, with ruffles and a pretty flower print, and looked like what I imagined people would wear to fancy weddings.

“Maybe she’s scared you’ll look better than her,” I joked.

A faint smile drew at the corners of her mouth, but she quickly pinched her lips shut as she turned back toward the mirror.

“And it’s so stupid, because I’m not even a bridesmaid,” she began to rant. “Can you believe that? We’re supposed to be best friends, and she doesn’t even want me as her bridesmaid.”

A young girl rushed me into a changing room, and before I could say I didn’t need any assistance, she helped me out of my clothes and into the pink dress.

“Who are the bridesmaids?” I asked, loud enough for Andrea to hear me from the other side of the thick velvet curtain.

“Nobody, she doesn’t want any,” she shrieked. “She said she wanted to be alone on the altar because the day is supposed to be all about her.”

“Oh,” I mumbled.

I stepped out of the changing room, and pouted at the dress in the mirror. It looked too puffy, too extra, like something a spoiled brat would wear for her sweet sixteen back in the 1980s. If anything, it would go great with one of those ugly hairdos Mafer used to give me.

“You know what they say, always the bridesmaid, never the bride,” Andrea sighed. “Well, I don’t even get to be the freaking bridesmaid.”

“I’d make you my maid of honor,” I told her with a smile.

“Thank you,” she replied, and then the room fell silent.

Even the young shopkeeper agreed that the dress looked awful. She pulled a weird face and dove back into the racks, walking back towards me holding another dress, this one sleek, sparkly, and purple.

“You’d be my maid of honor too, if only I ever got married,” mumbled Andrea as I walked back into the changing room.

“Aren’t you and Oscar going to get married?” I asked.

I heard her let out a loud sigh. “Emilia, have you ever been with a guy who promises you everything, never stops telling you how much he loves you, and then doesn’t do anything to show it?”

I answered with a short nod and a broken-hearted expression, which she fortunately couldn’t see, since my head was stuck in the criss-cross bodice of this new dress.

“Well, it’s the worst feeling ever,” Andrea mumbled.

While the young girl climbed on a stool to try and untangle me from my jail of violet lace, I frowned.

Oscar wanted to marry Andrea, he’d told me so himself. He was going to propose at the Golden Party, and I told him he should do it on another day, one when she’d remember her special moment.

It seemed like I’d ruined yet another person’s life, without even noticing. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions, they say, and I’d built myself a whole damn highway.

By the time I’d figured out where my arms and head were supposed to fit in the stupid purple dress, Andrea had stepped down from her pedestal. She poured herself a glass of champagne, filling her flute up to the brim, before drinking it all in one single gulp, her fingers trembling and pretty almond eyes glazed over with sadness.

“Maybe Oscar’s just waiting for the right moment,” I murmured.

“The right moment is anywhere between now and five years ago, Em,” she hissed. “We’ve been together for ages. Juan and Manée got engaged after five weeks."

“I’m sure he’ll do it,” I said softly. “He just wants it to be perfect.”

“Why would he marry me?” she whimpered, gently dabbing a teardrop from the corner of her eye. “I’m just a whore.”

“Don’t say that,” I tutted, awkwardly patting her shoulder.

“I’m just saying the truth. I’m literally a whore,” she cried. “That’s how I met him.”

She sniffled, and reached for the champagne. “And Oscar probably thinks I’m crazy, because I still wake up screaming in the middle of the night thinking of what they did to me.”

I felt the words tie up like a thick knot in my neck. “They?”

“There was this guy I met when I was fourteen,” she croaked, pushing out every syllable like a painful, self-hating slur. “He told me I was the prettiest girl he’d ever seen, and he was the manager of this huge modeling agency. He told me I could be a Victoria’s Secret angel one day. And he lied to me.”

I discreetly tugged on the high collar of my purple dress, suddenly aching for air as the tight fabric compressed my chest and the boiling blood in my veins.

“It wasn’t Pablo, was it?” I said meekly, dreading her answer.

“No, God, no. Of course not,” she replied with a polite, yet cold laugh. “Pablo would never do that. He’s the complete opposite, actually.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. When I turned twenty, they started bringing me to his parties,” she explained. “We got on well, and I guess he thought I was pretty, because he kept asking for me, specifically. A lot of guys did that, but Pablo was the only one who would bring me to his house and... not do anything. We’d just chill in the garden, watch movies, and then he’d cook me nice meals, and it was amazing, because most often it was the only thing I’d get to eat that day.”

She finished her drink, and gazed into the distance as her fingers wrapped around the bottle again.

“My pimp said he’d kill me if I told anyone what had happened to me, but after a while, I figured I trusted Pablo enough to tell him the truth,” she said, “and I don’t know how much Pablo paid, or what he did for Lazaro to agree to sell me, but it worked. Two weeks after I told him everything, Pablo bought me.”

“That’s awful,” I whispered.

She shrugged, and poured herself the third glass she’d had in less than five minutes.

“In a way, it is, but you know,” she shrugged, her throat twitching with the tears she was holding. “He saved me, Emilia. He got me out of there after seven years. I thought I’d never be able to leave that world, but he never made me work again.”

Everything felt heavy– my heart sinking in my chest, the layers of Spandex constricting my limbs like a dozen snakes, the grim feeling Andrea’s words had left floating in the air, which must have weighed down on her a thousand times harder than it did on me.

“I’m so sorry that happened to you,” I whispered.

“You have a good man, Emilia,” she murmured. “Hold on to him.”

I bit my lip, and she replied with a weak smile.

“God, this is even more depressing than Manée’s bachelorette party,” she laughed, her crystalline voice quivering with sorrow.

“Yeah, same with Juan’s,” I sighed, staring at the rack as I looked for another dress that wouldn’t stop me from breathing. “He was completely wasted.”

“Oh, poor guy,” she chortled as she brought her glass to her lips. “That’s going to be the worst hangover ever.”

“Right?” I snickered. “He’s going to wake up at the altar wondering where he is, and why on Earth is he marrying Manée.”

Andrea winced. “Now see, that’s the kind of thing that would make me swear off drinking forever."

I found a green dress with long sleeves and a midi skirt, which was the only thing in the whole shop that wouldn’t make me look like a cake decoration or kill me from asphyxiation.

Andrea leaned against the changing room as I slipped back inside.

“I know this is an awful thing to say, because she’s one of my only friends, but Manée’s kind of a bitch,” she mumbled.

I arched an eyebrow, half-surprised and half-relieved to hear those words coming from one of Manée’s closest friends.

“Yeah, from what you said, she sounds like a bit of a bridezilla,” I answered cautiously.

“No, she’s always been like this,” Andrea huffed. “Sometimes, she’s nice, but most of the time I can’t stand her.”

I wondered if this was a trap. Perhaps Manée had sent her to find out what I really thought of her, and figure out if it was worth banning me from her wedding– although I would probably be happier if she did.

“She one-ups me on everything. She keeps going on and on about how her pool is bigger than mine, and then she never even uses it,” Andrea ranted, as her head poked through the cabin’s curtain. “I modeled in an adonce, and she bribed someone so they’d let her walk a runway at fashion week. If Oscar gets me earrings, she throws a tantrum, so Juan buys her some too. She did it at my birthday dinner last year.”

She took another long sip of champagne, while I stared at her and tried to hide my naked chest with a flap of fabric. Andrea’s lips bent into a smug, bitter grin, as she wiped a few drops of alcohol dribbling down her chin.

“And she’s such a liar, too,” she continued. “She told me she was super rich, and I know she isn’t. She told me Oscar was gay and was only dating me to hide it, and that’s why he didn’t want to marry me. And then she also said you gave Hernan a blowjob in the bathroom at the charity gala.”

“What?” I cried. “That’s bullshit.”

Andrea rolled her eyes, and shook her head. “I know, right? I know you’d never do that, you love Pablo too much.”

“I can tell you what did happen in the bathroom at the gala,” I muttered. “Her fiancé fucked one of the girls that works for Pablo’s foundation.”

“No way,” she gasped. “He did? He cheated on her?”

“Andrea, he cheatsallthe time,” I retorted. “Everyone knows it. He cheats with the maids, with random girls he meets at clubs and parties, with literally anybody that lets him.”

She slapped her manicured hand on her gaping mouth, sending champagne flying all over the shop and raining down on the seamstress behind her.

“How do I not know that?” she screamed.

I shrugged as I slipped my arm into the dress’ sleeve. “No idea, honestly. It’s not like he tries to hide it.”

“Whatever, to be honest. They deserve each other,” she seethed, as she went the serve herself another drink. “I mean, Juan’s a great friend, but I don’t know why anyone in their sound mind would ever marry a guy like him.”

I walked out of the changing room, and Andrea grimaced.

“No offense, Emilia, but that dress is really... boring.”

“You think so?”

She nodded, and I shook my head at the young girl who’d been helping me. She dove back into the racks, and when I looked up at Andrea, she was smiling at me.

“Do you know that Pablo loves red dresses?” she asked, her bright grin widening with every passing second.

“I, uh, I thought you weren’t supposed to wear red at someone else’s wedding,” I stuttered.

A mischievous spark lit up Andrea’s eyes as she slipped a glass of champagne between my fingers.

“Honestly, Em,” she sighed. “Fuck this wedding.”

Hungover

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