I am so mad. At Finn, for telling me to go. At myself, for not telling Finn to go fuck himself when he said it. So what if we would have forfeited money on a vacation? In the grand scheme of things, losing dollars is nothing compared to losing time.
I know I’m not thinking rationally—that Finn isn’t the only one to blame. I could have told him that if things were going to be worse, I would rather have shouldered them by his side than been somewhere less risky without him. I could even have been smart enough to get right back on the ferry that was dropping me off on Isabela as soon as I learned that the island was about to close.
What I’m truly angry about is that when Finn told me to go, he meant the opposite. When I said I’d leave, I wanted to stay. And even though we’d been together for years, neither one of us read between the lines.
There’s really nothing else I have to say, which surprises me, because it’s been so long since we have truly talked. But Finn is drowning in reality and I’m in a holding pattern in paradise. Be careful what you wish for, I think. When you’re stuck in heaven, it can feel like hell.
“As soon as I find out more, I’ll tell you. Not that I know how,” I mutter. “This whole situation is just insane. I’ll keep sending postcards. Anyway. I thought you’d want to know.” I stare at the receiver for another moment and then hang it up and afterward realize I hadn’t said I love you.
When I step into Abuela’s living room, Gabriel is sitting next to her on the couch. He stands when he sees me. “All good?”
“Voicemail,” I say.
“You’ll stay in the apartment, obviously,” he says, as if he’s trying to make up for his reaction when he first found me here.
“I don’t have any money—” That jogs a new worry in my mind—as sick as I am of eating pasta, I don’t even have enough cash to feed myself.
“And we’ll make sure you have food,” Gabriel says, reading my thoughts. He bends down and kisses Abuela on the cheek. “I don’t want to leave Beatriz too long.”
I follow him out the front door, onto the porch. When he jogs down the steps, headed toward my apartment in the rear, I call his name. He turns, looking up at me, impatient.
“Why are you doing this?” I ask.
“Doing what?”
“Being nice to me.”
He grins, a streak of lightning. “I’ll try to be more of a cabrón,” he says, and when I blink, he translates. “Asshole.”
“For real, though,” I press.
Gabriel shrugs. “Before, you were a tourist,” he says simply. “Now, you’re one of us.”
What I want to do: crawl underneath the covers of my bed, and pretend that when I wake up, I’ll realize this was all just a nightmare. I will breeze down to the dock, board a ferry, and begin the first leg of my journey back to New York City.
What I do instead: accompany Gabriel and Beatriz to a swimming hole inland. Beatriz says that if I’m all by myself I will just wallow in my misery, and I cannot contradict her because it’s the rationale for every outing I’ve dragged her on this past week—when she was the one who needed distraction. She is carrying a snorkel and mask looped onto her arm, and it bounces against her hip as we hike. “Where are we going?” I ask.
“We could tell you,” Beatriz says, “but then we’d have to kill you.”
“She’s not entirely wrong,” Gabriel adds. “Most of the island is closed because of the pandemic. If the park rangers find you, they’ll fine you.”
“Or take away your tour guide license,” Beatriz tosses over her shoulder.
Gabriel’s shoulders tense, then relax again. “Which I am not using anyway.”
She turns on a heel, walking backward. “Are we or are we not going to a secret place you used to take clients?”
“We are going to a secret place I used to go to as a boy,” he corrects.
We finally reach a brackish pond with water that is the color of rust and bordered by brush and thickets of fallen, twisted branches. As Isabela goes, it is far from the prettiest of landscapes. Beatriz begins to strip down to her bathing suit and long-sleeved rash guard, leaving the rest of her clothes in a pile. She fits her snorkel and mask to her face, then dives into the muddy lagoon.
“Maybe I’ll just wait here,” I say.
Gabriel turns in the act of pulling his shirt over his head and smiles. “Now who is judging a book by its cover?”