Lahat ng Kabanata ng His Ex Mistress, His Enemy: Kabanata 181 - Kabanata 185

Ten in the morning in Bali feels like six in the evening in my brain.I’m sinking into the villa’s living-room sofa, drowned in Zane’s oversized hoodie. The sleeves swallow my hands all the way to the fingers, and every time I move, the fabric slides with me, soft and slick, smelling far too much like Zane to qualify as neutral clothing.Up front, the glass door is half open. The blue ocean sits quiet beneath the cliff, the sun climbing slow, the breeze slipping in with salt and the faint scent of sambal drifting from the kitchen.I’m doing nothing. Phone in hand, a warm box of siomay on the table. My newest life discovery: steamed fish balls and tofu with thick peanut sauce, sambal, and a squeeze of tiny lime. The perfect child between an arepa and an empanada in some alternate form.I stab a piece with a plastic fork, drag it through the sauce, squeeze lime over it, and pop it into my mouth. Soft, rich, savory, spicy, tangy. My brain waves a white flag.“Fine,” I mumble to the box.

Our plates were nothing but bone evidence. Duck skin that had once felt like armor lay scattered as crisp crumbs across the wooden table. The matah sambal had bled into a bruise of green-purple on the surface, a fingerprint that refused to fade. My orange ice had surrendered into cold water, two lonely cubes melting with slow resignation.Winona wiped her mouth with a tissue, then studied the rice fields behind me as if deciding whether this could pass for a getaway spot after committing financial fraud.I reached for my water, took a swallow, felt the sambal lingering along the edges of my tongue. Outside the shack, wind combed through young rice, insects kept up their endless chatter. When my life wasn’t on fire, I could almost believe the world truly worked this way: eat. fill up. go home.Winona slid her plate aside. The tip of her nail tapped the table once. Not loud. Just enough to change the tempo.“Erick.”His name hit the surface between us like a dropped spoon.I didn’t lift