Semua Bab Shattered Vows: Bab 11 - Bab 20

“How are you really? There’s no one here for you to pretend all tough and strong with...” my cousin Xavier asks, steadying the punching bag with both hands while I drive another hit into it.I look at him as I catch my breath.He has the build of a bouncer but moves with the slow precision of someone who owns every inch of space he walks into. The shirt strains across his chest, each breath shifting the fabric over solid muscle. Dark, intricate ink maps cover both of his arms from shoulder to wrist, and they catch the light when his forearms flex, revealing bronze skin. His face is all sharp lines and deliberate symmetry, the sort of beauty that makes strangers turn twice without realizing it. In Miami, women still ask about him at family barbecues, leaning in like the answer might be a secret worth stealing.He’s ten times more handsome than William Levy, but he’s definitely not a player like him.Since they were eighteen, Dawn and Jenna had their eyes on him. It went back to when he

Life has been fucking miserable these past few days.Suspension doesn’t look good on me. Sitting around with nothing to do but think has a way of making everything worse. The house feels too quiet. My phone feels useless. And I’ve been doing everything I can to stay off social media, because people are cruel. Some of the shit they write... they don’t even care if you bleed.I have tried to call Fiona. Too many times to count. She still does not pick up. Does not reply to my messages. I am convinced she has not blocked me on purpose. She wants me to sit with it. Wants me to know she’s choosing to ignore me intentionally. That hurts more than the silence.I grab my keys and head out the door. I’ve been crashing at my parents’ place. I could not stay at my condo anymore. The paparazzi figured out where I live. There are at least five of them camped out front at all times, like rats with lenses.So I throw on a black hoodie and a cap, keep my head low, and drive out.There’s a 24-hour flo

“Arrghhhhhhhh,” I scream into my pillow as I talk to Dawn, Lala, and Bethany on a WhatsApp group call. “What if I never see him again?” He was so... Ay. Ay. Ay... drop dead goooorrggggg... Those dirty, sinful thoughts alone soaked my panties.“Yessss! My girl is back in the game like she never left! New highlights, lips glossed, and the universe trembling!" Lala shouts. I can imagine her throwing her hands in the air as she said it.“Girl.” Bethany responds in a flat voice. “If it ain’t meant to be, it ain’t. Simple. Your pussy can wait for the next available man.”Dawn and Lala laugh their asses off.“Fiona.“ Dawn says again.“Just get your fine ass ready and go to the after-party. Go mingle; let your hair down. Who knows, maybe the mystery man will be there.”I let out a deep and dramatic sigh, my head buried halfway in the pillow. “I cannot believe I missed the chance.”The memory plays in my head again, like a scene I want to rewrite. The minute the whistle blew for halftime, my

“He actually walked out on me. Me!!! I mean... have you seen me?” I mumble, pouting dramatically as I scoop another spoonful of ice cream into my mouth. “I am a five-foot-eight, beautiful, sexy Hispanic-American woman with a master’s degree and a wonderful career… and he resisted me!”I am sitting on the bed in my hotel room, wrapped in my robe, legs crossed, with the half-melted tub of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey resting in my lap. Dawn laughs through the phone. I called her the minute I got back, after stopping at the Supermercado across from the hotel lobby for snacks and emotional support.“What an asshole,” she says between bites of chips. “Seriously.”I pout again. “It is not funny. I felt hurt. Like genuinely bruised. He is the first man I have actually wanted to fuck since Edward, and he rejected me.”I stare at the wall for a second, spoon paused mid-air.“Dawn... what do you think he meant by that? That I am ‘off-limits’? Off-limits how? Do you think Edward is behind this?”

They took my phone on the first day. Standard procedure. Hand over your device, log out of your life, start the whole “digital detox” routine. What most people do not know—Fiona, my parents, pretty much everyone except a few—is that I have another one. A special phone. It is a small, foldable model, barely bigger than a lighter when it’s shut, thin enough to disappear where no one thinks to check. I keep it with me always. Hidden in plain sight.No one notices a man’s wallet if it looks worn enough. Mine has a false back, stitched so cleanly it feels factory-made. The phone slips in flat, invisible to anyone opening it for an ID or a card. The staff could search me, pat me down, even turn the wallet over in their hands, and still they would never know.I handed over my main phone the day I arrived, slid it into the tray with my duffel, and walked through those wide glass doors like I was checking into a minimalist resort—white walls, soft lighting, not a speck out of place. No chaos h