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“Let’s go for a drive.”
The rough voice breaks through your thoughts, and your immediate reaction is to grind your cigarette on the pool edge like you’re trying to hide a dirty habit. You release a nicotine-laced breath you’ve been holding and look up with guilt stamped all over your face. The owner of the voice looms over you, hands on his hips and an eyebrow raised. The blue glow refracts off the planes of his face, casting deep shadows under weary eyes. You hate that your insomnia is disturbing his sleep; you know how busy his days are and how stressed he is juggling his work on both sides of the border.
“Where are we going?” You take his offered hand, pulling yourself up so you’re face-to-face with him. He keeps his hand on yours. The water drips down your bare legs as he leads you back into the house. “Miguel.”
“You can’t sleep.”
“Let’s go back to bed,” you offer as you tug on his hand. He stills and looks over his shoulder, his expression soft and apologetic. “I can try.”
With a solemn shake of his head, he squeezes your hand and leads you through the side door into the garage. He reaches for a set of keys with an enamel racehorse.
“Should we get Paco or Nestor?”
“No,” he says. He opens the passenger side door to the red Ferrari convertible — his first car gifted to him by his father when he was barely old enough for a learner’s permit. He’s kept it all these years for its sentimental value; but you don’t recall the last time he used it (or the last time he drove — he always gets chauffeured). “We won’t go too far. Promise.”
When he gets into the driver’s side and starts the engine, you can’t help but feel like you’re at fault. You hate making him feel like he has to worry about you when he’s already got so much on his plate. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” He asks with a soft smile before he kisses you. “You’ve done nothing wrong, my love.”
Somehow you feel like every other thing you’ve done to lead you to this man has been the wrong decision. Sure he’s made you the happiest you’ve ever been. He’s made you believe that you can love someone so much you’d be willing to sacrifice your world just to be a part of his. And yet, here you are overwhelmed with guilt over the fact that you’ve isolated yourself from everyone else you’ve ever loved just to be with him.
Once you’re on the road, Miguel leisurely drives through the bends and curves of the Santo Padre hillside. A long stretch of road opens up and he revs the engine before he bolts through at breakneck speed. As your back presses into the seat, you glance sideways to see the smirk on his face and the concentration in his eyes as he changes gear. Looking at him like this — genuinely happy — brings you a sense of calm. When it’s just the two of you, it reminds you of how much fun you have when you’re with him.
He’s the hand that pulls you out of the deep blue waters.
Miguel drives for another fifteen minutes before you stop at a lookout point overlooking the border wall. It’s a sight to behold to see the agricultural side of Santo Padre set in opposition to the vibrancy of light over in Santa Madre. In a way, it parallels the state of your life right now. Isolated up in the hills with just Miguel to keep you sane, while the life you once had continues beyond the metal gates of your new home.
“We need to talk,” Miguel says as he parks the car and leaves it idle. The ensuing silence is like fog — so thick and ominous. You want to wait it out, wait until it lifts before continuing on this conversation. “At some point, you need to tell me what’s going on in that pretty head of yours.”
You smile weakly in his direction.
“Babe.”
You swallow hard, parting your lips like you’re ready to divulge every self-critical thought contributing to your depression. But the words halt at the tip of your tongue. You can’t tell Miguel you’re losing yourself by being with him. You love him too much to hurt him like that. “I need some air.”
November in the desert is really no different from the rest of the year, only the nights are colder. The moment you step outside, your body wants to retreat back into the warm leather comfort of the Italian sports car, but you surge on. The ivory silk robe flutters in the breeze. Your bare feet hurt from the jagged surface of the earth. Standing on the edge, you look down below at the rocks — their flat surfaces lit by the pale glow of the moon. It’s a long way down from here.
“Come back.”
He wraps his hand around your wrist and pulls you from the edge and into his arms, wrapping you in a tight embrace. Your arms fall limply at your sides only prompting him to squeeze a little tighter. “Miguel, you’re hurting me.”
“I — I’m sorry.” He pulls away but still keeps you within arms reach, and he presses a long kiss to your forehead. “I just don’t know what I’m doing wrong here. Please tell me because it’s killing me to see you like this.”
“Like?”
“Sad,” he says then chews on his bottom lip. “I don’t know. Depressed?”
Tears — the kind that burn — well up in your eyes.
He kisses one closed eyelid after the other, then he sighs.
“I’m sorry I’m like this,” you say quietly. Memories of the last several weeks enter your brain, and you’re reminded of those sleepless nights, the surface-level conversations over dinner, the lack of motivation to go into town to get anything done. Apart from your job, which you don’t even find to be a refuge anymore because you’ve noticed how everyone treats you differently, you’ve holed yourself up in that mansion on the hill. “This is probably not what you had in mind when you asked me to move in with you. But this is me, Miguel. This is who you get.”
He presses his lips together in a tight line and looks up at the night sky. He shakes his head, refusing to believe you — wanting to believe the honeymoon version of you. The girl who was falling in love and who could pretend that nothing else mattered, that it was just the two of them against the naysayers. But she’s gone. You left her down in the valley when you chose him over your family. When you chose the cartel over your own brother who died of addiction. When you chose love over principle.
Miguel walks back to the car and sits on the hood. He leans forward, resting his palms on his knees, his head hanging low. You can tell he’s pondering whether or not he’s made a mistake taking this huge step with you. It was easier when you started; no one else had confirmation you were dating the leader of the drug cartel. It was all rumours and whispers. Now, you essentially belonged to him.
As your friends and family found out, they began to stay away from you. A lot of them warned you not to fall for his charm. A few, who were never really your friends to begin with, used your connection to try to get something for themselves. If they weren’t using you to get to Miguel, they were leaving you in the dust.
The worst was your family. But who could blame them after the hell you all went through when your brother died from a heroin overdose 15 years ago? Miguel had been in the East Coast at the time, and wasn’t even involved in his father’s cartel business. He didn’t kill your brother, but to your family, he might as well have.
It’s fucked up. You know how fucked up it is to fall in love with him with your family’s history. It’s selfish and weak. This whole relationship is a ticking time bomb, and once it inevitably explodes, you’ll have no one else. And for what? Because he treats you like the queen in his castle? Because he fucks you so good you forget the terrible decisions you make?
Your mother once told you that you’ve given up everything just to be Miguel’s puta. You stay awake at night and tear through an entire box of cigarettes, thinking about what she said and always coming to the conclusion that she’s right.
How can you love and resent him at the same time? The push and pull takes a toll on the heart, and you’re just so fucking tired of it. You just want to go home, curl up in your mother’s arms where no one ever questions the context of that love.
If you were to take away the fact that he is the Galindo Cartel, it changes the context of your love. A businessman recruited your help in offering refuge to the children of one of the men in his payroll — a man working legally as a sub-contractor for the development of the agricultural park. However, ICE caught wind of the fact that the man was not a US citizen, ambushed him on his way to dropping his kids off at school, and imprisoned him in a cage along the border. He was a single dad of two young daughters; his wife had died of cancer only a year prior.
Miguel’s hands were tied as Lincoln Potter and the rest of the DOJ prevented him from getting involved with affairs that concerned immigration. But Miguel wasn’t a heartless man. He used his resources to find you and ask you to help him secure a place of refuge for the man’s daughters. “I heard you were the best at what you do,” he told you upon first meeting you. “So can you help me?”
A man in his power and position asking you to help him caught you by surprise. But it wasn’t the humility that left you speechless; it was this desire to be the best leader he could be by protecting his people and treating them well. It was his heart.
And after that, Miguel just never stopped surprising you.
You suppose it’s easy to think of a cartel kingpin as completely heartless. A sociopath who has nothing to contribute to society. And for people who see the world as black versus white, good versus evil — you can see where they’re coming from, but you refuse to take such a binary approach. You don’t want to come across like you’re idealizing Miguel, because everyone who’s been critical of you throughout your life has said you have the tendency to romanticize your partners. But you strongly believe there’s more to judge in people than the worst acts they’ve done. It’s true he’s all they say he is, but he is so much more.
He is darkness and light, and all the shades of grey in between.
Standing in front of him, you place your hands on his hunched shoulders. He stares up at you — sadness swimming in those brown eyes. It isn’t fair. He only wants to be with you, but you’re making it so hard to let him do that when you’re closing yourself off. He’s the reason everyone else abandoned you. He’s all you’ve got left, and you can’t abandon him. You’ve made your choice. As awful as it is to be disowned by your family and to be judged by people who know so little about you and Miguel, you would persist through it all if it means you can continue to love and be loved by this man.
“Te quiero mucho, Miguel.”
He takes your hand and presses it firmly against his lips. “Yo también te quiero, cariño.
You begin to take a seat beside him. A brow raised to ask the unspoken question if it’s okay to sit on the hood of a car that costs more than what most people make in a year. He laughs a little and pats the space next to him, then he drapes an arm over your shoulder. You lean into him and stare out at the night sky — a gradient of black to amber from the lights below.
“My sister asked me not to come to Thanksgiving dinner at my parents’ house,” you say. “She asked me not to come for Christmas or holiday or birthday parties as long as I’m playing house with you.”
Miguel runs his hands over his face and sighs. “Jesus. I’m so sorry it had to come to this.”
“Me too.”
“Is there anything I can do?” He turns to you, eyes pleading for answers. He’s a man of action, who can’t sit idly by as people hurt you and make you feel terrible. But he knows better than to fight back against your family, even though you can tell it’s the equivalent of putting him in restraints. “I don’t want you to lose them.”
You breathe out that last tiny shred of hope. “I already have.”
“I don’t want to lose you,” he admits.
“You won’t.”
“But —“
“— I choose you.”
“You shouldn’t have to make that choice.
As the quiet settles, you think now is the time to tell the truth.
“My brother didn’t drown in the Salton Sea,” you tell Miguel for the first time in your relationship. The drowning was a story your family made up because of the shame associated with addiction. Your neighbours knew the story of your brother going to the beach on a summer weekend, and not waking up hours after a swim because of secondary drowning. “He was at the beach that weekend, but he bailed on his friends to try to score heroin. He got caught up in this bad crowd that pressured him into injecting more than he was used to…”
Realization dawns upon Miguel. He knows why people avoid him and don’t like him; it doesn’t phase him anymore. But the unyielding hatred he’s gotten from your family has been a source of confusion for him. Until now.
“You didn’t cause the overdose that killed my brother, but to my family, it’s like you handed him that needle.”
“I’m sorry.” A tear falls to his cheek and he quickly wipes away the evidence.
Wrapping your arm around his waist, you tuck your head under his chin. “It’s not your fault. I would never blame you for what happened. My family can’t understand that. I can’t make them understand that — no matter how hard I’ve tried. And I’m done. I’m so tired, Miguel. I’m so tired.” The sobs start to come out and you’re shaking. He wraps his arms tight around your body, his steady breath soothing the back of your neck.
“I understand now why you need to push me away sometimes,” he whispers softly against your skin. He strokes your hair and rocks you gently against his body. “And I’ll give you whatever you want — the space you need, the time it takes before you’re better. But please don’t leave.”
“I couldn’t.” You look up at him with tears streaming down your face. “The thought of losing you kills me more than the reality of having lost everyone else.”
Miguel holds your face in his hands and presses his forehead to yours. His eyes are sealed tight as he breathes against your parted lips. Something about sharing the air he breathes makes you feel like you’re enveloped in the comforting thought that you’ll be fine. You’ll make it out of this dark hole and find the light, and Miguel will be on the other side waiting patiently for you. You feel safe in his arms. You know he believes in you. Not this shadow of your former self, but you. And even if you can’t be that person tonight, he’s still here. He’s not going anywhere and he’s not letting you go. He breathes you in and that’s all it takes for you to feel enough. The thought settles you and you curl up into him, letting the steady beat of his heart lull you into sleep.
This love has been worth all the sacrifice.