My eyes immediately go to the rear view mirror to try and catch a glimpse of Reece’s face. It’s too dark and all I can see in the shadowy darkness of the car are pieces of his forehead and part of his nose. His eyes are hidden. But I can feel his hackles rise at her words. I’d hoped to have this conversation with him when we were alone.

“I know,” I say to my mother. All my earlier sadness is gone, replaced with outrage.

“You could come back. But it would take time. There’s a penalty period, but maybe you could get a waiver,” she says, her voice sounding hopeful and I find myself stunned speechless for a moment.

“I know. I talked to a lawyer,” I return.

Reece hasn’t said a word, but he speaks up then. “You talked to a lawyer?” he asks. I nod.

“But why? Why haven’t you said anything?”

I want to plead with him to understand. I feel sadder now than I have in a long time.

“It’s best, Ana. You should go.” This comes from my mother. I turn to look at her. Resentment wells in me.

My mother, who sent me to live with those monsters. Who distanced herself from me and as soon as I think we might be able to salvage a relationship, is talking about sending me away again. Except this time, she’s not the only person I’d be leaving behind. I look at Reece again and this time when I meet his eyes, I can see that he is angry.

My mother’s eyes follow mine to him and what she sees causes her eyes to widen.

“Please, just listen. Those people, they will report you if you don’t pay them. And if you pay them now, they’ll be back. You should leave, just drive down to the border, and walk across.”

I stare at her in horror. “You want me to leave? To just go? And only hope I can come back?” I ask her incredulously.

“They’ll let you come back. My friend did it.”

“We’re not paying anything. You’re not leaving.” Reece’s voice, so deep and cold, cuts into our exchange.

My mother looks at him, her voice sharp and caustic, “You’ve already sent one of my children to detention. You won’t do it to another.”

The words are a poisoned-tipped bow hitting its target. Reece’s entire body jerks. But he doesn’t say anything.

“Mama!” I gasp in horror.

“I’m sorry, Reece. I’m just scared,” she says quietly. She lets go of my hand and scoots away from me, pressing herself against the door of the car. She looks at me, like she’s afraid of me. I’m torn between defending Reece and reassuring her that a part of me understands. Because I do.

“Lucía, I have never been able to protect my children. Every threat that came near them, touched them and ruined them. Your brother is dead. You were molested by a boy who’s shit I’m still wiping up.”

I look at Reece, I’ve only recently told him that story and he’d been so angry that I’d refused to tell him the family’s name.

“I had to send you away to live with those people knowing that they would make it difficult for me to see you.” Her eyes flit to Reece and I feel my stomach twist. This is a nightmare of epic proportions.

“If you love my daughter, you’ll encourage her to do this. If you marry without her doing this, her status won’t change. She’ll have your children and just like me, she’ll be living in the shadows, unable to protect them from anything. What about when you want to take your kids to see Europe for the first time? She won’t be able to go. Are you going to hire a driver to get her around? Do you want to live with the fear that she’ll be deported? Once the film is out, she’ll only become more famous. It won’t take a blackmailer. Just someone who is creative enough to connect the dots,” she says to Reece, her voice beseeching.

Reece looks at me and I look at him. I let all my emotion show in my eyes, I pray he understands what I’m saying. I’m sorry. Get me out of here. I love you. His eyes soften slightly and he looks at my mother.

“Okay,” he says on a big exhaled sigh. “It’s been a long day. We all have a lot to think about. I think we should get going.”

She doesn’t say anything. She only looks down at her hands.

“I only love you, Ana. I’m just trying to make things right.”

“I know, Mama. I love you, too. I’m just tired. I’ll call you this week. We can talk some more.”

Neither of us has said a word since we got in the car. Reece is pensive and I can feel the angry energy radiating from him. We were supposed to spend the night at Reece’s house, but when Reece passes the exit for Calabasas and gets on the I-10 instead, I know we’re headed to Malibu. We need to be there.

“Reece . . . I’m sorry,” I say, feeling how wholly inadequate and thin that is right now, but it’s all I’ve got.

He only squeezes my hand in response. His eyes never leaving the road.

My shame knows no bounds. He’s seen the raw underbelly of my life. The part that I’ve cultivated this exterior to protect. My uncle blackmailed him. My mother threw Julian’s death in his face. And she painted the bleak picture of the life we’re facing if I continue to live here in undocumented status. My uncle is right that since this new administration rode a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment into office, people who had been safe were no longer. And my DACA application is still under review.

I hear my mother’s voice, “It won’t take a blackmailer.” She’s right. I know she is. I need to think about this and plan for a way to leave the country before I’m deported. That will make coming back much more difficult. I growl in frustration.

Reece sighs and glances at me. It’s dark and I can’t see his face, and part of me is glad. What would I see there? Sadness? Anger, maybe? Other things I’m too afraid to give voice to.

“Luc . . . I don’t know what to say. There are a million things running through my head, but none of them feel like they’re ready to come out.” Reece sounds just the way I feel—tired and defeated. “Let’s try to get some sleep and see how things look in the morning.”

His voice is neutral, but his knuckles are white as they grip the steering wheel. I see the flex of the muscle where his jaw hinges. Guilt mixes with my shame and that growl wants to become a scream. I’m afraid I may never sleep again. My life for the last couple of months has felt too good to be true. I’d forgotten the realities of my situation. I feel myself starting to descend that very dangerous and seemingly endless ladder of self-pity that I’ve avoided for most of my life.

I’ve always worked around the roadblocks, pursued my goals even when I had no real hope of seeing them realized. And now, I have to figure out how to plan a future when I don’t even have the right to live in the same country as the man I love . . . if Reece wants that. We haven’t talked seriously about where we’re heading. I love him, desperately, and it’s happened so quickly that my feet have barely touched the ground since that day in the pool when he told me, “I lied,” and then pressed his lips to my neck.

I glance at his profile again taking him in. Tonight at my uncle’s house I was worried that things would turn even uglier. Reece isn’t used to anyone making demands and threatening him. My uncle and aunt are nasty, greedy people. I’m sure this is just the beginning of their blackmail. A niggle of self-doubt worms its way into my inner dialogue. Is Reece wondering if I’m worth all this trouble? My heart skips a beat at that thought. Is he going to leave me? I don’t know that I would blame him. I’m not sure that I would invite this much trouble into my life voluntarily.

“Fifty-five, I can practically hear your mind working. I only suggested we sleep on it, but if you want to talk we should. I don’t want you going to bed with this weighing on you.”

His voice is kind, his spirit generous. I want to crawl into his lap and stay there. To bask in the cocoon of safety and security that he’s provided me. I want to fuse myself to him so that I never have to be without him. I can’t imagine what today would have been like if he hadn’t been there. Actually, I can. My uncle and aunt were abusive when I lived with them. She hit me whenever the fancy took her and he berated me, reminding me of the debt I was accruing in their house.

And two years after I moved in with them, when I was fourteen, my can of money, the one I hid under my bed, disappeared. It contained every penny I’d saved from the odd jobs I’d taken after school. I didn’t tell her that I was working, I hadn’t wanted them to know. And it wasn’t very much, but it was everything I had. She didn’t even try to deny having taken it. She told me their utility bill had increased since I’d moved in. When I told my mother, she’d only told me to pray. I left as soon as I was able and I never looked back. He’s my father’s cousin and the furthest things from family I can think of.

“Reece, we can’t pay them.”

“Of course we’re not going to pay them. I’m not even going to give them a second thought. And you shouldn’t either.” His voice is sharp and bruising. He doesn’t say anything else and neither do I. The silence in the car is uncomfortable and I don’t know how to make it better. We pull up to the gates of the Malibu estate and Reece punches in the code to open the gate.

I need to think about what I’m going to do, but I also need to find a lawyer. I need to explore my options and then decide what’s going to be best. I start to say this to Reece when he says, “I’m just going to drop you off tonight, Luc. I’m headed back to LA. I have an early meeting . . .” His voice trails off. Early meetings hadn’t kept him from staying with me before.

My heart sinks. I swallow and try to keep my voice from quavering. “Is this too much? More than you signed up for?” I quietly ask one last question. “Are you thinking of breaking up with me?” I’m not prepared for him to answer that honestly. I don’t look at him; I just stare straight ahead.

He doesn’t answer, the gate opens and the car doesn’t move. When the gate starts to close again, I finally look up at him. And my breath catches. He’s staring at me, looking at me with eyes full of naked, unabashed love. And behind that is something much harder to identify, it’s need, promise, helplessness and anger all blended together.

“Reece . . . ” It’s a question and a demand.

Without responding, he turns the car off and gets out. He closes his door with a slam that makes me jump. His stride is long and angry as I watch him round the hood of the car. In a flash, he’s snatching my door open. He reaches across me to unlatch my seat belt. He grips me by the forearms and yanks me out of the car. I yelp in surprise as he turns me around, and presses me against the side of the car. He kicks my legs apart and then steps into me. I feel his rock-hard erection pressing into my lower back and I start to squirm. I rub my thighs together and my entire body clenches in anticipation.

“I fucking love you,” he growls in to my ear. “I’ve been waiting for you my whole life.” His hands tangle in the hair at the nape of my neck and he pulls my hair back to expose my throat. His mouth hovers over my ear, sending a chill through me and causing a whimper to escape me. “We were made for each other. You were looking for freedom . . . I thought I’d already found it. I had no idea.” He puts his open mouth on my throat and starts to suck it. Hard and fast. My hips move of their own volition. He groans, his hand leaving my hair and moving to my side. One of them cups my breast through the thin fabric of my dress and squeezes. The other runs down my thigh and yanks the dress up around my hips exposing my bare flesh to the cool night air. His rubs my ass, squeezing and kneading it.

“You think that it could ever be too much? That what happened today would scare me off?” He bites my ear, then moves to my throat. “Lucía, I’ll ruin anyone who tries to hurt you.”

I feel him lean his hips away and tear the zipper of his jeans as he pulls them down. It’s dark, but we’re outside, just off a main road. Anyone could drive by. I feel a surge of moisture at the thought. I turn my head and look around. “You looking around because you want to make sure no one sees?” He tips my hips back while dipping his hand inside my panties. “Or are you hoping someone will drive by while I’m fucking you?” I grind myself against his fingers and a moan rips from my throat.

“Yeah. You like that.” He laughs and then grunts as he puts two of his thick fingers inside of me.

“You’re always so ready for me. Fuck. I need in you,” he says before his fingers leave me. He pushes my panties to the side and then with one strong thrust, enters me. His cock is hard and with every thrust he sends a jolt through me that runs from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. He grabs my waist with both hands and sets a punishing pace. I groan, long and low at the sensations he’s creating inside of me. “Tell me you love me,” he whispers frantically in my ear as he fucks me out in the open like our entire lives depended on it.

“I love you.” I manage to get out.

“Yes. You do. Don’t fucking doubt us. I’m not going anywhere.” He pants in my ear. One of his hands leaves my hips and circles around to find my clit. It’s pulsing and when he touches it, I feel my orgasm start to build.

“Shit, yes. Come for me, baby,” Reece mumbles in my ear. He keeps talking but I don’t understand a word. I’m lost to my climax and soon Reece is, too. He shudders and groans at my back as he comes. His finger digging into my hips so tightly that I know I’ll be bruised there tomorrow.

He lays over me for a few minutes when he’s done, breathing hard as he pulls out of me.

“Stay right there,” he says as he runs over to his side and comes back with a hand full of tissues. He kneels in front of me, lifts my dress up and wipes me clean.

Still on his knees, he looks up at me. His eyes have lost the anger and helplessness, but the love and promise remain.

“I’m not going anywhere, Luc. Unless you’re coming with me.”

I stroke his face with my hand, caressing his cheek and looking back into the eyes that have come to be a compass for me. I look at them when I need to find my true north.

He’s it. And I need to fix things so that I can be a real partner to him. Before I started this journey, I’d thought about coming out of the shadows and finding my path to citizenship or at least to legal residency. My life has been a series of dramatic events that propelled me in a direction I have little control over. I don’t want this to be like that. I want to plan and do it, and give myself the best shot at being granted re-entry.