Javi wipes away my tears.
“Do not cry for me, my Bella.”
“You can’t be real,” I whisper. “This can’t be real. I must be dreaming.”
“It is no dream,” he assures me.
I close my eyes and open them again. He is still there. Still breathing. His heart still beating when I feel it beneath my palm.
“Javi?”
“Yes, my love,” he answers. “It is me. I am real. I am here. And I am not going anywhere.”
I leap into his arms, and he catches me.
“Javi.”
Over and over, I say his name like a prayer. He kisses me. He holds me. And he doesn’t let go. His eyes move over my body. Over the bump that now rests between us.
“You carry my child so well, my Bella.”
His hand hovers there nervously, wishing to touch, but possibly afraid.
“You can,” I tell him. “This baby is ours, Javi.”
He touches me, as gently as Javi has ever touched me.
“I still cannot believe it is real,” he says.
“Did you know?” I ask.
There are so many questions. So much for us to talk about. I don’t know where he was or what happened to him. But I don’t know if I’m even ready to hear it yet, and I think Javi knows it.
“I did know, Bella,” he answers. “There is much for us to discuss.”
“There is,” I agree. “One step at a time. I only just got you back.”
“I take it then,” he says hopefully, “you do not wish to kill me?”
“Don’t ever leave me again,” I tell him. “Ever.”
“I won’t, my Bella,” he says. “But your father…”
I shake my head and close my eyes.
“No. Not now.”
Maybe not ever.
I don’t know how to make sense of the things that I feel for my father. My warring grief and hatred for the man that he was. I think I will always be split in two as far as he is concerned.
I mourn him because I am still his daughter. But I have so much anger towards him too. Anger that I never had a chance to express. But none of that matters right now.
Nothing else matters when Javi is real, and he is right here beside me.
I tell him as much.
And then I tell him to take me home.