“Where were you last night? Yesterday? Last year?” I reach my hands up to grip my hair by the roots and pull. The blunt, bruising pain takes the edge off. The blanketed moonlight above gives the park a blue filtered haze and the shadows surrounding us grow darker. 

He doesn’t answer. His lips flatten to a straight line and his hands tuck into the front of his pockets. My blood flushes with what feels like cold water. If he admits it, then this could be the end of me.

But how did I not see it this whole time?

“Tell me the truth,” I whimper, releasing my thick red curls from my fist. I take in a shaky breath, feeling the exhale push out a thread of moisture from my nose. The wind howls, shoving the trees into a quick jerking bow. He searches the sidewalk with just his eyes, like he’s trying to find the right line in his script. His eyes lock back into mine. My muscles flinch. The iris color of his brown-sugar eyes warps with the refraction of light in his tears. I don’t know if they’re real, but they still send a blade into the pit of my pulsing heart.

“I’m sorry, Clarissa,” he whispers.

“God, Joaquin,” my voice breaks, and I take a cautious step back.

His throat flexes and his jaw clenches. 

“I never wanted you to know,” he says right when his shadow covers me. “You have to know that after each time, I’d promise myself that I’d stop.” I scoff, shaking my head.

“Don’t.” He slips his hand against the side of my neck and caresses me. My spine stiffens. Before this hold would melt me into him. On him, I smell the lingering hint of lilac. Not my perfume. I squeeze my eyes shut. The memory of last week’s dinner jumps suddenly to the front of my mind. 

Both of us sit on top of the table with a cake in between. Joaquin picks up the open wine bottle and knocks it back. Twin red drops trickle out of the corners of his mouth and drift down under his chin. He parts from the opening of the bottle like he’s finished with a kiss.
“Límpiate la boca,” I tease, running my thumb across his mouth. He catches my hand and presses his lips against my palm.

“My bad,” he laughs. “So, what do we sing when we blow out the candles? Is there some kind of anniversary song I’m supposed to know?” I shrug.

“I don’t know. Last year, when you took me to that restaurant, they sang some song in Italian, didn’t they? Do you remember the words?” I open the matchbox and bend a match forward to break it out of its formation. He gently takes it from me and strikes it. The flickering candles cast an orange glow on our faces. Shadows curve like crescent moons under the eyes. When he looks at me, it’s like he’s dreaming, seeing something I can’t. The pause is too long. My smile fades for a second.

“You blow them out,” I urge, reminding him to come back to the present.
Joaquin grins and then his lips pull forward to extinguish the flames. The kitchen is dark except for the light coming in from the sliding doors leading to the patio. The moon’s glow outside seeps in, illuminating the threads of smoke rising like a veil between us. 

Joaquin takes the knife and pushes it down into the sea of white frosting. He pauses and raises his head to look at me. “You sure you don’t want to go out for dinner? It’s not too late.” I crinkle my nose and lean forward.

“Nowhere else I’d want to be.” The corner of his mouth tugs up a bit, using the blade to lift a slice out. “Besides,” I wipe some frosting off the top and tuck it into my mouth, “it’s not safe out with that killer running around.”

Joaquin’s face scrunches. “Killer?”

“Yeah, all these women have been turning up in different places around town. They’re calling him ‘El Monstruo de Mesilla.’” I raise my brows up and down, trying to be playful. “They say he does it sometimes with his bare hands. Can you imagine the amount of force it takes to murder someone with nothing else but your hands?”

Joaquin stares off at the space beside me. Worried maybe? Uncomfortable? I take it too far sometimes. I get so caught up in what I’m saying that I don’t think. He’s warned me about this before.  I reach out and rest my hand on top of his. His eyes flash down to look at it, without moving his head. 

“Guess I need to pay more attention to the news.” He takes a napkin and, in one fast wipe, he’s cleaned the pieces of cake off the blade of the knife.

My eyes part open, and I shove him off me. His denim jacket flaps open from the sudden movement. The gray sweater underneath exposes, and my stomach drops at the bloody ink-blot stains. He follows my gaze and studies himself. His eyebrow raises, more like he’s annoyed than anything. He glares at me from under his eyebrows. I recoil.

“Monster.”

Joaquin reaches his arm around his back.“I never meant to hurt you.”

The moonlight catches on the shiny blade of our kitchen knife, forcing me to acknowledge it. My reflection mirrors back, distorted and upside down on the surface. Breath billows out of my lungs into a fogged mist that stretches across the closing space between us.
“I never wanted you to be one of them.”