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Slater left early again this morning, but he promised he wouldn’t be home late. I’m going to make him dinner tonight. It’s almost time for my final exams and I need to ask him if it’s safe for me to go, if he’ll take me. I’ve never been to university alone before, Juan Carlos always drove me there and waited for me.
I turn my computer on and open my files, but my mind isn’t on studying. I keep thinking about what will happen after I graduate. I had a plan, but now it’s changed. Although... do I really want to stay here? Is this what I want? Being with him means staying in this life, the same sort of life as my father’s, the sort that I was trying to escape. Slater isn’t innocent. I watched him break a man’s nose and I watched him kill a man. Sure, he’s got his businesses, his fight clubs, but what else is he involved in? Drugs, like my father? Gambling? I don’t know and I don’t want to. Do I want to give up my future, a future where I can be anything, for this? If I stay here, there’ll always be a risk. There’ll always be a chance that something happens, that he has a fight with someone, or something happens to me, or – I bite my lip – to him. The thought makes me shiver. If anything happened to him, how could I live?
I rub my face and fix my eyes on my laptop. I need to focus on studying, that’s all I should be thinking about at the moment. An envelope appears in the bottom right corner of the screen. I open the email programme: it’s from my father. There’s no subject. I hesitate, then click on the email and read it.
Dear Princesa, please just let me know you are OK. I miss you and love you, my darling girl.
I close the email. My poor papa. I have to answer him. It was hard enough to convince Maria when she called me on the burner phone that I was fine and she didn’t need to worry about me.
I type quickly, writing to tell him not to worry about me, and that I love him, too. Then I shut my computer, feeling guilty. Will Slater know? Should I tell him? I don’t want to keep secrets from him but would telling him really be the smartest idea? It’ll only upset him. I decide to keep it to myself. He doesn’t need to know.