I didn't remember much after the shooting because the pill kicked in. Everyone but me was stunned I'd shot Sebastian. Lena and Vee hustled to get me of the house while Griffin wiped the room for prints, and then we fled.

That I remember.

Griffin and I said goodbye to Lena and Vee at the airport. We were leaving, they were staying. It was their job to get the contents of the computer to cops and the media. They were also selling the art to some of Vee's acquaintances, and Lena would leave the country. Or so they told me.

The details of those horrible hours are lost in the thick fog of trauma. The last thing I recall was the strange smell of pineapples in the cabin of the plane, and rising into the black Florida sky.

When I wake, I'm in a king-sized bed with soft cotton sheets. My eyes go to a hand, and the skin is bronze next to the pale ivory of the sheets. I smile a little, because I always love waking up next to Griffin.

He's next to me, propped against the headboard and reading a book. As if this is the most normal thing in the world. I stretch.

"Hey," he says softly.

"Urgggh," I moan. My head feels heavy. "Where are we?"

I sit up and look out the window, clutching the sheet to my chest. "Is that a volcano?"

"Mmhmm. It is. Guatemala's full of them."

When I feel Griffin's hand on my back, I turn to him.

"Come here."

He opens his arms and I melt into his body, still sleepy. I close my eyes and breathe in his familiar soapy, spicy smell. He strokes my hair and kisses the top of my head.

He's naked and his body's warm. I'm wearing a t-shirt and panties. I guess he must have gotten me out of my dress last night and into this. When I think of the white dress I was wearing when everything happened — I'm not even sure it was last night, it seems so long ago — a pang of fear stabs my gut.

"Where are we? What day is it?"

"We're at a hotel in Guatemala. We've been here for about twelve hours. Just rest, angel."

Because of his rhythmic stroking of my back and the sound of his heartbeat, I drift back to sleep.

It's like this for days. I don't know how many. I sleep, a lot. Griffin brings me food that I barely taste. Sometimes I go onto the porch to look at the cloudy skies and the perfectly-funnel shaped volcano on the horizon. It rains hard here, harder than in Miami. The air is thick and earthy-smelling.

The hotel must be near a jungle, because from our second story balcony, I see a thicket of green and hear the most incredible noises. Birds and choruses of frogs and insects and God knows what else.

The only time I laugh is when Griffin tells me that the loudest screeches are those of monkeys.

"They are not." I crack up.

"No, really," he insists, grinning.

We don't have sex. Haven't since that terrible night he discovered my truth about Sebastian. I don't sleep naked anymore; I wear Griffin's t-shirts and underwear. I'm still attracted to him, crazily so. But I just don't feel like being intimate in that way.

I'd rather be held, and Griffin senses this. That's all he does. Holds me, kisses me, massages my feet.

We don't talk about what happened in Miami. I don't ask questions, and Griffin offers no explanations. I tell myself that this is for the best, that it would have been like this even if I hadn't shot Sebastian. We had to disappear.

I don't venture out of the room much. In the back of my mind, I wonder if authorities are looking for me. Wonder if someone will recognize me. Those are realities I don't want to deal with right now, so I stay inside our luxury suite, reading the books Griffin brings from somewhere in the hotel, sleeping, staring at the jungle. There are so many unanswered questions swirling like a slow-moving storm in my brain. Did Sebastian live? Why did he have a loaded gun in his drawer? Will I ever see my mom again?

Then, one day, I wake up and the fog in my brain has cleared. I climb out of bed and Griffin's on the balcony, drinking coffee.

The sky is a pure, clear blue. I stand next to him, not touching, my wrists draped over the rail.

"I shot him."

Griffin turns to look at me.

"I shot Sebastian." It feels strangely empowering to admit this. I know it's wrong, to hurt someone else. But he was so evil, and I didn't want him to ever hurt any other woman again.

There's pure anguish in Griffin's eyes. "I'm sorry I put you through that. You were in that situation because of me."

That's certainly true, and one more thing I don't want to think about right now. I take a few deep breaths. It all comes rushing back. The surge of glee when I found Sebastian's computer in the drawer, the fear of hearing his voice when he came into the room, the anger when he laughed and smirked as I pointed the gun at him.

Until the very end, he thought he could control me.

"Is he dead?"

"I don't know. I haven't talked with anyone in Miami. We don't have a smartphone and I don't dare use the laptop right now. Does it matter if he is? Doesn't he deserve to die?"

An image of Sebastian in the limo, the creepy feeling of his hands roaming my thigh when I was asleep that first time, comes to mind.

"Yeah, he does deserve to die."

My heart kicks insistently against my chest. We had a plan, and I screwed it up. "What's going to happen to me? To us? Will we be arrested?"

He embraces me. "If it comes to that, I'm telling them I did it. I'll do everything in my power so you don't go to prison."

I'm trying not to weep. I've ruined everything. All that we went through was for nothing.

"I don't think it will come to that, though."

"Why, because I'm officially missing, and will soon be officially declared dead?" I let out a long sigh. The weight of our reality is sinking in. Our plan sounded so solid in Miami.

"I know." Griffin moves closer to me. "I saw the story about the plane on the Guatemalan news earlier today. Just we planned, it disappeared in the jungle."

"You know, I never thought to ask whose plane it was. I was so focused on setting up Sebastian."

"It's a guy I know. He wanted to collect insurance money and sell the plane. They'll remove the N-number and replace it with another."

I roll my eyes. "I don't know what an N-number is but whatever. Sell the plane to who?"

"A drug cartel. Someone from the cartel flew the plane here. We just hitched a ride. We landed on a remote airstrip deep in the jungle. You were completely out, which was probably for the best."

Drug cartels. Jesus. "All I remember was the pineapple smell."

The side of Griffin's mouth quirks up. "The plane was carrying us and cases of pineapple."

"Does everything have to be so strange? Why?"

"The pineapples were hollowed out to carry cocaine."

"Hunh? I thought people transported cocaine to Miami, not to Central America." I hold up my hand. "Never mind. Not my circus, not my monkeys. So the plane was reported missing and it was on the news. Everything went as planned."

Griffin strokes the stubble on his chin. For the first time this morning, I study him. As if he's someone I don't know.

His dark, rakish beauty is still breathtaking. I frown.

He reaches to brush a lock of hair out of my eyes. "My acquaintance had some contacts in the country's civil aviation office. A small payment was all it took for authorities to 'discover' the plane went off the radar, and 'learn' that you were on the plane." He makes air quotes around the word learn and discover. "They mentioned to a reporter that a woman named Juliette Phillips might have been aboard. Everything was kept vague, but concrete enough to let people know you're probably not coming back."

"I just hate that my mom..." My voice trails off. This is the awful part. The part I've pushed in the back of my mind. I think about her, crying at the kitchen table in her apartment in Jacksvonille. Tears spill over my lower lids, and Griffin reaches for me.

"It'll be ok. Ash knows the truth." His voice is quiet. "So does Vee. So does Zoe. They'll tell your mom when it's appropriate."

"But," I sniffle, "She's going to be devastated for a while."

"It's the only way, angel. The cops and reporters will find your mom. It'll be easy for them to leave Ash alone because he's sick. But your mom...she needs to answer their questions realistically. I know. It sucks. It really sucks."

I nod, miserably.

"We need the world to think Juliette Phillips is gone forever. You're Angela Davidson now."

"I know," I whisper. Angela. Angel. I've taken Griffin's fake last name, as if we're married.

"Will I ever see them again? It kills me to think I won't see my mom. I wish we'd had more time to go over this in Miami. But then again, this was my choice. I could have just left on my own, I suppose. Could've left Lena behind to fend for herself."

Griffin nods. "Eventually you'll see them. I'll make it work somehow. You made this choice because you knew it was the only way to save Lena. You couldn't have predicted it would go the way it did."

"We no longer exist. Christ." I scrub my hands over my itchy eyes. It had to be this way. Even if we'd left Lena behind, even if I hadn't shot Sebastian, we'd still need different identities because that bastard surely would have done something horrible to Griffin out of spite. And to me.

"As far as I'm concerned, Griffin Davis is dead and gone. I checked in here as Finn and Angela Davidson." A smile escapes his lips. "Told them you were wiped from the trip and that I'd help you into the room myself. I didn't want them to see how you'd passed out."

We stand in silence for a while, and Griffin — excuse me, Finn — keeps looking at me with a hesitant, searching gaze.

So many questions. Ones that will probably never have answers. "I hope Lena gets enough money from the paintings. Hope she returns to her son. You're not worried about her talking?"

Griffin shrugs. "Vee's pretty convincing. Even if Lena does tell cops you shot him, they'll think you were trying to flee and died in a plane crash in Guatemala. And, Juliette?"

I turn and look into his green eyes. "Yes?"

"There's not a jury in Miami who would convict you, after what you went through. After the photos you found. So let's just start fresh today. I feel bad about your mom, but Ash said he'll handle it. We have to put us first."

I shudder in a breath, unsteady from it all. "So what's next? We can't just stay here in this swank hotel forever."

Griffin sips his coffee. "I wanted to wait until you felt better to talk about it. We have a lot of options. A world of options. Anywhere but Miami. I want to do everything in my power to care for you, Angel. To make it right."."

"Miami hasn't exactly been good to us these past few months." I chuckle bitterly. "Can I?" I reach for his coffee. With shaking hands, I take a sip. There's notes of chocolate and smoke and the bitterness matches my mood. Oddly, it's the most delicious coffee I've ever tasted.

"The coffee really is better here. Better than Starbucks."

He lets out a little laugh and rubs my back.

"I want to go somewhere warm. Somewhere calm. Somewhere I can work an honest job and live a good life."

He stops rubbing my back and studies my face. "What about us? Do you want to do all that with me?"

We stare at each other in uncomfortable silence. He knows me well enough to realize I have a lot of anger inside, and some of it's directed toward him. His bottom lip trembles.

"I can understand if you want distance. What I put you through," he rakes a hand through his hair, "wasn't fair. Wasn't right. I don't know if I'll ever forgive myself, so I don't know why you would."

"I'm angry. You know that."

He nods.

"I need to learn to trust again. I need to trust that you're not going to put me in harm's way. Learn to live without shame. Forgive myself."

"I want to help with that. I want to be there to listen to you and support in any way I can. I want to rebuild the trust I had with you. Be a better man. I have to deal with that, too. Because I was pretty shitty before, and I'm not talking about what happened with Sebastian. I fucked up a lot of lives. And most of all, my bad choices affected your life."

I lick my lips and wave after wave of fear washes over me. The future suddenly seems limitless and terrifying, especially when I think about one without Griffin. Like I'm about to plunge from the lip of that volcano, into the bottomless unknown. "Do you think we're too damaged to continue together?"

"No." His voice is a low, hoarse and shaky. "But I'll respect whatever decision you make. I'll support you, emotionally and financially, regardless. I don't deserve you, I know that. But I love you. So much that it feels like my heart's breaking in two."

My throat's thick with tears and my vision blurry from all the liquid in my eyes. I set the coffee on a nearby table. Now it's me putting my arms around him.

I can feel his body trembling, or maybe that's mine. It's hard to know where I end and he begins.

"I'm going to try my hardest to forgive you. I want us to be together. We have something incredible, and we should work to save it. Shouldn't we? Let's try to live a good life together. Let's try to find the goodness in the world. In each other. In ourselves."

Griffin looks at me with red, watery eyes and nods.

"I love you." I murmur against his mouth. "I love you so much, Griffin."

There's only one place to go from here, and that's forward.

____