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She was at least right about hiain about how immoral you are, how bad, hoicked, how unlikeable, how terrible you are, it’s hard to hear anyone say any different I felt like a fraud being good just as I felt like a fraud being bad

"Caed in ood for me"

"And you say he’s not your man?"

"No He’s no one’s"

"If you say that then you don’t see what I see"

I sh on led "This is true But I know love when I see love You never forget your first love"

Javier was my first love That was always a hard pill to s "No I suppose you don’t"

"First love or not, it’s what you have now that matters And you have Camden You should be with his are only complicated if youat one point Then I lost my parents, a sister, and in a way, I lost a brother After Beatriz died, Javier changed And then I realized I didn’t need everything, I just needed people to love That was it Only people to love and to love me"

Tears welled up behind my eyes I didn’t really know Violetta I didn’t know exactly what she’d gone through Yet still, her words could have been lad Iup "Really"

"Same here Just …" she trailed off

"What?"

Her features softened in the dark "Be careful Javi may have loved you … and maybe he still does But don’t think he wouldn’t throw you under a bus in order to get what he wants"

And what if what he wants is still ures out he can’t have it?

"I’ll remember that," I told her We lapsed into silence, her breath becoles and guns and death and blood I dreamed about Camden, Gus, Violetta and I buried under a landslide, and Javier on the mountaintop, one foot on my mother’s severed head

I woke up soon after that and never got to sleep again

By the tis in warainst a blazing blue sky, I was already dressed and packed Violetta woke up in pain, so I left her to visit Javier’s room for morehe wasn’t going to give me too much trouble over this

He answered it, the chain across the door, one golden eye peeking through

"Yes?"

I rolled my eyes at his formality "Can I come in?"

"Oh, really?"

I stuck my boot in between the door and the frarunted and closed the door, forcing my boot out of the way Then I heard the chain slide across and he opened it

He was only wearing a towel again

Fuck my luck

Do you just walk around naked all the tio would blow up at the fact that I’d noticed

I didn’t let er and walked into the roo around

"Where’s the h, Ellie," he said, his fingers toying with the edge of his towel as it snaked across his waist "Had I known you were into the poppies, I would have done aith all the cocaine"

I crossed my arms and looked at him dead on "It’s for your sister and you know it is She’s in pain and she needs it Now"

"You’ve really taken a shining to her, haven’t you?"

"She’s nothing like you, maybe that’s why"

He nodded and walked slowly, very slowly, across the room to the desk "She’s weak and foolish, that’s her probleh perhaps that’s why you like her You can relate"