Falling With Grace

Why did he look at me like that?

Why did he care about me now?

The cloth swiped across my chin as I gazed up at him, his eyes darting between his motions and my eyes. After a few moments, he dropped the cloth on the counter and stepped away from me.

“Breakfast is over. I suggest you wake up sooner.”

His softness diminished as he walked back to the head of the table, sat, and picked up his fork.

“Sorry. I-I never sleep like that.”

Rosa smiled. “Like what, cariño?”

A sickening sweat broke out across my brow, and my breath caught in my throat.

Miguel…

“Grace?” Nadia raised a brow as she leaned over the table, around Rosa, and glanced at me.

I swallowed, my tongue like sandpaper. “I…um…” Tucking my hand into my pocket, I caressed the smooth rosary beads. “I never sleep. I’m always plagued by…”Terrifying nightmares that have me running scared in the night.”Bad dreams.”

Elias braced his arms on the edge of it. He glanced up at me as he sipped his cup of coffee. “Are you going to sit or stare like a lost puppy?”

He wanted me to sit…at the table…with them?

I couldn’t do that.

I couldn’t sit beside him, his mother, and fiancée and pretend as though he hadn’t held me against my will, forced me to defecate in a bucket and kept me in the dark with sleep deprivation.

How could he expect that of me?

My body still hummed with lack of sleep.

“I’m…” I squeezed the rosary as I stared at the amazing food on the table. “I’m not that hungry.”

“Nonsense, Grace.” Nadia smiled at me. “Come have a seat. Rosa madechilaquiles.”

“No, really. I don’t want to impose.”

“There’s noimposición.Sit before it chills.”

I shuffled to the table, my body on fire, my chinstinging.

I need a soak and five days of uninterrupted sleep.

“Aqui.”Rosa piled a plate with fried corn tortilla strips tinged with a red sauce, then placed two fried eggs over the top. She garnished it with avocado, cheese, and cilantro, then placed it on the table across from her, next to Elias.

My heartbeat echoed as I sidestepped eye contact, settled into the chair, and succumbed to the tantalizing aroma of spices, triggering a Pavlovian response in my mouth.

How long has it been since I sat at a table to eat?

When was I last fed anything beyond sopas, tortillas, rice, and beans—except for those moments with the nuns?

Andrés only provided meals consisting of those staples, never including any meat. Fruits and vegetables were a rarity, and our diet left us with vitamin deficiencies so severe that he resorted to feeding us supplements the size of horse pills.

Nadia tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Now that we have that taken care of, how about sharing a bit about yourself, Grace?”

A creeping warmth prickled up my spine as I forked a bite of tortilla.