Sleep proves elusive. Even through the bedroll, I can feel every stone, every pebble, every twig.

I have no idea how much time passes before Kiki’s voice cuts through the darkness. “Ana, are you awake?”

“Yes.”

She’s silent for another moment longer. And then, “I’m sorry. I really am. I don’t want to fight with you. I can’t.”

My instinct is to stay where I am. To say nothing. To hold myself back. But her voice is thick with suppressed tears. The weight she’s been carrying must be so heavy. And here I am, being a selfish ass. I can’t stay angry at her. Or whatever it is I’m feeling. Not anger. Anger keeps me warm. This is something different. Something cold that I don’t like.

The candles have mostly dimmed, so I make my way to her side mostly by feel. A startled laugh escapes me as my hand collides with hers, the two of us groping for each other in the darkness.

Before I can think of what to say or do, her fingers tangle with mine and she pulls me down onto her bedroll.

The bones of her legs dig into mine.

She’s thinner now than she was before. Of course she is. She wasn’t eating properly after Alejandro died.

“I’m sorry,” she says again. “For everything.”

My hand finds her cheek, my fingers trailing along its curve. “Shut up.”

A startled laugh escapes her. Then she slaps a hand over her mouth. “Sorry. I mean—”

“I’ve never told you about the scars.”

It is an abrupt change of subject, but I would rather talk about that than go back and forth about Sebastian or marriage or what lies ahead for her. For us. Sometimes the past, no matter how painful, is safer than the future.

She falls silent. Somber. And then: “No. You haven’t. And you don’t have to.”

I shake my head, my hair rucking up against our makeshift bedding. “I want to.”

And I do. But everything seizes up inside me when I think about forming the words. I haven’t spoken to anyone about the night I got them. Not since it happened.

“My mother was a prostitute. She worked at Esmeralda’s.”

Kiki nods, her chin hooking onto my shoulder. “That much I know.”

I draw in another breath, fortifying myself. “I don’t really remember her much, but I don’t—I don’t think she was well.”

The candlelight flickers, nearly dead.

“I knew she didn’t want me. I was a nuisance. A bother. A burden. There was some debate about how the fire started.”

Kiki tenses, comprehending perhaps where this tale of woe is going.

“I was in my bed. Though calling it a bed was generous. It was more of a pile of old rags, dresses too threadbare to even try to salvage. Cast-offs from the older girls.”