This time the reasons I weren’t were simple: get away from the one I was trying to leave, get back the one I had left for him.

Benidorm was where he would be, which wasn’t coincidence — it was the only reason that mattered.

Rafael I had met the summer before. Dark, androgynous, the kind of Spanish bone structure that looks like it was assembled by someone with strong opinions. He wore a three-piece suit in wild purple silk in the middle of an Ibiza summer as if the temperature were a matter of personal choice.

It probably was.

The purple hat I kept for years.

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I.Ph.

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