17 parts Ongoing MatureThey say you can leave a place, but its ghosts follow. I thought I could outrun everything-the pain, fear, and memories clinging to me. Germany was a chapter I was desperate to close, a love turned poison staining every page.
At twenty-four, I was a nurse who cared for others while ignoring my own wounds. Leaving wasn't a choice; it was survival. With a suitcase and passport, I fled to a future I couldn't picture. Colombia wasn't part of the plan. I knew nothing of its language or culture, yet Bogotá became my refuge.
The early 90s in Colombia were steeped in violence, thick as smoke in the air. But even amidst chaos, the city felt alive, its streets a symphony of car horns, shouting vendors, and music. In that noise, I began to rediscover myself.
And then came Javier Peña. A shadowed man, dangerous and magnetic. A DEA agent whose presence shifted everything. I had fled one man's destruction only to orbit another's intensity. But this wasn't Germany, wasn't control or suffocation. It was something else-something raw, unpredictable.
Love doesn't wait for readiness. It storms in, consuming and undeniable. Meeting Javier wasn't just chance; it was the beginning of my reckoning, salvation, and undoing. Looking back, I think I always knew.
