Kevin04

For months I’d whispered the same fantasy in her ear. That afternoon, in a deserted cove, I stopped imagining it and watched it come true in front of me.

Two months pregnant, I opened my phone and saw my husband with a coworker. I didn’t cry as much as I expected: I started counting how many fucks he owed me.

She only wanted to understand her body before getting married. She never imagined that therapy group would lead her to betray everything she believed about herself.

That hot afternoon, Lucía sat beside him on the couch and confessed something no brother-in-law should ever hear. Damián knew he was lost before he answered.

He sat on the sofa, a handspan from me, with that repentant-boy face that worked so well for him. And I, after weeks without sleep, knew I was going to forgive him again.

He did not look at the frescoes; he looked at her, as if she were the material he had to break. And for the first time, she wanted something in her life to collapse.

The drive to the gym didn’t account for eighty extra kilometers every Thursday. That number was the first thread of a truth that would end up exciting me more than destroying me.

They had spent their whole lives inseparable, but that afternoon, alone on the sofa, neither of them wanted to pretend that kiss had been an accident.

I accepted the game: the door left unlocked, the lights off, and a man whose face I’d never see. What I didn’t imagine was meeting him at the office on Monday.

That morning I didn’t get dressed or dry my tears. I just dialed his number and asked him to come without telling my husband.

The call came on a Saturday at dusk. Her parents were away, and her voice on the phone trembled a little. I knew then the night wasn’t going to end early.

I locked the door and turned off the lights in the study room. All I wanted that afternoon was to comfort her; all she wanted was to forget her boyfriend.