Deceit

Each email brought a new photo and a crueller line. I drank whiskey in front of the screen, not knowing whether the woman tied up was truly my wife.

My body was still burning from the weekend with him. I never imagined that same night I’d hear, through a door, the conversation that would break me apart.

She had carried her pent-up desire for twenty-four hours. When the young man in the blue uniform came in with the package, Renata knew she wouldn’t go without that morning.

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.

She dissected other people’s minds for a living; so did he. Sharing a table was enough for them both to stop pretending they only wanted conversation.

She climbed the stairs knowing that, once she crossed that door, the naive woman she had been until then would cease to exist forever.

I went up the mountain alone under a red alert, running from my husband. I wasn’t looking for shelter: I was looking for impact, for something to finally crack the glass I lived trapped inside.

I was always certain of her faithfulness. So when she lowered her gaze and began to talk about that night, I felt the ground shift beneath my feet.

That morning she looked at her hands and no longer recognized them: they had signed a commitment and betrayed everything for him.

For years I pretended not to understand why she lingered when passing that shop. The afternoon I followed her inside, I understood my mother had already stopped belonging only to my father.

She told herself she was only helping him feel better. But every afternoon, with her boyfriend out of the house, the distance between them grew shorter.

“She came to see her boyfriend, the doctor,” the receptionist told him. Damián had no girlfriend. But when she described the visitor’s blush, he knew exactly who was waiting inside.

I had buried it under years of exams and routine, but all it took was hearing him say my name from across the bar for my body to remember what my mind wanted to forget.

When he went down to the supermarket for beer, his uncle cornered me against the freshly painted wall and I knew my boyfriend wouldn’t be the one breaking in the bed.

Adrián fell asleep ten minutes after takeoff. The man by the window waited until he heard his steady breathing before leaning toward Marina and whispering in her ear.

I started by telling him made-up dreams about other men. What he didn’t know was that every word that made him moan had really happened that same week.

I didn’t shower before going back home. I wanted my boyfriend to feel the gym sweat on my skin and the trace of another man, and not have the courage to ask whose it was.

“Welcome to my beach,” his voice said behind me. I was completely naked on the towel, and he was the last person I expected to see there.

Marisol couldn’t sleep. She left the hut, leaving Gonzalo among dreams, and walked to the campfire, where the silent guide was waiting. That night she would cross a point of no return.

He wanted me to tell him my made-up adventures again. He had no idea that every word I whispered that night was a lie with a hidden edge.