Neighbors

In the darkness of my room, nobody could see me. Or so I thought, until he came to his window and kept looking toward me longer than he should have.

We grew up sharing secrets beneath the stars. The night his father left for work, I discovered the boy I played with had become something else.

We’d spent months sharing coffees and confidences. That afternoon, with the cup still warm in my hands, she asked me something no friend ever dares to ask.

For three weeks I watched before I understood she was watching too. That night she turned her head, smiled at the glass, and I knew she’d been waiting for me for months.

I put the proof back where I’d found it, washed my hands, and went down to the kitchen as if I knew nothing. That night, the dirtiest game of our marriage began.

I threw the curtains open at two in the afternoon with my hair still wet and thought no one in my town would dare look toward my window at midday.

Saúl's last message had arrived seven days earlier: “Six o'clock. Don't be late.” And at six on the dot I went upstairs, my pulse in my throat and my body decided before my mind.

I grew up between prayers and prohibitions, convinced that pleasure was sin. Until the woman next door sat beside me on the bus and everything began to change.

I went down to the garage ready to cry alone, but the hand that tapped my car window that night wasn’t bringing comfort: it was bringing an offer I couldn’t refuse.

I crossed the living room to get a glass of water, forgetting the curtains were still open. On the other side of the glass, his eyes had already found me.

I was forty-four, had two daughters, and a recent divorce when the girl from across the street looked at me differently and said what I didn’t dare think.

That morning, when I half-opened my eyes on the mattress pushed up against the balcony, she was already there on hers, smoking, waiting for me to turn over.

The old neighbor gave me the betrayal photo before I said goodbye. I could only think about Sofía’s door and whether she’d let me back into her house.

I carried her boxes up, made her coffee, and before I finished it, I already knew that neighbor was going to change every night I spent in that building.

I lowered my skirt’s zipper without knowing he was watching from the window across the street. What began as embarrassment became a game.

At five to four I was naked in the armchair, staring at the window across from me and waiting for her to come out and close hers.

The doorbell rang just as she finished hanging the laundry. I hid in the bedroom and watched her go answer it wearing nothing but wedges and a smile.

The first time was an accident. After that, every night he had company, I moved the armchair to the window and let my hand drift down on its own.

At midnight, wearing her shortest miniskirt and a white blouse without a bra, Carolina crossed the garden toward the bricklayers' container.