- Secrets Beneath the Runway Lights.

The terrace of the Aurora Hotel stretched toward the sky like an open promise, draped in warm lights dancing among the trees, and garlands of cream-colored flowers swaying with the night wind. Everything was arranged with an almost choreographed elegance, where every glass, every flower, every laugh seemed part of a delicate illusion. Beneath that veneer of perfection pulsed something real: contained emotions, fleeting glances, unspoken truths.

Viridiana moved among the guests like a queen without a crown, her hand gently caressing the growing curve of her belly with pride. Her dress—a long, pearled veil, almost ethereal—amplified the glow of her skin and the serene tenderness shining in her eyes. She smiled gracefully at the compliments, the jokes, the wagers disguised as curiosity: boy or girl?

A few steps away, Leo played the role the night demanded of him with somber precision. He greeted, toasted, nodded. But his gestures, too perfect, were the mask of a man who had learned to live inside his absences. He smiled where only silence remained. He spoke when every part of him longed to flee.

Without drawing attention, he slipped away to the farthest corner of the balcony. There, the world felt more honest. He took out his phone. The screen lit up with Santiago’s image: flushed cheeks, a stuffed toy in his arms, a smile that seemed to contain the universe. Leo stared at it like a parallel life, suspended in a moment that refused to stop hurting.

Lara had sent him that photo earlier that same morning, like a whisper amid the noise. Since then, he’d opened it again and again. He couldn’t help it. It was his talisman. His open wound.

“Still looking at that photo?”—a voice, low but clear, startled him.

Leo lowered the phone automatically. It was Ángel, his lifelong friend, the one who always showed up even when uninvited.

“Just checking some work messages,” he muttered, avoiding eye contact.

Ángel gave him a half-smile. He knew that hollow tone by heart. Leo had never been a good liar.

“And the Seven reporter?” he shifted the topic lightly. “They said she’d get the exclusive.”

“She’s here. Somewhere around,” Leo replied, glancing toward the main hall.

There, between shadows and light, a woman moved like a secret. Valentina Ruiz, Seven’s star reporter, hunter of truths dressed in glamour. Her immaculate bun didn’t dull the sharpness in her gaze—eyes like magnifying glasses, like scalpels. She didn’t seek beauty alone.

She sniffed out hidden truths.

And something about Leo didn’t fit.

The games began. Guests holding drinks wrote their guesses on boards decorated with blue and pink ribbons. Some pinned napkins to a mural that read in golden letters: Boy or Girl?

Leo smiled. He wrote something. He played along as if he were acting in a script long written. But every gesture was a distant echo. While everyone else played at inventing futures, he remained anchored in an unresolved past… and in a clandestine present only he and a few photos knew. A hidden child. A buried love. A life breathing in the shadows.

How had he gotten here? One man, two worlds. One visible, full of lights and embraces. The other secret, held together by threads of nostalgia, by silences shared with Lara, by images that meant more than any words.

Valentina kept watching. She had taken hundreds of photos already, but one in particular made her pause: Leo, alone, turned away from the party, staring at his phone with an expression not of pride, but of quiet heartbreak.

She aimed her camera.

Click.

The night moved on toward its most anticipated moment: the reveal. A flawless two-tier cake sat on a table adorned with crystals and floating candles. Glasses of champagne and non-alcoholic drinks clinked around it. The air thickened with anticipation. The murmurs faded. Phones were raised like sacred witnesses.

Viridiana took Leo’s hand. He took a second to react, as if returning from far away. Together they cut the cake.

The knife slid through white frosting, and a vibrant blue emerged from the center.

“It’s a boy!” someone shouted.

Applause burst out. Music played. The party lit up like a bonfire. Viridiana cried with joy. Leo hugged her.

But inside, something in him collapsed.

Another boy. Another story. Another life beginning while his own unraveled in silence.

Guests gathered around with hugs, handshakes, congratulations wrapped in joy. Many had guessed right and celebrated as if the future were already written.

In a corner, Valentina captured one last image: Leo, eyes briefly shut, jaw clenched with a tenderness that ached. That wasn’t the face of a happy man. It was the face of a man torn in two.

She knew that photo wouldn’t just sell magazines. It held a story.

As the party went on, Leo felt a buzz in his pocket. He looked at his phone.

It was Lara.

A new photo. Thiago, asleep, hugging his blue teddy bear. Beneath it, a short message:

“He said he dreamed about you.”

Leo felt something unravel inside him. The lights, the laughter, the toasts… all became distant. With trembling fingers, he replied:

“I dreamed about him too.”

And for the first time that night, he smiled… from the heart.

Elsewhere, Lara smiled too. She read the message, turned off the screen, and slipped the phone into her pocket. Then, she returned to her conversation with her grandmother—her mother’s mother.

The woman, her face lined with years and eyes still firm, watched her with that ancient instinct grandmothers have for seeing beyond words.

“You’re not alone, my child,” she said, her voice like a blanket on a cold night. “You’ve been brave. You’ve loved, you’ve raised, you’ve kept going. And not everyone does that. Don’t forget it—you are a great woman, even when the world tries to make you doubt it.”

Lara lowered her eyes, as if the words had touched something deep within. Emotion tightened her throat, but she said nothing. She only nodded, silently, storing those phrases like treasured gems.

“Yes, grandma… we’re leaving tomorrow,” she repeated, now with newfound strength, as if those few words had shifted the weight of the day.

And in that instant, with her grandmother’s words softly echoing in her chest, Lara understood that her life wasn’t just a road full of unanswered questions. It was a series of delicate moments, like the one she was living now, where the small things became meaningful. The wisdom she had received, unasked, wrapped her like an invisible cloak, reminding her that her strength didn’t come from perfection—but from the will to go on, to love, and to embrace each day, even when they weren’t easy.

With one last glance at the window, she saw the lights of the Aurora Hotel flickering in the distance, like faraway stars still shining with hope. Without another word, she stood up, feeling the weight of the night on her shoulders—but also the peace that comes from knowing that no matter how uncertain life may be, something always holds us. Someone always reminds us that, in the darkness, we are never truly alone.