Chapter Three: When Winter Arrives (#8)

Bella

She didn't look when Tomás left. Not because she didn't want to, but because she couldn't.

If she had, if her eyes had followed him as he walked away, perhaps she would have gone after him. And she had no right to do so. Not after everything.

She stood still in her place, her arms still crossed over her chest, as if some of Tomás's warmth still lingered there. But he was gone now. Only the cold remained, that cold that gnawed at her skin from within.

Why did I let him go like that?

She had known it even before that day. Before he looked at her with that poorly disguised sadness, before his broken voice whispered promises he should never have made. Tomás had adored her. And she had let him go as if it were nothing. As if it didn't matter.

But it did matter.

More than she would ever admit.

She stayed in the kitchen, her phone still on the table. She hadn't wanted to touch it because the last thing she wanted was to see the conversation that should never have happened. A few words at the wrong time, a confession he shouldn't have read.

And now there was no turning back.

Minutes passed. Then hours. Night fell over the restaurant, over the streets, over her. Bella finished her shift as if nothing had happened, smiled when she had to, chatted with others. But every time her gaze strayed towards the door, the pang in her chest returned.

When she finally closed the restaurant and stood alone on the street, silence enveloped her. She looked one way. She looked the other. Then, without realizing it, her steps led her to that place. That damned place where she had once found him waiting.

But this time, he wasn't there.

This time, he was already gone.

And she had arrived too late.

She stood there for a while, still, her arms hanging by her sides, feeling the weight of everything she hadn't said. The wind blew, carrying the smell of the sleeping city, of the night, of the memory of what she once had and let slip away.

And then, she understood.

That she could no longer reach him.

That it wasn't that Tomás hadn't waited for her.

It was simply already too, too late.