Chapter Four: This Is My Pain (#7)

That night, Big Root slowly closed its doors, as if the day's exhaustion permeated even the hinges and locks. The lingering scent of hot oil, seared meat, and spices still hung in the air, like a thick fog that no longer belonged to the outside world.

Tomás cleaned the steel counter one last time, took off his apron, and hung it on its usual hook. Don Giorgio had left earlier than usual, one hand pressing his lower back, a grimace of resigned fatigue on his face. Alelí, Laura's cousin, said goodbye with a quick, light kiss on the cheek, like a butterfly, and stepped out to meet her brother, who was waiting with the engine running.

Tomás was left alone in the kitchen, with the lights still bright and the echoes of the last footsteps resounding down the hall. He was already heading for the changing room when he noticed the light on in Laura's office. The door was ajar, and as he approached, he heard her sigh.

"Can I come in?"

Laura looked up. Her glasses had slid almost to the tip of her nose, and her expression was tired. Her loose hair, somewhat disheveled from the day's rush, framed her face more softly.

"Of course," she said, gesturing to the chair in front of her desk.

Tomás sat down cautiously. For a moment, neither of them spoke.

"Everything alright?" he asked, looking at the papers scattered across the table.

"Yes... no," she replied with a weary smile. "Today was a good day, in terms of sales. But everything else..." She gestured with her hand, as if encompassing things that couldn't easily be named. "How are you?"

"Better here than anywhere else," he replied with a sincerity that surprised even him.

Laura observed him carefully, as if that answer posed more questions than she could answer.

"Is that why you came in, even though you weren't supposed to work today?"

Tomás hesitated. He shrugged.

"I guess so. There are days when you don't want to think too much... and here, amidst the smoke and French fries, you don't have time to think about anything but survival."

She let out a brief, dry laugh, but not without tenderness.

"Yes... that's exactly how I feel every day."

She ran a hand across her forehead and left her glasses on the desk.

"People think having a family business is like living in an old postcard. A grandmother baking pies, kids running around the kitchen, everything smelling of warm bread. But no. It's chasing after bills, orders, suppliers who fail you, ovens that don't heat up, and waitresses who quit without notice."

Tomás nodded. Her voice became more honest as she spoke, as if she allowed herself to show something more than just the tired manager everyone saw.

"And you haven't thought about stopping?" he asked, without malice, almost as a whisper.

Laura was silent. Then she leaned back slightly.

"I have thought about it. But do you know what the worst part is? When you inherit something you love, sometimes you forget to ask yourself if you love it too. My dad started selling burgers from a rusty cart, in front of the train station. It was raining, and he was there, with a tarp over him and a couple of planks for a floor. After thirty years, he built this. How could I tell him I want to stop? How could I tell him I don't want to be the heir to the dream that wore him out?"

Tomás looked down. That kind of loyalty—the kind born of gratitude and also of guilt—was all too familiar to him.

"Sometimes moving forward is also a way of loving," he finally said, not daring to look directly at her.

Laura observed him for a second longer than any casual conversation.

"You're more mature than you look," she said with a half-smile.

"Sometimes... too much," he replied.

A comfortable silence settled between them.

Laura rested her elbows on the desk and rubbed her temples.

"I could use a glass of wine," she murmured, more to herself.

"I'll pass, thanks," Tomás said with a slight smile.

"I know," she nodded. "You look like you prefer bitter coffee."

Tomás laughed, lowering his head.

"Maybe. Although lately... not even coffee helps."

Laura looked at him, tilting her head slightly.

"Do you have anyone to talk to?" she asked suddenly, without beating around the bush.

Tomás looked at her, surprised by the question.

"Depends on the day."

She nodded, and for a moment seemed to want to say something more, but held back. She leaned towards the desk and began to tidy some papers.

"You can stay as long as you need. It's not easy to find someone who works hard and doesn't complain. You're like a rarity."

"Thanks... though I don't know if that's a compliment or a warning."

"A bit of both," she replied with a genuine laugh.

Tomás stood up. He had already begun to feel the weight on his shoulders, not so much from fatigue, but from everything the day had dragged with it.

"See you tomorrow then," he said, heading for the door.

"Tomás," she called before he left.

He turned.

Laura looked at him without smiling this time, her expression a little more serious, a little more sincere.

"Thanks for coming back today."

"Thanks for letting me stay."

And he left.

Outside, the night was clearer than usual. The cold crept into his bones, but it didn't hurt as much.

Because he felt useful again. And perhaps, a little less alone.

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The next day dawned with a diffuse gray in the sky, as if the sun had overslept behind the clouds. Tomás carried the manuscript under his arm and, in the inner pocket of his coat, the sheet with Eleonor García's notes, already crumpled but still valuable. As he boarded the bus to the hospital, he wondered if Delia would think about it, if that night she might have talked to her husband about the visit of a stranger who spoke with brutal honesty about a buried past. Maybe not. Maybe so. But that, at least, was no longer in his hands.

When he arrived at the hospital, the same stench of disinfectant and reheated food greeted him at the entrance. He walked the corridors with a firm step until he reached Professor Krikket's room. Opening the door, he saw him sitting with his head a little more upright than usual, his eyes sunken but open with more clarity than before.

"You came," the professor murmured, his voice barely a rough thread. "I wondered if you would."

Tomás nodded, placing the manuscript on the bedside table. He didn't want to delay.

"I spoke with your daughter," he said frankly, and the mention seemed to course through the professor's body like lightning.

Krikket stared at him. The dark circles under his eyes deepened, and his skin, though clinging to his bones, seemed less gray than before.

"Did she listen to you?"

"Yes. She listened to me. She didn't promise me anything... but she didn't deny it." Tomás looked down for a few seconds. "At least she knows you're still here, that you still want to see her."

The professor closed his eyes, and a tremor ran through his lips.

"That... that's more than I ever thought I'd have," he whispered with an emotion that broke his voice.

Tomás felt a lump rise in his throat. The old man seemed more human, more fragile, more real. As if all his arrogance, his pride, and his mistakes had been swept away by guilt... and now, by a faint hope.

"Thank you, Tomás," he said slowly. "Thank you for... for allowing me to at least wish for forgiveness. If she gives me that... I'll ask for no more."

He didn't know what to say. He just nodded, feeling that any words would be insufficient.

"I'm going to get some coffee," he finally said, with an excuse he needed. "Do you want one?"

Krikket smiled softly, barely a faint gesture on his bony face.

"Only if it's from that awful machine."

Although both knew that coffee wouldn't arrive, his illness prevented him from drinking anything like that.

"I'll be right back."

He left the room. He took a deep breath in the hallway and walked towards the vending machine. He ordered the strongest coffee, hoping it would clear not only his sleepiness, but also the fog that was beginning to settle in his chest.

It was then that he saw her: Sofía, walking towards the professor's room, bundled up, her hair tied in a hurried bun and her eyes tired, as if she had only slept a couple of hours. She saw him too, but her expression tensed as he approached. She subtly extended a hand, touching his chest with her fingertips, stopping him.

"You never know where curious eyes are," she whispered, her eyes scanning the hallway like radar.

Tomás stopped, understanding instantly. He didn't respond. He just looked down and took a step back.

"He's in better shape today," he told her, in a low voice. "We talked about his daughter. She might come."

Sofía gave him a slight smile, but without losing the tension in her gaze.

"Thanks for telling me. Go get your coffee. I'll talk to him for a moment."

Tomás obeyed, and as the machine's beep announced his drink, he watched her enter the room without looking back. He gripped the cardboard cup with both hands, not from cold, but to contain something more.

When Sofía came out about fifteen minutes later, her steps were more hurried. He approached to hand her the manuscript, which he had left on a bench in the hallway, wrapped in its cover. She took it with both hands and held it against her chest.

Sofía looked both ways down the hallway. Then, in a low voice:

"Come with me. Let's go to my place. We can talk there... without curious eyes."

Tomás looked at her for a second. He wanted to say something, but he didn't. He nodded.

They walked to the parking lot, and as she unlocked the car, he held the umbrella over both of them to shield from a light drizzle that had begun to fall. They got in without saying anything else.

The car smelled of lavender and paper. Sofía had her lips pressed together and her fingers tense on the steering wheel, though she hadn't yet started the engine. She glanced at the manuscript she had left on the back seat.

"Did many things change?" she finally asked.

Tomás turned his face slightly towards her.

"Only the ending... I wanted to leave it without redemption. But I'm not so sure anymore."

Sofía started the engine without looking at him.

"You're also looking for forgiveness, aren't you?"

Tomás didn't answer. Through the window, the city began to stir with its own noise. The day was just beginning, but he already felt the weight of all the questions he wouldn't know how to answer.

And yet, he felt a little lighter as he drove away from the hospital.

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Sofía's apartment remained in its immutable state of desolation. As if time there had decided to stop, not out of stillness, but out of resignation. There was something in those bare walls, in the sparse furniture, in the silence that spread like a shadow—something that screamed, in its subtle way, that she did not want to disturb that abandonment. They both entered, she with the familiarity of one who sinks into a known frozen lake, and he with the clumsiness of one who lets himself be dragged into another's darkness, even knowing he has his own.

They hung their coats by the entrance without a word. The echo of the closing door sounded louder than usual.

"I'm going to change. Make yourself comfortable," Sofía said in a neutral, almost absent voice.

Tomás nodded and walked towards the kitchen. On the counter was an empty wine bottle, an uncorked corkscrew, and a glass with dry remnants at the bottom. In the sink, a couple of dirty plates were piled up, along with other glasses marked with fingerprints and lipstick. The cold water stung his hands when he started washing the dishes, but he didn't stop. It was his way of feeling he could do something useful in a place so full of defeats.

Then he opened the refrigerator. Wine bottles, a package of boneless chicken, and some mineral water. He sighed at the contents. He checked the pantry. There were barely a couple of rice packages left, two onions, and some potatoes that were already sprouting. Everything seemed like a sinister metaphor for Sofía: a survivor, but barely.

"Are you planning to feed me every time you come?" Sofía's voice said from the living room.

Tomás turned. She had come out of her room in comfortable clothes: a light gray sweatshirt, somewhat loose sweatpants, her hair still slightly damp and loose, and the manuscript under her arm. She looked exhausted, but in that stillness, also strangely young.

"Are you planning to invite me again?" he replied, continuing to peel a potato.

"If you keep acting like my father, I'll start considering it," she said, sitting on the other side of the counter and placing the manuscript in front of her.

"It wasn't my intention, but if wine is your only food... I can't stand idly by."

Sofía clucked her tongue and reached for one of the freshly washed glasses.

"Don't lecture me, Tomás. You'll understand when you grow up." She raised the glass with an ironic gesture. "Pass me a bottle, or are you planning to forbid me from drinking too?"

He took the chicken from the refrigerator.

"I'm not planning to forbid you. Would you listen to me if I did?"

"Obviously not." She opened the manuscript, flipping to the end. "But it's nice that you try."

"I just worry. I don't intend to change you."

"Then do what you came to do. Cook, poet."

As she immersed herself in the pages of the manuscript, Tomás worked in silence. He set the rice to cook, peeled the potatoes, sliced them thinly. Then came the onion, which he carefully sautéed until the sweet aroma filled the room, displacing—at least for a while—the smell of wine and confinement. Sofía read slowly, drinking unhurriedly, as if feeding on the words. And in a way, she was.

He browned the potatoes, cooked the chicken with the little he had on hand. He served the plates without saying anything. The wine bottle was already half empty.

"Your food smells better than most of the restaurants I've been to," she commented, without irony, as she approached the table.

"Is that a compliment or a veiled insult?"

"Today, it's a compliment," she took another sip, observing him over the rim of the glass.

They ate in silence for a few minutes. The warm aroma of rice and onion enveloped them like a refuge, a truce. But the inevitable conversation arrived.

"So you changed the ending," she said, after swallowing the last bite.

Tomás nodded without looking up.

"Yes. I decided that... that love doesn't always save. But it doesn't have to destroy either."

"And what's left then? Broken and confused characters walking towards nothing?"

"What's human remains," Tomás replied. "What's true."

She leaned back in her chair, looking at him with a raised eyebrow.

"You have a dangerous fascination with broken women, Tomás. Do you know that?"

The comment fell like a bucket of ice water. Tomás put his cutlery on the plate and stared at her. His expression was inscrutable, but his tone was not.

"Does it make you feel better to hurt me?" he asked, calmly. A dense, defensive calm.

"No," Sofía said, standing up. "It makes me cautious. And, for both our sakes, it's better if you don't make me enter territories I don't want to return to."

Tomás collected the plates without responding. He walked to the kitchen and began to wash. The sound of running water replaced the words. Sofía returned with another bottle of wine, uncorked it carelessly, and poured more into her glass.

"And you?" he asked suddenly. "Why did you stop writing?"

She paused, glass in hand, and looked at him sharply.

"Don't go there. I don't want to have to push you away."

The phrase pierced him. He said nothing more. He just continued washing the dishes, one by one. She drank in silence, staring into nothingness. The wine drew shadows on her face, as if each sip stripped away a layer of control.

That night, Tomás didn't insist. He just stayed there until she, exhausted by the alcohol, lay down on the sofa and let the empty glass fall to one side. He covered her with a blanket and sat on the floor, next to the sofa. He rested his head on the soft edge, looking at the ceiling. He told himself he would stay only until she fell asleep. Just for a while.

But he stayed there longer than planned, breathing in the shared silence, as if in that emotional disorder there was a hollow wide enough for him to rest too.

The afternoon had brought a thick silence to the apartment, the kind that seems to settle on one's shoulders like a damp cloak. The empty wine bottle rested on the table, and Sofía, stretched out on the sofa, breathed with the irregular rhythm of broken sleep. Tomás remained on the floor, his arms crossed over his knees, watching the uneven shadow of the fan spin on the ceiling like a slow pendulum of a timeless clock.

Suddenly, she moved. A lazy shift of her body, a sigh that preceded the return of consciousness. She pushed herself up with effort, leaning on her elbows, and brought a hand to her forehead.

"I need... to go to bed," she murmured, her voice slurred, her eyes half-closed.

She tried to stand up. But her legs faltered as soon as they touched the floor, as if they didn't remember how to hold her. She took a step and lost her balance. Tomás immediately rose and supported her by the arms.

"You can't do it alone," he whispered.

"I'm fine..." she mumbled, but didn't insist when he put his arm around her waist.

He helped her walk down the hallway. The contact was awkward, warm, intimate, and at the same time, fragile. As if they were walking on very thin ice, each step on the verge of breaking.

They entered the bedroom. A small, cluttered space, charged with neglected solitude. The unmade bed had wrinkled sheets, as if someone had slept and woken many times without tidying the chaos. On the desk were half-folded clothes, an open notebook with scattered and crossed-out phrases. The nightstand was covered with papers, pens, an empty glass. There were water bottles, unopened medicine boxes, and a crumpled scarf on the chair.

Tomás helped her sit on the edge of the bed. Sofía looked at him with half-closed eyes, her loose hair falling over her shoulders like a dark, messy river. She held his face with both hands, as if she needed him not to completely vanish.

"You hurt me by being so close," she told him, with that mix of tenderness and defeat that only honest drunks possess. "We should stay apart... But I don't want to."

Her fingers were warm, soft, trembling. Her closeness quickened his pulse, and yet, there was no desire in her. It was pain. It was a silent plea not to be abandoned. For someone to stay.

Tomás said nothing. He leaned down and helped her lie back, untangling some of the knotted sheets on the mattress. Then, without thinking too much, he began to tidy the room a bit: he picked up clothes from the floor, closed the notebook on the desk and put it aside, folded the scarf and left it on the chair. Sofía watched him from the bed, her eyes barely open, sunken among the sheets like a castaway washed ashore.

"Why are you doing that?" she asked, weakly.

"Because it's easier to breathe when things are in their place," Tomás replied, barely glancing back at her.

He approached, pulled the sheets up to her chest, and remained silent for a few seconds, looking at her. She was beautiful, even like this, vulnerable, overcome by her own exhaustion. But that beauty hurt, because it wasn't an invitation, it was a warning. It was like looking at the edge of an abyss and feeling that something inside you yearns to fall.

"I'm leaving," Tomás said softly.

She nodded slowly, without fully opening her eyes.

"Go carefully..."

He looked at her for another instant, and without knowing exactly why, he leaned over her. He placed a kiss on her forehead, brief and silent, barely a touch.

She said nothing. She didn't move. She simply closed her eyes more firmly, as if she were already asleep... or as if she wanted to pretend she hadn't felt it.

Tomás straightened up and remained for a moment, contemplating her face. Then, he left in silence, collected his coat from the hanger, and exited the apartment without a sound, as if he had never been there.