Chapter Five: Here I Am, Wounded (#13)

The dinner was laid out on the blue tablecloth with embroidered flowers that Daniela insisted on using for "special meals." Although for Tomás, there was nothing particularly festive that night: rice, sautéed green beans, and a beef stew he had prepared himself before leaving for his Big Root shift. The aroma, however, filled the house with that warmth only homemade meals, made with love, knew how to bestow.

Amelie ate in silence, idly leafing through the newspaper, while Daniela, who had already served the dishes, stirred the raspberry juice in her glass, as if searching for some epiphany among the floating ice cubes.

Tomás, who rarely spoke first during meals, raised his voice with a softness that wasn't meant to break the harmony, but rather to join it. "Next week is the Spring Festival," he said, looking up from his plate. "Sunny told me she's going with her family, and… she asked if I wanted to go too. With my family."

The silence was immediate. Only the clinking of cutlery and the dull rustle of the newspaper in Amelie's hands filled the air.

"Spring Festival?" Daniela repeated, with a hint of enthusiasm. "The one with the food stalls, the lanterns, the fireworks?"

Tomás nodded with a brief, somewhat nostalgic smile. "The same. Like when we were kids… remember? Mom used to take us. You'd go with flowers in your hair, and…"

Amelie barely looked up, arching an eyebrow with forced elegance. "I was the one who said fireworks were a waste of public money."

Daniela let out a muffled giggle. "And then you wouldn't miss a single one. You'd cover your ears, but you wouldn't move from the bench."

"I don't remember that," Amelie retorted, lowering her gaze back to the newspaper.

"I do," Tomás added. "It's one of those few memories that still makes me smile without thinking too much."

There was a short silence. It wasn't a reproach, but the weight of the words hung over the table.

Daniela leaned towards Amelie, with a shy but firm smile. "We could go, just for a bit. It doesn't have to be all day. We can walk around, grab some food, see the lights. Just a stroll, Aunt."

Amelie narrowed her eyes. She didn't seem convinced, but she didn't immediately dismiss the idea either. Perhaps because of Daniela's tone, which wasn't demanding. Perhaps because, no matter how much she denied it, she also held onto those old memories that smelled of cotton candy and illuminated skies in some corner of her mind.

"Just a stroll," she finally said, closing the newspaper with a sigh. "Don't expect me to be enthusiastic about watching fireworks with screaming teenagers around."

Tomás felt a sweet pressure in his chest, as if something he didn't know he needed had just been somewhat repaired. He smiled, lowering his eyes to his stew as if to hide his emotion.

"A stroll is fine," he said softly. "Thank you."

Daniela glanced at him and smiled back. She knew him too well not to notice what it meant.

It wasn't a grand gesture. Not a declaration of family love. Not a redemption.

But for Tomás…

For Amelie too, even if she wouldn't admit it…

It was a lot.

It was sharing a memory that still hurt and bringing it into the present, even for a little while. It was the three of them sitting on a bench again, just like before. As if, for a moment, everything could be okay again.

And that, in their small universe, was all they needed.

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Winter was dying.

But it wasn't doing so in silence.

Even though the calendar already announced the arrival of spring, the cold still bit to the bone like a farewell refusing to be spoken. The coastal wind carried the scent of salt and dampness, along with that icy sting that crept through coat cuffs and burrowed straight into the skin.

The sky was covered with low, gray clouds, like a half-closed curtain over a stage that didn't yet know if it was about to end or just begin.

Soledad and Tomás walked along the coastal path. The earth beneath their feet was hard, sprinkled with dry leaves that resisted rotting, just like that winter, which still had the strength to linger a little longer.

They had walked like this many times, on that same path, between jokes and silences, their steps synchronized by habit more than by agreement. Words sometimes slipped out lightly, other times they caught in their throats, as if the freezing air also chilled what they didn't dare to say.

Soledad told herself it was fine. That everything was fine. That time had passed, that the weight of her reading—of that manuscript she still didn't dare to name aloud—had faded. That her decision had been the right one. After all, she was still seeing him, right? She was still joking with him. Still laughing. And if she could laugh… if she could still touch his hand without her chest breaking, then she wasn't in love. Then, there was no danger.

Then, it didn't matter.

That's why, when the conversation drifted, as so many times before, to trivial topics, she felt safe. And when she joked about teaching him how to kiss a woman, she did so with her usual lightness.

"Come on, Tomás," she said, with a crooked smile. "Have you never kissed anyone?"

He turned his face toward the sea. The waves crashed against the rocks as if the ocean also held something it couldn't contain.

"The opportunity hasn't arisen," he replied, without raising his voice.

Soledad glanced at him. She knew something in him tensed whenever love was mentioned. She knew there was a pain he didn't speak of. But still, she pushed a little further. She needed to know. She needed to prove (to herself) that nothing would happen.

"Go on. It's just a kiss, Tomás. Don't overthink it."

He stopped. He looked at her. And in those eyes, beneath that clear gaze that always seemed to seek truth even when no one offered it, she saw something she didn't expect.

Sadness.

Pleading.

A silent plea: Don't do it if it's not real. Don't use me to prove you feel nothing.

But Tomás didn't say that. As so many other times, he let her do what she wanted, because it was her, just for her.

"Okay," he said, barely audible.

Soledad leaned in. The world stopped.

The first touch was light, a trembling contact, as if they both walked on a thin thread between spring and winter, between lies and truth. The kiss, for an instant, was simple. A gesture. An experiment.

But something in her broke. And something in him opened wide.

The second kiss was different.

Deeper.

Tomás held her with a tenderness that hurt. He held her as if it were something he had wanted to do forever, as if that moment had been written on his skin since he met her. Soledad clung to him without thinking, as if her body knew before her mind that there was something dangerous there. Something irreversible, and she let herself be carried away just this once. Her hands sought him and her fingers intertwined with his hair. She pulled him closer and he held her, so she wouldn't vanish.

When she opened her eyes, his were closed. His expression was so serene, so surrendered, that it pained her soul.

He was loving her in silence.

And she… she couldn't allow it.

She closed her eyes again. Just for a moment. Just not to think.

Just this once.

Just this once, and never again.

For that moment, she let the kiss last as long as it needed to.

They separated slowly. The air crept between them again, cold and cruel.

Soledad swallowed and, desperately searching for her shield, resorted to a smile, to irony, to the disguise that never failed.

"What do you think now?" she asked, with a light laugh. "Do you feel like getting your own girlfriend?"

Tomás looked at her. He smiled too. But his smile was broken, like a window that had shattered silently from within.

"I suppose I'm starting to think about it…"

And then she understood that she had made a mistake.

One she couldn't undo.

She turned without another word. They started walking again, side by side, as before.

But they were no longer the same. Something had changed, and they couldn't go back. Even if they pretended. Even if they stayed silent.

The sea roared in the distance, laden with foam and lament.

And spring, still waiting its turn, kept its distance.

Because winter hadn't left.

And in its last clutches, it had dragged away something that neither of them would be able to reclaim.

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That night, Soledad couldn't sleep.

The cold seeped through the cracks in the window, and the faint murmur of the wind, which she once found comforting, now drilled into her ears with the same insistence as her thoughts.

She had showered upon arriving home, the water so hot that the steam completely fogged the bathroom mirror. But even that couldn't erase the taste of the kiss. Nor the memory of the warmth of Tomás's hands, which had seeped into her skin as if it belonged there.

She looked at herself in the mirror and forced herself to say it was nothing. That it had been a game, a silly thing, another impulse among the many they shared.

But then she remembered the way he held her.

The way he looked at her before closing his eyes to the world.

And she knew she had lied to herself.

She walked barefoot through the apartment in silence, as if the tiles creaked under her guilt. In the living room, everything was as usual: her coat on the chair, her bag open on the sofa, a half-read book on the table. Everything the same… except her.

She collapsed onto the sofa with a sigh that was nothing short of surrender. She covered her face with her hands, as if that could stop the avalanche that had begun hours earlier.

She had crossed a line.

And she didn't know if she wanted to go back.

The problem wasn't the kiss. Or at least not just that. The problem was what she had felt. The problem was how her hands trembled when she remembered Tomás's expression, how her chest pounded with fury every time the sweetness of his voice saying "it's okay" came to mind, as if it didn't matter how much harm she inflicted.

She had kissed him as if he felt nothing, when she knew perfectly well that he did.

And the worst part of all was that she felt something too.

Much more than she could accept.

Why did you do it, Soledad?

She asked herself again and again. But the answer was always the same, and it pained her to admit it.

Because she wanted to.

Because she desired him.

Because, during that kiss, she believed—even for a second—that everything she had tried to ignore could become real.

And because she wasn't ready for that, she ruined it.

She had spoken afterwards with the lightness she knew so well, the very same lightness that had kept her safe for years. She had treated it as if nothing had happened. As if it wasn't important.

But it was.

God, how much it was.

She got up clumsily, picked up her cell phone, and turned it on, not quite knowing why. She wasn't going to write to him. She had nothing to say that wouldn't hurt him more. The only thing she would do by contacting him was to ask him to act as if nothing had happened, as if that kiss had had no consequences.

And she couldn't do that to him again.

She had already done it once, when she read his manuscript.

Now, she had crossed his heart with another invisible blade.

She walked to her room and dropped onto the bed without turning on the light. The silence weighed heavily. And the warmth of the memory overwhelmed her like a fever.

She thought of Tomás.

Of how he always looked at her as if he expected her to say something true.

Of how he understood her even when she did her best to hide.

Of how he asked for nothing, but gave everything.

He wasn't a game.

And that was what scared her the most.

What she didn't want to admit was that, for a long time, her life hadn't had the same color without him. That in her routine, in her days with her boyfriend, in cafes with her friends, something was missing.

That "something" had a name.

And she wasn't ready to say it.

She curled up under the sheets. She closed her eyes.

Sleep didn't come.

But remorse did.

Because she had played with someone who loved her.

And because, for the first time, she feared he wouldn't forgive her if she did it again.