Chapter Five: Here I Am, Wounded (#14)

Night fell like a heavy blanket over the city.

From his bedroom window, Tomás watched the streetlights flicker through the cold air's haze. The house was silent. Amelie and Daniela had already retreated to their rooms, and the distant murmur of the wind barely caressed the foggy glass.

But he couldn't sleep.

There was something in his chest, a soft but persistent restlessness, that wouldn't leave him in peace. He sat at his desk, turned on the warm lamp, and opened his computer. His manuscript file was there, waiting for him like a promise yet to be fulfilled.

He scrolled quickly through the pages, searching for the end. The epilogue.

The closing of everything.

But he no longer felt it was complete.

There was something he needed to say.

Something he hadn't written yet, because he hadn't been able to understand it until now.

The last few weeks had given him so much…

Too much, perhaps.

He had laughed, cried, loved in silence. He had cared for someone who didn't know how to care for herself, and he had clung to someone who didn't know how to let go.

Soledad.

Sofía.

Two different seasons. Two stories that had crossed his life like lit kites, leaving impossible-to-ignore trails. He didn't know how they would end, if one would accompany him to the very end, if they would ever stop hurting.

But he did know that they had changed something within him.

And that deserved to be written.

He placed his fingers on the keyboard and began to write.

Not like before, not from pain or frustration.

But with a strange serenity. With gratitude.

"There are people who come into your life in unexpected seasons.

Some bring winter with them and learn to survive among the frost,

others bloom with you, even when they promised they would only be transient, like the mist.

Some leave, like leaves in the wind.

But all of them, all of them leave something.

And if you're lucky, that something transforms into words.

Because as long as the heart remembers, no goodbye lasts forever.

To them, who were impossible to forget seasons."

When he finished writing, he stared at the screen for a long time.

He didn't know if Sofía would like the change. Probably not. Sometimes she wanted wounds to close in silence, not to be spoken aloud. But if she ever read the final version, perhaps she would understand.

And if Soledad read it…

Well, maybe that kiss hadn't just been a mistake.

Perhaps, even if there was no second part, it had been a farewell with love.

The epilogue that isn't spoken aloud, but is kept in one's skin.

He saved the file, closed the computer, and rested his head on his arms.

He was finished.

Finally.

Tomorrow he would send his manuscript to the contest.

And although he didn't know what would happen next, at least that was done.

There was no certainty in his life.

But that ending…

That ending was his.

And it would remain forever.

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The sound of their footsteps echoed with a soft rhythm on the cobblestone sidewalk, like an ancient memory refusing to fade. The city, at that hour of the afternoon, seemed wrapped in a faint veil of nostalgia. The late-winter breeze carried the salty scent of the sea, mixed with the first timid perfumes of spring: damp earth, still-closed flowers, air warmer than cold. But the cold still lingered, clinging stubbornly to the corners, refusing to leave entirely.

Soledad walked beside him, light, as if floating. She wore a long coat, her loose hair dancing in the wind, and an energy that seemed not to belong to this dying season, but to another, brighter, bolder one. In her, there was a latent laugh, as if life itself were a stage where everything could be played with a wink.

They entered the cafe, the one that already belonged to them in a way, where memories accumulated among the cups and breadcrumbs. The wooden door closed behind them, shutting out the outside world and enveloping them in the familiar aroma of fresh coffee, vanilla, and cinnamon.

They headed, without need for words, to their usual table. The table by the window, from where the sea could be seen on clear days, and the lamplit streets when the mist descended.

On the table rested a colorful brochure, abandoned by a previous customer. Soledad snatched it up with curiosity, just as the waitress approached with her notepad and a knowing smile.

"The usual, Tomás?"

"Yes, thank you."

"And for your partner? Have you chosen anything new?"

Soledad laughed. A natural, soft laugh, but there was a hesitation, almost imperceptible, on her face. A tiny crack that barely lasted a second.

"Oh, no, we're not…" she began to say, but left the sentence hanging in the air, as if it wasn't worth finishing. She shook her head with a smile and looked back at Tomás, this time with her usual, teasing and charming tone.

"Hey, why don't you invite a girl to the fair? People usually go with their partners to those festivals."

Tomás took the brochure she offered him.

Spring Festival.

The word "spring" seemed, for an instant, too luminous.

"The last time I went… I was a kid," he murmured, as if speaking to himself more than to her.

Soledad rested her elbow on the table and watched him with that smile she used when she was about to deliver one of her sweetly venomous remarks.

"So, it's not the first time you've had a date," she said with feigned seriousness.

Tomás looked at her, bewildered. "Huh?"

Soledad intertwined her fingers with his. A gesture so familiar that, for a moment, it almost hurt.

As if a memory he hadn't asked for was being returned.

"Your first date," she repeated, looking at him as if he should understand everything without further explanation. "Do you remember?"

Of course, he remembered.

How could he forget the first time they held hands? How could he forget the way she laughed while calling him her "fake boyfriend"? How could he forget that, even though she said it jokingly, his heart had pounded. Like now.

"Of course I remember," he replied, barely a whisper.

She tilted her head, charming, unknowingly cruel.

"Although, well…" she added with a smile, "technically it was your first fake date."

The word slid like a cold knife through the center of Tomás's chest.

He looked down at their intertwined hands.

For a second, an impulse crossed his mind.

What if he invited her?

Not as a joke, not as practice, not as something fake, but as something real.

And in that fleeting thought, without realizing it, he brushed the soft skin of her hand with his thumb.

She tensed for an instant.

And then, with her usual smile, she pulled away.

As if nothing had happened.

"Oh, Tomás, don't get carried away," she teased, laughing.

Tomás forced himself to smile too.

Because that's what she wanted, right? An endless game, a practice, something without weight.

So he pretended.

He pretended that nothing was happening, he pretended that everything was fine.

But for an instant, as she laughed as if nothing mattered, he felt a shadow cross his face and knew he had never been as far from her as he was at that moment.