Chapter Five: Here I Am, Wounded (#22)

Tomás entered silently, holding in his hands a package wrapped in kraft paper, carefully tied with a thin string. The manuscript was inside, bound with a plain cover, his name in small letters, and a title that still made his hands tremble when he read it:

"Seasons of Loneliness."

It was the final version. The one he had submitted to the contest. But this copy wasn't for a jury, nor for an ordinary reader. It was for the professor. For the one who, in some way, had accompanied him throughout that entire process, from the first idea to the last comma.

Upon reaching the fifth-floor hallway, Tomás noticed something was different. The usual nurse wasn't there, and in her place, a younger one smiled gently but without joy. He didn't ask. He knew how to read the signs.

When he opened the room door, he found him sitting on the bed, more hunched than ever, but with clearer eyes, as if pain had chiseled his spirit until it became crystalline. The professor looked up and smiled.

"I thought you weren't coming anymore." His voice was a whisper, but there was warmth in it.

Tomás approached the usual stool and sat down, carefully placing the package on the bedspread. He didn't want to say anything more yet. He couldn't.

Krikket raised an eyebrow at the sight of it.

"What is this? Another assignment? A list of excuses to avoid your teachers?"

"I wish." Tomás smiled regretfully. "It's the final version of the manuscript. I already submitted it to the contest. But this copy… it's just for you."

The professor looked at the package with reverent slowness. His thin, almost translucent fingers caressed it as if it might break. He didn't open it immediately.

"Thank you," he finally said. "Not just for this… but for allowing me to accompany you in that process. For making me feel, even a little, like a real teacher again."

Tomás swallowed. It wasn't a moment to break down, but his voice trembled.

"You were always more than that."

The professor nodded, as if he had been waiting for those words for years.

"You know? Sometimes we think we have time. That we'll be able to fix things later. But time is a whimsical creature, and sometimes it takes everything we haven't known how to cherish."

"Don't say that, Professor. You still can..."

"No, Tomás." His voice sounded firm, though subdued. "I'm not fighting anymore. I'm just waiting. But not with fear. Delia came, I saw her with her daughter, her husband… it was enough. I leave knowing that I left at least one crack open for the light to enter."

Tomás looked down. The lump in his throat was almost unbearable.

"You know something? I'd like you to read the epilogue. I changed some things. After… after everything that's happened."

The professor nodded slowly.

"I will. Even if it takes all the little time I have left."

Then he extended his hand and took Tomás's. That old, fragile hand was still firm.

"Tomás… you must prepare yourself. I am already at peace with this. But you have to promise me something."

Tomás looked up.

"What?"

"Don't let this sadness turn you into someone who no longer believes in others. Other people will come. And you… you will continue to heal those around you, because that is your way of loving, even if it sometimes hurts."

The words struck deeper than anything else.

"What if I don't want to heal anyone else?"

Krikket smiled, with the tenderness of a tired father.

"Then write about it. But don't stop."

Silence filled the room like a blessing. Tomás had no more words. He just stayed there, holding his hand, while the professor ran his fingers over the manuscript's cover, over and over, as if making sure it was real.

When he stood to leave, the professor looked at him with that deep, calm intensity of his.

"Thank you, Tomás."

And in that unsaid farewell, both understood it was one of the last times.

But it wouldn't be the end.

Because, as long as there were written words, someone would keep speaking for them.

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The afternoon sun filtered gently through the curtain of room 502, painting the walls with a warm, serene golden hue. Hours in the hospital unfolded differently, as if time stretched slowly, measured in sighs, pauses, and the intermittent rhythm of monitors.

Emanuel Krikket held the manuscript in his hands. His trembling fingers slowly turned each page, as if touching something sacred. He had read more than half, and although the effort exhausted him, every word was worth the pain he felt in his chest. "Seasons of Solitude." The title hurt him, but it also healed him, as if within those pages there was more than just fiction: a redemption for the two of them.

Not for the characters.

For Tomás. For Sofía. For himself.

The door opened with a soft, muffled knock. He looked up. For an instant, he thought he saw a younger version of someone he knew very well. Sofía entered, her face fresh, her eyes livelier than last time, her hair loose, and a light jacket draped over her shoulders.

"Well, well," the professor whispered. "The world still holds surprises. You've started to look like yourself again."

Sofía smiled sweetly. She approached the bed unhurriedly, leaving her bag on a chair.

"That's a compliment, isn't it?"

"It's the best one I have left," he joked, leaning more comfortably against the pillows. "I'm glad to see you, Sofía."

"And I, you."

She sat beside him, saying nothing more for a few seconds. She just looked at the manuscript in his lap.

"Have you started it yet?"

The professor nodded slowly, caressing the cover with his fingers.

"Not only have I started it. I'm living it, Sofía. As if every word speaks directly to me. As if every sentence is a whisper from those two children you once were… and still are, no matter how much you try to hide it."

She looked down. She didn't try to contradict him.

"Tomás has been good for you," he said gently.

"Too good." Her voice broke a little, but she took a deep breath and continued. "Sometimes, when you think you've already lived everything, someone appears who… who gives you back something you didn't know you had lost."

"And what was it he gave you back?"

Sofía took a moment to reply. Her eyes wandered around the room, settling on the open window, on the curtain gently stirred by the breeze.

"The ability to write," she said, with a broken smile. "And to feel hungry again… not just for food, but for living, for creating. There was no one knocking at my door, Emanuel. Until he arrived with pots, rice, and cheap wine, and unknowingly, he began to rebuild me."

The professor closed his eyes for a few seconds, as if wanting to keep those words within himself.

"Sofía… you were always strong. Intelligent, brilliant, impertinent too. But there was a sadness in you that even awards couldn't quiet."

She nodded. She didn't try to hide it.

"I thought I had learned to live with it. Until he started sitting in my kitchen, uninvited, as if he had always been there. And suddenly, it wasn't just sadness anymore. It was… a habit. A solitude that was too comfortable."

The professor slowly opened his eyes, and in his gaze, the light of old classroom days still flickered.

"Perhaps that was the true purpose of my teaching. Not to make you perfect. Not to save you from pain. But to nudge your paths, whenever I saw you stuck. I did it with you when you were an arrogant teenager, and in some way, now I've done it with him… so that you two could find each other."

"He won't stay forever," she whispered. "I know."

"Perhaps not. But not everyone who comes to heal stays. Some just pass through, heal, and move on. But that doesn't make them any less important."

Sofía smiled, though her eyes welled up.

"Thank you for putting him in my path, Emanuel. Even if it hurts."

"Thank you, Sofía, for continuing to write. For continuing to live. Because that's all books need to be born: for someone, like you, to dare to live again."

She took the professor's hand and brought it to her forehead, with a gesture full of affection.

"Rest, Professor. I'm not giving up this time."

"Don't," he whispered. "And don't leave him alone while you still have something to offer him."

"He doesn't realize it, but he's given me everything," she said, not hiding the emotion in her voice. "I just hope that, if one day he decides to leave… there's something in me worth remembering."

The professor closed his eyes. And for the first time in a long time, he felt that the story was closing in its own epilogue.

And that, perhaps, was his last lesson.