“I thought it would feel different,” she said quietly.
Rebeca turned slightly toward her, not interrupting, just listening.
“Lighter,” Valeria continued, her gaze fixed on the pavement in front of her.
“It does,” Rebeca said after a moment, her tone gentle but certain.
“Just not all at once.”
Valeria nodded.
She understood that.
The relief was there, but it wasn’t clean.
It came mixed with something else—something heavier, something that settled slowly rather than lifting.
Her phone vibrated again.
This time, it was Julián.
She hesitated before opening the message.
Where are you?
Simple.
Direct.
Not angry.
Not concerned.
Just… asking.
Valeria read it twice, searching for something between the lines, some hint of what he felt, what he thought about what had just happened.
There was nothing.
She typed a response.
Stopped.
Deleted it.
Typed again.
I’m outside.
She sent it before she could reconsider.
Minutes passed.
Then footsteps approached from the direction of the service gate.
Julián appeared, his suit still perfectly in place, though his expression carried a tension that hadn’t been there before.
He stopped a few steps away.
Not too close.
Not too far.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
Valeria looked at him.
The question felt strange.
Not wrong.
Just… incomplete.
“I think so,” she replied.
Julián nodded slowly, as if that answer made sense to him.
“We can still fix this,” he said after a moment, his voice returning to that familiar calm.
“It’s not too late.”
Valeria felt something shift again, not inside her this time, but in how she saw him.
Fix this.
The words echoed quietly.
As if what had happened was a mistake to be corrected, a disruption to be smoothed over.
Not a decision.
Not a boundary.
A problem.
She stood up slowly, brushing her hands against the fabric of her dress.
“What would we be fixing?” she asked.
Julián frowned slightly, just enough to show confusion.
“The ceremony,” he said.
“The situation.”
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