Julia tilts her head, clearly amused.
“Didn’t Martina tell you we’re married?”
The world stops.
Literally.
Rebeca blinks once. Then again. And again, and again.
For several seconds, her mind refuses to process what she has just heard.
“Married.”
The word hangs in her head.
“Excuse me?” she murmurs, and she has the feeling that it’s not her speaking, but someone else.
Julia frowns slightly, surprised by her reaction.
“Martina and I,” she clarifies casually, as if she were discussing what’s been happening in the neighborhood. “We got married four years ago. It was a small ceremony on the beach. Just family and close friends.”
Rebeca feels something inside her chest tighten with unexpected force. The air grows thick, making it hard to breathe. The expression must be clearly visible on her face, because Julia looks at her with some concern.
All these years, Rebeca has made sure not to know anything about Martina. Not out of disinterest. But out of self-preservation. When the relationship ended, the blow was too deep. Not just because of the breakup itself, but because of everything that came after. After the controversy with the publisher, and for months afterward, she tried to move on surrounded by memories that surfaced in every conversation, every encounter with mutual friends, every piece of news someone mentioned without malice. Until she realized she couldn’t go on like that.
One night, before leaving for her first temporary assignment, she made it very clear that she didn’t want to hear anything about Martina. Whether she was doing well or poorly. Whether she had rebuilt her life with someone else or not. She needed silence—a silence that would allow her to rebuild herself without every fragment of the past reopening the wound.
And everyone respected that boundary.
For six years, no one mentioned her again. But it’s clear that fate always has cards to play.
“Wow… I hadn’t heard about that,” Rebeca remarks shortly afterward.
Julia looks at her for a second longer before smiling.
“Well, I guess that makes sense.”
“Why?”
“Because when things ended between you two, you disappeared completely,” Julia explains without a trace of reproach. “No one heard from you. Not even whether you were still in Spain. Some of us thought you’d gone abroad for good.”
Rebeca looks away for a moment. She isn’t surprised that’s how it appeared from the outside.
“It was what I needed at the time,” Rebeca replies without a hint of hesitation.
Julia nods slowly.
“I understand. More than you think.”
Then she opens the door wide and gestures for her to come in.
“Anyway,” Julia adds in a more cheerful tone, “now fate has decided that we’ll cross paths again. And honestly, I’m glad.”
Rebeca enters the building still feeling as if she’s walking through a strange dream. The lobby is lit by a warm light that highlights the light-colored marble floor. Everything feels too ordinary for the whirlwind that has just taken hold of her mind.
“When I found out you were our neighbor,” Julia continues as they head toward the elevator, “I thought about throwing you a welcome dinner. Something simple, unpretentious. Just to catch up.”
Rebeca blinks.
