Martina frowns slightly.
“Really?”
Rebeca holds her gaze.
“We’re not going to stop being neighbors, are we? Sooner or later we’ll have to learn to live closer together. Better to do it over a glass of wine and some lasagna than with awkward silences every time we see each other.”
The statement has a simple logic. Practical. But deep down, it also contains a kind of acceptance. A truce that manages to surprise Martina for a second.
Then something in her expression changes.
A genuine smile appears on her lips. It’s not the polite smile she’s maintained since Rebeca arrived. It’s something else. Warmer and more sincere. And, for a moment, Rebeca sees in her the Martina from more than six years ago: the one who kissed her neck in the dark, the one who whispered promises against her skin.
“No,” she admits, and the smile remains on her lips. “I suppose not.”
For a moment, time seems to stand still.
Their gazes meet with an intensity neither of them tries to hide. That old desire that lingers within them stirs in Rebeca’s gut like a treacherous heartbeat. She feels the heat rising up her neck, her pulse racing in her wrists. Martina tilts her head slightly, and that gesture—so familiar—makes Rebeca clench her fingers around the glass to keep from trembling.
Then Julia’s voice comes from the kitchen.
“Girls, dinner’s ready!”
Chapter 7
Dinner proceeds peacefully. The warm aroma of the lasagna Martina has prepared—with that thick béchamel sauce Julia always asks her to make more of—still lingers over the table, mingling with the faint sound of rain tapping against the living room windows. Night has fallen, but the atmosphere in the apartment feels strangely intimate, as if time had decided to stand still for a few hours, leaving only the sound of the rain and the faint clinking of cutlery.
Julia and Rebeca chat casually, exchanging anecdotes they remember from the past, as if the pain weren’t there. Martina listens halfheartedly, leaning slightly back in her chair, a glass between her fingers.
Her gaze returns again and again to Rebeca.
She watches how she tilts her head slightly when listening to Julia, how she moves her hands when speaking, how her smile appears with a gentleness that Martina recognizes all too well. The truth is, there are gestures that time cannot erase: the way she bites her lower lip when she’s thinking, the furrowed brow when something intrigues her, the way her index finger brushes the rim of the glass before taking a sip. Small habits that remain intact even after years apart, and that now, seeing them again, awaken a deep warmth in Martina’s belly.
She surprises herself by remembering them.
At some point, Rebeca looks up and their eyes meet. It lasts no more than a second, maybe two. But in that brief moment, there’s something that makes her nervous; that discreet smile of Rebeca’s, barely there, that appears on her lips before vanishing as if it had never existed.
Martina looks away, down at her plate. She tells herself it means nothing. That it’s just an automatic reaction. But she isn’t entirely convinced.
Julia is explaining something about an article she’s been working on—a feature on the resurgence of small independent bookstores in the city—when Rebeca, with a calm movement, turns slightly toward Martina.
“By the way,” she says with a hint of curiosity, “Julia told me you’re working on a new story.”
Martina looks up. For a moment, she wonders if she should give a brief answer, maintaining the distance she’s tried to keep throughout the dinner. However, Rebeca’s expression makes her change her mind, because she sees genuine interest in her eyes—the same interest she always showed when they talked about work, when they stayed up late in the living room sharing ideas.
“Yes,” she replies, muffling the sound with her wine glass.
Rebeca rests her elbow on the table in a relaxed gesture, then rests her chin in the palm of her hand.
“Tell me a little about what you’re trying to capture.”
Martina picks up her fork, takes a small bite of lasagna, and pauses for a moment before answering. Not because she needs to gather her thoughts, but because this kind ofconversation has always been one of the places where she’s felt most at ease with Rebeca.
“It’s a project about cultural memory,” she begins to explain. “I’m photographing spaces that still preserve a traditional activity, but that are slowly disappearing. Artisan workshops, local fishing, small family-run businesses—places that are part of the city’s identity, even though many people no longer notice them.”
Rebeca listens intently. Her dark eyes remain fixed on Martina, urging her to continue.
“What I’m trying to avoid is nostalgic photography,” she continues. “I don’t want it to seem like a tribute to the past, but rather a conversation with the present. To show people that these places are still alive, even though they’re changing. I want to capture that: the resilience, the everyday life that refuses to disappear.”
