“I can’t believe it.”
“It’s true,” Martina insists, laughing. “People change.”
Rebeca raises an eyebrow.
“In some ways, yes.”
Their eyes meet again.
Rebeca feels her pulse racing in her temples; Martina notices how the air between them begins to take shape, as if every shared breath carried an invisible weight.
Then Martina’s phone vibrates on the table.
The sound bursts the bubble with unexpected abruptness, and Martina looks down at the screen to see Julia’s name—her true reality—lighting up the phone.
The expression that crosses her face is almost imperceptible, but enough to make something inside her tense up. A cold knot settles in her stomach.
“Sorry,” she murmurs, getting up from the sofa.
Rebeca nods casually, though her eyes remain fixed on her.
Martina picks up the phone and walks toward the living room window as she answers.
“Hello. Yes, I’m fine,” Martina says, instinctively lowering her voice. “No, don’t worry. I listened to you, and now I’m at Rebeca’s house.”
Martina pauses as she listens.
Rebeca tries to focus on the small bottle spinning slowly between her fingers, but she can’t help picking up on the tone of the conversation a few feet away.
“What?” Martina asks then. And the change in her expression is immediate. “One more day?” She rests a hand against the windowpane as she listens to Julia’s explanation on the other end of the line. “I understand. Don’t worry. Tomorrow morning I’ll let the doorman know to open the door to my apartment. See you later.”
When she hangs up, she stands motionless in front of the window for a moment. The sky is beginning to clear. Among the clouds, a few patches of blue are still visible where the eveninglight filters through timidly. But Martina isn’t really looking at the scenery.
She takes a deep breath before turning back toward the sofa.
When she sits down across from Rebeca, her expression has changed, and Rebeca immediately notices a shadow in her eyes that wasn’t there before.
“Julia has to extend her business trip by one more day,” she tells her. The tone with which she speaks is calm, but beneath that calm lies a weariness accumulated from many repeated instances. “The usual.”
Rebeca watches her in silence.
“But don’t worry, tomorrow when the doorman comes back, I’ll be able to let him know I left my keys here, and I won’t bother you anymore.”
“You know it’s not a bother; I’ve already told you that,” Rebeca reminds her.
The comment sounds simple, but Martina senses something more behind those words. A kind of distance, as if both of them were aware that the moment they’d shared that afternoon was beginning to fade.
Rebeca gets up from the sofa.
“I haven’t finished setting up the guest room yet,” she says as she heads toward the hallway. “But you can stay on the couch tonight.”
Martina looks up at her.
“Sure. Thank you so much.”
The words come out sincerely, though inside her something stirs with unexpected intensity as Rebeca nods at her.
“I’ll go get some blankets and be right back.”
