Martina pulls away slightly, her reddened eyes searching Rebeca’s in disbelief.
“What?”
Rebeca looks at her. Her hands are still on Martina’s waist, and her thumbs gently stroke the fabric of her blouse.
“I saw her the other day…” Rebeca confesses without looking away. “Leaving a building downtown with a woman. They kissed at the door before parting. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you these past few days, and I… Wait!”
Martina doesn’t give her a chance to say more. She runs back up the stairs and heads for the elevator, her heart racing, the world reeling beneath her feet.
Chapter 23
“How long have you been with that woman?!”
The question explodes in the living room with such force that it seems to hang in the air even after the words have been spoken. Martina stands in the center of the room, breathing heavily, her chest rising and falling irregularly, as if the effort of holding onto what she has just discovered is almost unbearable. Her heart is pounding against her ribs so hard she fears Julia might hear it.
The party is over.
Just half an hour ago, the apartment was filled with voices, music, and laughter mingling with the clinking of glasses and the constant murmur of conversation. Now, however, silence reigns in every corner of the living room—an almost tangible silence that has clung to her skin like a layer of sweat.
The open bottles remain on the table, some still with traces of red wine at the bottom. The half-empty plates, the crumpled napkins, a forgotten glass next to the sofa with a lipstick mark on the rim. The remnants of a celebration that, suddenly, seems to have taken place in another life, in a much more innocent version of the two of them.
Julia stands in front of her, near the dining table. Her posture is stiff, and her eyes are fixed on Martina with a weariness that Martina doesn’t recall ever seeing so clearlybefore. That gaze pierces her, strips her bare, and for a moment, she feels that Julia has already won this battle before she’s even begun to fight.
“I can’t believe you did this, especially on a day like today,” Martina continues, feeling the rage rise up through her chest again in scorching waves. “Do I mean so little to you that you couldn’t even wait until the guests had left?”
Julia lifts her chin slightly, a gesture she has always used to defend her territory. The light from the ceiling lamp illuminates her face from above, accentuating the shadows beneath her cheekbones and making her eyes seem darker, more impenetrable.
“Are you really going to be the one to reproach me, Martina?” she replies with a cold calm that is almost more hurtful than any shout. Each syllable falls like a drop of ice on Martina’s burning skin.
Martina falls silent. She watches her. There is something different in Julia’s eyes tonight. Something that takes Martina a few seconds to identify. As if Julia knows much more than she is saying, as if she has been keeping that card up her sleeve for weeks, waiting for the perfect moment to play it.
Julia puts her hands on her hips and begins to walk slowly across the living room, as if she needs to move to sort out the thoughts racing through her head. Her heels echo on the floor, a sharp rhythm marking the pace of her growing irritation. For a few seconds, she says nothing. The sound of her footsteps fills the room, amplified by the emptiness left behind by the party.
Finally, she stops in front of Martina, so close that she can feel the heat radiating from her body and the faint scent of her perfume mixed with the wine they’ve been drinking.
“I admit I haven’t been the best in this marriage,” Julia says with a calmness that seems carefully constructed, as if she’d rehearsed the line in front of the mirror. “That I’ve probably never given you what you were looking for.” She pauses briefly. Her eyes harden, turning into two shards. “But don’t you dare disrespect me when you’ve been seeing Rebeca ever since she arrived. Or do you take me for a fool?”
The words hit Martina like an unexpected slap. She feels the heat rising from her neck to her cheeks and can already feel her pulse throbbing in her temples.
“How long have you been with her, Julia?” Martina insists. “Tell me. I want to hear it from you.”
Julia takes a few seconds to answer. She stares at her with that intensity she’s always known how to use as a weapon.
“Long enough to realize that you were never fair to me,” she finally replies, and there’s a hint of pain in her voice that Martina didn’t expect. “Rebeca didn’t even want to know what really happened. She chose her pride over your relationship. And you? You chose to keep pretending everything was fine while you were still married to me, until you ended up sleeping with her behind my back.”
Rebeca’s name, spoken in that context, triggers an immediate reaction in Martina. A knot forms in her stomach, a mixture of guilt, desire, and rage.
“And what do you know about that, Julia?” She takes a step toward her, closing the distance even further. “You have no idea what happened with that leak. Not the faintest idea.”
But the moment she utters those words, something in Julia’s expression changes. A barely perceptible shadow crosses her face. A glance that drifts for a fraction of a second towardthe floor, as if she had revealed more than she intended at that moment.
And suddenly Martina understands. She stares at her, searching her eyes for the confirmation she doesn’t want to find.
“Wait…” Martina’s voice comes out lower, almost a whisper that breaks between her lips. “No…”
Julia doesn’t answer. And that silence confirms what Martina is beginning to suspect with terrifying clarity.
“You must be joking…” she murmurs. Disbelief slowly turns into a mixture of fury and bewilderment that burns her throat. “You?”
