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"Morning, Laia," Remei says.

Claudia is so deep in what she's doing that she barely glances up, but in that fraction of a second when she does, Laia's heart stops and then kicks back so hard it makes her dizzy—because Claudia simply smiles at her, a smile Laia has never seen on her before: the smile of a Claudia who is happy, who is doing something she loves, and that means more to Laia than anything she could say out loud.

"Remei, do you have a second?" she asks, stepping back into the hallway.

The woman follows her out, pulls the door closed, and the two of them move a few steps away from the room.

"How's Claudia doing? I get the feeling she really likes being in there."

Remei glances through the glass, where Claudia has her forearms resting on the table while she writes something in her notebook.

"Wonderfully. I've never had to teach anyone who picks things up this easily, but then, she's always loved this—I suppose it's just in her."

"She's always loved it?"

"When she was little, she used to come here a lot with her mother and she'd stay with me. She never stopped drawing—dresses, coats, all kinds of things—saying that when she grew up she was going to design them. I always assumed that's what she did, and when she showed up here and you told me she was coming to learn every part of the process, I figured it was simply because she wanted to understand the whole production from the ground up. But the other day she told me her actual job is managing the company's online store, and I couldn't make sense of it—I was so bothered I was short with her."

"I don't know her well, so I don't know much about her life," Laia lies, because she does know quite a few things, but even though she trusts Remei, it doesn't feel right to share them. "What I do notice is that she doesn't seem very happy in the position she's in."

"How could she be?" Remei turns toward Claudia, who is still absorbed in her work, oblivious to everything else. "That's what she loves—at least part of it—and she's good at it. God, better than good. This girl was born to design. I don't know why she wastes her talent uploading photos to a website. When she was little, I'd sometimes watch her and wonder whether that obsession with designing would pass—you know how it is when you're a kid and you're completely focused on one thing and a few months later you're onto something else entirely—but it's obvious that it's still there inside her."

"She has to rotate through every department, and with the time she's going to be here she'll have to repeat at least one. I'll make sure it's this one," Laia says, stealing a glance at her through the glass.

Chapter 11

Claudia turns off the car engine and rests her forehead against the steering wheel for a few seconds. Her head is pounding, her mouth is dry from the hangover, and her hands ache because during the few hours she managed to sleep, she'd clenched them so tightly from the tension that when she woke up she needed several tries before she could fully stretch her fingers.

When the alarm goes off she turns it off and stays in bed, determined not to come in. Then it sounds a second time ten minutes later, and at that point she lies staring at the ceiling, thinking she could call and say she has a migraine—she's done it before, after all, and having to put up with her aunt's complaints next Monday when Laia hands over the report won't be anything new—but two things force her up and into the shower: the first is that she doesn't want to disrespect the factory workers, and the second is Laia, and the guilt she feels over what happened last night.

Last Friday marked the end of the two weeks she'd been assigned to the pattern-making section, and this past Monday she starts in packaging. The moment she arrives at the section with Laia, she feels a hollow open in her stomach that puts her in a foul mood instantly. It's the same feeling as being in a lit room when the power suddenly cuts out—everything goes dark and silent—and that's exactly how her mind feels when she finds herself surrounded by boxes, delivery notes, sealing tape, a pallet wrapper, and a machine that spits out barcoded labels.

"It's very straightforward," the area supervisor says as he shows her around and explains what they do.

It isn't just straightforward. To Claudia, it's taking what other people made, putting it in a box, and sending it somewhere else. She knows immediately it'll be torture, because there's nothing to look at, no pattern to comment on and argue over with Remei the way she would have, nothing to make her lift her head and realize three hours have gone by. The two weeks she spent in pattern-making with Remei made time disappear; in packaging, the minutes stretch like hours and the days feel endless.

That's why she's been in a foul mood since Monday, and that's the main reason she went out last night. Laia had followed her home every Tuesday and Thursday as usual, even though for the past two weeks it had been pointless because she hadn't gone out a single day—which meant making excuses to Pol and coming up with a lie when Nadia called, worried she hadn't seen her in days—not even on the weekend, which she'd spent locked in her apartment designing on her iPad nonstop. But yesterday… Yesterday she would have lost her mind if she hadn't gone out to blow off some steam.

"Please, Claudia," Laia had pleaded, walking beside her on the sidewalk. "You'd had two really good weeks—your aunt is thrilled, and your parents must be—"

"I don't give a damn what my parents think, what my aunt thinks, or what you think," she said, stopping dead and turning to face her.

Laia almost tripped over her own feet. What you think. The words hit her like a knife between the ribs. They were nothing to each other—not friends, not a couple, just coworkers—but by now Laia genuinely cared about Claudia, and not only because of what she felt for her. Claudia was the kind of person who made herself easy to love without trying. But when Laia added her own feelings into the equation, the comment made her lower lip tremble for a moment—though she bit down on it in time, trading one pain for another.

"Sorry, that came out really badly." Claudia tossed the strands of hair that had fallen over her right shoulder back.

She looked particularly beautiful that night—straight-cut white trousers and a black shirt that matched the shadow around her eyes. To Laia, she looked like some kind of vampire queen, a creature of the night who didn't have to do anything but exist in order to be irresistible.

"It's fine," Laia murmured, but her voice came out unsteady, and she couldn't bring herself to look up from the ground.

It was then that Claudia placed two fingers under her chin—without thinking about what that touch might mean for Laia or for herself—because she felt the tips of her fingers tingle at the softness and warmth of Laia's skin. Laia stopped breathing for a few seconds.

"It's not fine. I was incredibly rude. It's true that I don't care what my parents think, and my aunt—well, she's a different story—but not today. What you think, though—that does matter to me."

Laia swallowed while she looked at her, eyes wider than a deer caught in headlights in the middle of the road at night.

"You don't hate me?" The question came out barely above a whisper, as if she felt she had no right to ask it.

Claudia's expression shifted.