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"Why don't you do that, Claudia?" she asks, genuinely trying to understand.

Claudia stops and stares out at the sea, jaw so tight it must ache, until she turns, offers a smile that doesn't quite reach the corners of her lips but is sincere, and turns around to walk back in the other direction.

"We should head back. I said five minutes and I think a few more have passed."

She starts walking, and Laia stands still for a moment, asking herself why, out of all the women she has ever known, she had to fall for the one who seems unreachable in every possible way.

Chapter 13

"I hate this," Laia mutters out loud, more to herself than for Claudia—who is sitting beside her—to hear.

Elvira's niece turns her head and looks at her. They're in the factory owner's office, it's Monday, the day the report gets read, and both of them are sitting there waiting for Elvira—who steps out to take a call that comes in just as Laia is handing her the report—to come back.

"Relax. I'm getting used to it," Claudia says.

Like hell. Laia lifts her head and stares at her, unconvinced. She knows Claudia can't possibly be used to this, precisely because she's always right there when Elvira tears into her, and she's learned to read her behavior by now. Claudia comes across as calm from the start, stays quiet while her aunt reads the report, and then waits stoically for whatever she's done wrong to be thrown back at her—but near the end, she always falls apart in some way; her back goes rigid, her jaw tightens, or she simply walks out of the office and stands somewhere with her head somewhere else entirely.

"Do you have friends?" Laia asks, her tongue moving faster than her brain.

Claudia looks at her, surprised and not quite sure what's prompting the question, but she answers anyway.

"I have Pol," she says, because he's the only person she tells certain things to. She considers whether to add Nadia to that list, but even though the woman tries, Claudia can't bring herself to open up to her—maybe because she's afraid that if they actually become real friends, the sex part might end, and she needs that outlet almost as much as she needs to breathe, because sleeping with someone is the only thing that helps her empty her mind, even if just for a few minutes.

Laia nods, thoughtful.

"And do you see him outside the club? Do you hang out and do other stuff besides going out at night?"

Claudia goes cold, and something dark rises from her sternum to her throat—a quick, tight jolt, the kind that squeezes your chest and leaves you feeling off. She doesn't hang out with Pol for anything other than going out; at most, they grab a couple of beers on a Sunday afternoon, but the truth is her social life boils down to nights out, hangovers she regrets, and women whose names she can't remember afterward. Most mornings she wakes up anxious, her body stiff and her thoughts racing. She doesn't like her life—she hates it—and she doesn't feel comfortable with most of what she does, but she's been stuck in this spiral of self-destruction for so many years that she doesn't know how to climb out of the hole she feels herself sinking deeper into.

"I'm not interested in other things," she says, knowing she's lying in some way, because she is interested in other things—fashion, animals, cooking, traveling. The problem is the same across the board: she doesn't know how to stop her current life, plant her feet, and decide to turn things around and start doing things that actually make her feel good instead of like a failure. And the root of it all is her family—that weight she's been carrying since she was little, when her parents decided her future without asking her.

"So you just go out and that's it?"

"Do you have friends?" Claudia cuts her off, not wanting to keep talking about herself.

"Not many."

Claudia's eyes go wide, because this catches her completely off guard.

"You don't have friends?" The question is equal parts disbelief and surprise.

"My best friend moved to Canada when she finished college, and between the time difference and everything, we don't really talk much."

Claudia is about to keep asking, because now she's genuinely curious, but the door opens and Elvira walks into the office.

"Sorry about that—I had to take it," she says, setting her phone on the desk as she sits down.

She puts on her reading glasses and picks up the report, going through each line of what Laia has written. One night out, punctual all week, no issues noted in the packaging section.

"I was hoping the streak from the past two weeks would hold," Elvira says, taking off her glasses, "but I'm not going to complain about one night out when you were on time and did your job, so what you do with your free time in that case doesn't seem relevant to me."

Elvira sets the report on the desk and looks at her niece. Claudia sits still, hands on the armrests of her chair, her mind working overtime as she searches for an explanation for what's missing. The report makes no mention of the fight where Laia took a headbutt that could have done serious damage, and there's nothing about the day they went to visit the fabric supplier and she decided to take a detour to the beach.

"I think you're making progress—that little by little you're starting to get focused," Elvira says. "This is the right direction, Claudia. It seems your parents' idea isn't such a bad one after all."

Claudia exhales through her nose and shakes her head.

"In general, my parents don't have bad ideas—they're just terrible at making decisions," she says, unable to stop herself.