He goes inside and places a pillow in the middle.
When silence falls in the house, every nerve in your body is ready to listen.
At 1:13 the sound reappears.
Crash.
This time you are waiting for it.
A thin strip of light appears first along the bottom edge of the door, then slowly rises, slowly and narrowly, climbing the opposite wall. Lucía doesn’t need to warn you—you freeze immediately. Esteban lies behind her, facing away from you both. His breathing sounds even, but now that you’re fully conscious, it seems too even. Practiced.
The light stops at the head of the bed.
Then a quiet knock is heard.
Pace.
Lucía lifts her head slightly, aiming it directly at him. After two taps, the light disappears.
The floorboards in the hallway creak softly, groaning. Then comes a retreat—slow, controlled, deliberate.
You are waiting.
Five minutes later, Lucía sits up. “Now,” she whispers.
You look at Esteban.
Lucía follows your gaze. “She won’t move for at least ten minutes.”
The confidence in her voice makes you feel sick.
You get out of bed without a word. The tiles are cold under your feet. Lucía wraps a blanket around her shoulders, and the two of you step out into the hallway like fugitives navigating their own home.
On the roof, the night air hits sharp and cold.
Puebla stretches around you in shards of yellow light and shaded terraces, satellite dishes and reservoirs, and in the distance, dogs bark softly in the wind. Somewhere in the distance, a motorcycle hums down the street before disappearing. The sky is clear, dotted with hard, bright stars above the faint glow of the city.
Lucía places a pillow on an overturned paint bucket and sits down.
You remain standing. “Speak.”
She nods as if she doesn’t expect any gentleness from you.
Then, clutching the edge of the blanket with both hands, he says, “This started before we moved here.”
You are silent.
He looks at the neighboring rooftops, not at you. “At first, I thought it was just my imagination. Tomás worked late shifts, and Esteban would sometimes drop by the apartment—with groceries, asking if the landlord had fixed anything. He was always helpful. Always polite.” He presses his lips together. “And then one afternoon, he stood too close in the kitchen.”
Cold spreads down your arms.
“He brushed against me, even though there was no need,” Lucía continues. “I pulled away and told myself it meant nothing. Then came the comments. Little ones. About my hair. About my lips. About the way my dress fit. The kind that a decent man can always consider harmless if a woman dares to repeat them.”
Your skin is too tight.
“And you told Tomás?”
Lucía closes her eyes. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I wasn’t sure yet.” Her voice trembles for the first time. “Because if I said it wrong, I would poison the family. Because Esteban is respected, and I was a new wife from a small town who kept getting lost on city buses and missed the paperwork at the clinic. Because men like him rely on hesitation.”
The stars blur for a moment before your vision clears.
You collapse onto the low wall opposite her. The concrete still carries a trace of warmth from that day. “What happened after you moved in?”
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