Marco had been invited to the wedding by Daniel Ortega, an old college friend whose younger sister was getting married that afternoon. He had accepted because Lucía was spending the weekend with her grandmother, and because his therapist—a gentle woman with glasses hanging from a beaded chain—had softly suggested that he needed to start reentering the world again.
So there I was. Practicing.
Couples arrived arm in arm around him. Men in flawless suits. Women in long dresses, wearing expensive perfume. Old friends greeted each other with hugs and laughter. Under the warm glow of the lamps, even strangers seemed beautiful and familiar.
Marco watched it all from his corner, feeling the distance between himself and that happiness as if it were an invisible pane of glass.
He glanced down at his phone—not because he expected a message, but because it gave his hands something to hold. That’s when he heard the voice.
“Excuse me, young man,” a woman said from behind his left shoulder. “I’m going to ask you something very strange, and I need you to say yes before I explain why.”
Marco turned slowly.
She appeared to be in her late sixties, maybe early seventies. Her silver hair was styled elegantly in an updo, and she wore a long-sleeved black lace dress with a simple pearl necklace. But what caught Marco’s attention wasn’t her appearance—it was her eyes: warm, steady, carrying the kind of calm that only comes from surviving too much to fear everything.
“I don’t have much time,” she continued with quiet urgency. “My name is Elena, and I need you to pretend for twenty minutes that you are my daughter’s fiancé.”
Marco blinked.
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