I wasn’t unhappy there. Strangely, San Gabriel was quiet. The rules were clear. No one pretended to love me only to crush me later. Until that morning.
I knew something was wrong before I even saw her.
The air felt different. The sky was gray. When the door to the living room opened and Lidia entered, for a second I didn’t recognize her. She looked thinner, her shoulders slumped, as if she were carrying an invisible weight. Her blouse was buttoned all the way up despite the June heat. Her makeup barely concealed a bruise on her cheekbone. She smiled slightly, but her lips trembled.
She sat down opposite me with a small basket of fruit. The oranges were bruised. Just like her.
“How are you, Nay?” she asked in a voice so fragile it seemed to be asking permission to exist.
I didn’t answer. I took her wrist. She shuddered.
—What happened to your face?
“I fell off my bike,” he said, trying to laugh.
I looked at her more closely. Swollen fingers. Red knuckles. These weren’t the hands of someone who had fallen. These were the hands of someone who had fought back.
—Lidia, tell me the truth.
-I’m fine.
I lifted his sleeve before he could stop me. And I felt something old and dormant awaken inside me.
His arms were covered in marks. Some were yellow and old. Others were recent, purple, and deep. Fingerprints, belt lines, bruises that looked like maps of pain.
“Who did this to you?” I asked in a low voice.
Her eyes filled with tears.
-Can’t.
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