Chapter 25
When Martina pushes open the apartment door and steps inside, the darkness of the interior envelops her in silence.
She hasn’t turned on the landing light as she came up, and for a few seconds she stands motionless in the doorway, her hand still resting on the doorknob, as if she needs to confirm that she has truly arrived home.
The hallway is dimly lit. Only a strip of yellowish light from the streetlamp seeps through the living room window and casts an irregular line on the floor.
Martina closes the door and brings a hand to her temple.
The headache she’s been carrying for hours grips her tightly.
Every heartbeat seems to expand behind her eyes, pulsing with an unpleasant intensity that clouds her vision.
She takes a deep breath. For a moment, she leans against the door, letting the wood support her back.
The silence of the house feels strange to her, almost hostile.
There is no trace of the party that filled these very rooms just a short while ago.
Only a void remains that seems to swallow even the air.
She takes off her jacket and drapes it over the back of a chair, though she isn’t even aware of doing so.
Her movements are automatic, as if her body continues to function while her mind remains trapped in a distant place, reliving Julia’s words over and over.
Everything is so clean and tidy that it seems as if the apartment had suddenly been emptied and hadn’t been lived in for years.
Martina stands there for a few seconds, looking around, feeling the weight of the night settle on her chest. The headache intensifies.
She closes her eyes and runs her fingers across her forehead, pressing hard as if she could push the memories out.
Suddenly she wonders when it all started to go wrong.
When did they begin betraying each other?
When did they start living a life together that neither of them truly felt?
For a long time, she believed that the wear and tear of her marriage had been gradual, a kind of slow erosion caused by the passing of the years and their responsibilities.
But now, with the house silent and the echo of the truth still reverberating in her head, the feeling is different.
More bitter and clear. Perhaps they both knew for a long time that it wasn’t love.
Perhaps they had merely prolonged a friendship that had turned into a commitment out of fear of being alone, out of the comfort of the familiar, out of the laziness of admitting that they had become two strangers sharing a bed and bills.
Martina lets out a long, trembling sigh.
“I guess I’ll never know,” she says softly.
The sentence hangs in the room, fragile and lonely.
She walks toward the bedroom. As she opens the door, the darkness inside greets her with the same stillness as the rest of the house.
But something catches her eye. On the dresser is a small piece of paper.
Martina frowns slightly. The note is folded carefully.
For a second, she hesitates. Then she opens it and begins to read.
“Martina:
By the time you read this, I’ll probably be gone. I promise to come back soon to get my things. I wasn’t quite sure how to say goodbye after everything that’s happened, and maybe writing it down is easier for me than saying it out loud.
I spoke with Rebeca. I told her the truth about the manuscript leak. It was the least I could do after all these years of silence.
I suppose neither of us has been entirely fair in this story. We clung to something that no longer existed and hurt each other in the process.
I don’t know if you ever knew how much I loved you, or how much I also loved the version of us that existed when we were friends. But I think now we both need to walk away so we can find each other again.
I’ve accepted that job in London. Maybe starting over is the only thing that makes sense at this point.
As for you…
Take advantage of this new opportunity.
Don’t let it slip away again.”
Martina slowly lowers the paper. The silence in the bedroom becomes almost suffocating. For a few seconds she remains motionless, staring at the note as if the words might change if she looks at them long enough. Her heart is pounding against her ribs.
“It can’t be…” The words slip from her lips. “No, it can’t be.”
She presses her lips together tightly. Her head starts spinning.
Julia has spoken to Rebeca. She’s told her everything.
The truth that had been buried for six years, rotting in silence.
The weight of that revelation falls on her, and she feels a sudden dizziness, a mixture of relief, anger, and fear that churns her stomach.
How dare Julia decide for her, especially now?
How dare she set them both free with a cold note and a ticket to London?
Just then the doorbell rings. The sound shatters the stillness of the apartment with unexpected clarity, and Martina jumps.
For a second, she doesn’t move a millimeter.
The doorbell rings again, insistently. She leaves the note on the dresser and walks toward the door.
Every step seems filled with a tension she can’t explain, as if the floor had become unstable beneath her feet.
But when she opens the door and finds Rebeca standing there, all the pain disappears. Rebeca is holding a bag in each hand, and her expression is calm. Almost radiant, with a gentleness in her eyes that Martina hasn’t seen in years.
“I ordered Chinese food,” she says, holding up the bags with a shy smile that doesn’t quite hide her nervousness. “Do you want some?”
Martina looks at her. Their eyes meet, and something inside Martina calms down, as if that gaze could release everything her heart holds.
A smile appears on her face before she can stop it, small and trembling.
“Sure,” she replies, and Martina steps away from the door. “Come in.”
Rebeca enters the apartment. The aroma of food fills the living room as they set the containers on the coffee table.
Martina turns on a small lamp that casts a warm, golden light over the space, softening the shadows.
For a few minutes, they both move in silence, arranging the plates, opening the cardboard containers, placing the chopsticks next to the boxes.
Rebeca opens a bottle of beer and pours two glasses. Finally, she sits on the floor, facing the table, with her legs crossed. Martina does the same, sitting across from her, so close that she can catch the faint scent of her perfume.
The silence lingers for a few more seconds, and then Rebeca speaks, looking into her eyes with an intensity that makes the air feel almost vibrating.
“Julia told me everything,” she says, and the words come out quickly, almost hastily, as if she’d been holding them back for hours.
Even though Martina already knows the news, she lets her continue.
“The truth is, I don’t know what to say.
Six years have passed, and I feel like the only thing I did was make the mistake of not listening to you.
Of not believing you when I needed to most.”
She pauses, lowering her gaze for a moment before raising it again.
“Because you knew what happened. Right?”
Martina presses her lips together and shrugs slightly.
“It was the editor-in-chief,” she admits before letting out a sigh.
“The competition offered him a lot of money, and I suppose he took advantage of my goodwill. At that time, the competing publishing house was negotiating a contract with the author who ended up at yours. The war between the two companies was brutal, but they kept it very secret until everything blew up.”
Rebeca frowns slightly, but doesn’t interrupt her. Martina takes a breath before continuing, her fingers idly fiddling with the chopsticks holding her Chinese food.
“What I know is that the rival publisher paid him to leak information about the manuscript you were working on. By the time I realized what he’d done…
it was already too late. And everyone needed to find someone to blame for not having played their cards right, for that secrecy that sometimes surrounds a novel. ”
Martina pauses for a moment and swallows hard.
“I thought it would only hurt you if I told you then, that you deserved to find your own way without carrying that burden, even if you didn’t know the whole truth.”
Rebeca doesn’t take her eyes off her. Her eyes shine as she recalls the pain she went through at that moment. But also with an understanding she doesn’t intend to hide.
“My goodness, Martina…” Rebeca murmurs. “All this time, believing that you…” She shakes her head.
“Well… in the end, the publisher got what they wanted, didn’t they?
The scandal attracted enormous media attention, and when people found out we were translating that book, preorders skyrocketed.
And the personal consequences were buried under the commercial success. ”
Silence settles between them once more, with the food untouched on the table, slowly growing cold.
“Deep down,” Rebeca says, looking up, “I’m glad I left them behind. Because I’ve managed to build a wonderful career, far from all that pressure. The only thing I regret is having lost the chance to be together.”
Martina watches her. For a second, neither of them moves. Martina’s heart beats strongly, and then Rebeca smiles. A calm, slow smile that lights up her eyes and softens the lines of fatigue still etched on her face.
“Maybe,” Rebeca replies, reaching out to gently stroke her neck. “But Julia is right about something she told me this morning.”
Martina raises her eyebrows slightly, curious.
“About what?”
Rebeca looks her straight in the eye, leaning forward slightly.
“Fate has given us a second chance,” Rebeca says. “And this time I don’t plan to waste it out of pride, or fear, or anything.”
The words echo softly in the living room.
Martina feels her heart racing again; a familiar warmth rises through her chest and spreads to her cheeks.
For a few seconds, as they look at each other, the world seems to shrink to the minimal distance between their bodies, to the way Rebeca’s eyes trace her face as if they want to memorize every little detail.
And when they kiss, Martina feels Rebeca’s lips—soft and warm, with a faint taste of beer.
Martina closes her eyes and lets herself go, timidly raising a hand to the nape of Rebeca’s neck, tangling her fingers in her hair.
The contact is sweet and urgent at the same time—that collision of years spent repressing a desire that explodes between them with an intensity that leaves them breathless.
“Martina…” Rebeca whispers against her lips. “I don’t want to lose you again.”
Martina smiles and brushes her thumb against Rebeca’s cheek.
“Then don’t let go of me,” she replies in a whisper. “Because I won’t let go of you either. Never again.”