You step out of your mother’s car with one hand beneath the curve of your belly and the other braced against the door, not because you are weak, but because eight months of carrying life changes the way you move through the world. The October rain in Barcelona has teeth, cold and fine, and it settles on your coat like a whisper from a cruel old friend. Across the slick stone steps of the courthouse, your husband stands beside the woman who has been living in the cracks of your marriage for months. They look polished, expensive, smug. They look like the kind of people who think appearances can erase facts.
You close the car door gently and refuse to hurry.
That irritates Damián more than tears ever would.
He liked you flustered. He liked you apologizing. He liked you soft enough to shape into whatever made him feel bigger. But that version of you began dying the moment you found the apartment receipts, and whatever remains now has iron stitched through its spine.
