We got married young. Too young maybe. She dreamed of opening an art gallery in Guadalajara. I was obsessed with growing up within a law firm in Monterrey. At first we believed that the effort was temporary, that one day we would have time for ourselves.
That day never came.
Dinners became silent. The conversations ended reduced to bills, schedules and small reproaches that accumulated like dust. No one fooled anyone. Nobody screamed too much. We just stopped really looking at each other.
And one morning we signed the divorce.
No drama.
No tears.
Like two tired people.
After that, Mariana disappeared from my life. I heard from acquaintances that he had moved to Merida to work restoring old houses. I continued in Monterrey, buried between files, hearings and offices with windows that never opened.
It was a short trip. Two days to close a real estate deal and come back. But the first night, after a boring dinner with guests, I decided to walk through the historic center to clear myself.
There was music coming out of the bars, smell of recent rain and heat glued to the skin. I walked into a small coffee shop because I needed to sit down for a while.
And there she was.
Mariana.
Sitting by the window, reading a book as if time hadn’t passed.
When he looked up and recognized me, he smiled barely.
—Daniel…
Listening to my name in his voice disarmed me more than I expected.
We stayed talking hours.
At first carefully. Then too easily. We remember nonsense: the cat that hated everyone, our absurd trip to Veracruz, the times we stayed awake watching bad movies just to not argue.
And then I understood something dangerous.
I still felt at home when I was talking to her.
We walked together along Paseo de Montejo until it started to rain. We ran under the trees like two idiots too big to act like that.When we arrived soaked in my hotel, Mariana silently looked at me for a few seconds.
I should have fired myself there.
I didn’t.
That night we slept together.
And for a few hours I forgot why we were done.
But the next morning I woke up alone.
Mariana was no longer in the room.
There was only one empty cup of coffee, the window open and a note folded over the table.
“We shouldn’t have done this. Sorry.”
That was it.
I tried calling her.
He didn’t answer.
I wrote to him several times over the next few days.
Nothing.
And even though I tried to convince myself that it didn’t matter, something in his way of leaving left me restless. It didn’t seem like regret. It seemed fear.
Two weeks later, I got a call from Merida.
He told me he was in the hospital.
That he had suffered a faint working in an old house in the center.
