Sometimes you wake with the taste of chamomile in your mouth. Sometimes you hear Rodrigo saying, “You’re my wife now.” Sometimes you see Teresa’s smile across the courtroom.
But then morning comes.
Your mother calls to ask whether you ate breakfast.
Claudia sends ridiculous memes.
Elena arrives at the office with coffee and complains that young women ignore red flags because men have good hair.
And you laugh.
Really laugh.
The kind of laugh you once thought belonged to a woman who died on her wedding night.
On the second anniversary of Rodrigo’s arrest, a letter arrives at Valeria House.
There is no return address.
Inside is one sheet of paper.
Rodrigo’s handwriting.
You almost throw it away.
Instead, you read it with Elena beside you.
“I could have loved you,” he writes. “If things had been different.”
You stare at the sentence for a long time.
Then you fold the letter once.
Twice.
You place it in a metal bowl.
Elena hands you a match.
You strike it.
The flame catches the paper slowly at first, then all at once. Rodrigo’s words curl, blacken, and vanish into ash.
You feel nothing.
Not fear.
Not grief.
Not even anger.
Only space.
Beautiful, clean space.
Elena watches the smoke rise.
“What did it say?” she asks.
You look at the ash.
“Nothing important.”
That evening, you walk home alone through streets full of noise, headlights, vendors, music, and life. A bride passes you outside a boutique, laughing into her phone, her veil tucked beneath one arm.
For a moment, she looks at you.
You smile.
Not because the world is safe.
It is not.
Not because love is never dangerous.
Sometimes it is.
You smile because you know something now that no predator, no document, no charming man, no elegant monster can ever take from you.
A warning can save you.
A refusal can free you.
And sometimes, the hand that grabs you in the street is not trying to hurt you.
Sometimes it is the hand of a mother who lost everything, reaching through the wreckage of her own life to pull you back from the edge of yours.
