After the funeral

CHAPTER 19: Fault lines

The first argument didn’t arrive dramatically.

There were no raised voices. No slammed doors.

It came quietly, disguised as logistics.

“Can you stay tonight?” Tomás asked, casually, as they cleared the table after dinner.

Valeria paused, plate still in her hands.

“I can’t,” she said.

He nodded once. “Okay.”

But something shifted.

She felt it immediately—the subtle tightening in the room, the space between them no longer neutral but charged.

“You don’t want to,” he said, not accusing, just naming it.

Valeria set the plate down carefully. “That’s not fair.”

“It’s not meant to be,” he replied. “I just want to understand.”

She leaned against the counter, suddenly exhausted. “Every time I stay, it gets harder to leave.”

Tomás studied her, expression unreadable. “Is that a problem?”

“Yes,” she said without hesitation. The honesty surprised even her.

Silence stretched.

“I’m afraid,” Valeria continued, voice lower now. “Afraid that if I let this become easy, I’ll stop paying attention. I’ve done that before.”

Tomás crossed his arms slowly—not defensively, but protectively, as if holding himself together.

“I’m not Andrés,” he said quietly.

“I know,” she replied immediately. “That’s what scares me.”

The words landed heavier than she intended.

He turned away, pacing once, then stopping by the window. “Do you know what it’s like,” he said, “to care without knowing where you’re allowed to stand?”

Valeria felt the familiar pull—to explain, to soften, to fix.

Instead, she stayed still.

“I’m not pushing you away,” she said. “I’m trying not to lose myself inside us.”

He turned back to her. “And where does that leave me?”

The question hung between them, unanswered.

That night, she went home alone.

Not because they had decided anything—

but because neither of them was ready to pretend the fault line wasn’t there.

Across the city, Lucía stared at her own reflection in the bathroom mirror, phone pressed to her ear.

“I can’t keep borrowing time,” she said to her sister. “I need something permanent.”

Later, Valeria lay awake in her bed, the house quiet around her. She replayed the conversation again and again, not searching for mistakes—only for truth.

This was the part no one warned you about, she thought.

Not falling in love.

Not surviving betrayal.

But learning how to stay without disappearing