CHAPTER 10: RELEASE
467 Words
Valeria read the email three times before the words finally settled into meaning.
Subject: Property Dispute – Immediate Response Required
The language was precise. Cold. Stripped of anything human.
Lucía was requesting to remain in the apartment.
There would be mediation.
There would be delays.
There would be decisions that did not belong to her alone anymore.
Valeria closed the laptop slowly.
Her body reacted before her thoughts could catch up—jaw tightening, shoulders lifting, breath turning shallow. Not grief this time. Not sadness.
Anger.
The quiet kind that vibrated just beneath the skin.
Even now, she thought, he’s still here.
Still rearranging my life.
The gym was dimmer than usual that evening, the lights softened, the air warmer. Music pulsed low through the space, steady and grounding. Valeria moved through her routine with controlled intensity, each repetition sharper than the last.
Tomás noticed immediately.
“You’re carrying something heavy,” he said quietly when she finished her set.
“I don’t want to talk,” she replied.
He nodded without offense. “Then don’t.”
They moved into the empty studio at the back—mirrors lining the walls, the city glowing faintly through the high windows. Valeria stretched, then stopped suddenly, breath uneven, body buzzing with too much contained energy.
Tomás stepped closer.
“What do you need right now?” he asked.
She didn’t think. She didn’t negotiate.
“To stop thinking.”
His hand settled at her waist—firm, steady, grounding. When he kissed her, it wasn’t tentative this time. It was slow, deep, intentional.
Her hands slid up his arms, feeling strength beneath warm skin. She pressed closer, instinct taking over where restraint had lived for weeks.
Tomás’s mouth traced her jaw, her neck, unhurried, exploratory. Each touch felt deliberate, as if he were paying attention not just to her body—but to her reactions.
“This feels intense,” she whispered.
He rested his forehead against hers. “You can stop anytime.”
“I don’t want to,” she said, voice steady despite the heat pooling low in her belly.
That was all he needed.
They moved together without rush, without performance. Clothes discarded. Breath shared. Valeria felt herself let go—not just of control, but of vigilance. Of the constant effort to remain composed.
Her body remembered how to receive.
Later, lying against him, skin warm, heartbeat slowly settling, Valeria stared at the ceiling and felt something loosen inside her chest.
Not escape.
Not recklessness.
Relief.
Tomás brushed her hair back gently. “You don’t disappear when things get hard,” he murmured. “You come alive.”
The words landed deeper than she expected.
For the first time since the funeral, the past loosened its grip—
not completely,
but enough.
Enough to breathe.
- Writer
