Morning slipped into the room like an uninvited guest.
The light came quietly through the curtains, brushing the floor like a breath held too long.
Naiara opened her eyes and stayed still, wrapped in the tangled sheet.
Sleep had never really come. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw it again, the small plastic pouch, that fragment of truth hidden inside the drawer of her nightstand.
It was still there. Sealed. White as the canvas it had come from.
She could almost smell it, that faint, sterile scent that clung to her skin like guilt.
Her fingers tingled, as if the substance had found a way to sink beneath the surface.
She rose slowly, set the coffee pot on the stove, and stared as it began to hiss.
The sea beyond the window shimmered in metallic shades.
Every morning it looked different, and yet the same, like the breath of something that never slept.
The phone vibrated on the table. A message.
Miguel: "Have lunch with me? It's been a while since we've spent time together."
Such a gentle sentence but gentleness had always been his favorite disguise.
Every word her father used was a wire pulled tight, and she was tired of walking on it.
Still, she typed back: "Okay."
The restaurant sat on the port, framed by boats and wind.
Miguel was already there, sitting as if he owned everything he could see.
His suit was light, his watch expensive, his smile perfect.
When she arrived, he rose and kissed her cheeks.
"You look beautiful, Naiara. A little tired, though."
She nodded faintly. "It's been a long week."
They sat across from each other.
The sea behind him moved with his breath, calm, but always capable of turning.
"I heard the gallery's doing well," he said. "You've always had talent."
"Thanks."
"Nothing new? No unexpected deliveries?"
Naiara looked up from her plate.
"No, nothing."
He nodded slowly.
"Then I must've gotten wrong information. My mistake."
He cut his steak, calm, precise, like a man discussing the weather. But his eyes stayed fixed on her, clear and cold as glass.
Whenever she lied, her pulse climbed into her throat. It was the same feeling she'd had as a child, when he'd stare in silence, waiting to see if she'd confess.
Only now the stakes were higher.
"You know," Miguel said, dabbing his mouth with his napkin, "curiosity isn't always a virtue. Sometimes it's dangerous to know too much."
She lowered her fork.
"And lies, Dad? Are they a family flaw?"
A flicker crossed his eyes, so brief it could've been imagined. Then came the smile again, perfect, bloodless.
"You sound just like your mother when she is angry. You should remember, Nai, that the tongue is a weapon."
"I know. Lies are, too."
For a moment, silence filled the space between them, thick, deliberate. Only the low hum of the sea moved.
When they finally parted, Miguel hugged her, too tight to be loving, too brief to be sincere.
That evening, Clara was waiting for her on the terrace. The air smelled of basil and wine.
Soft yellow lights hung above the table, painting golden circles on the floor.
"You look better," Clara said, greeting her with a smile.
"I don't sleep, but I'm good at pretending."
"That'll do for tonight."
They ate slowly, talking about everything and nothing. Naiara laughed, but the sound came out broken.
When Clara refilled her glass, the silence between them grew heavier.
"You know," her friend began gently, "I'm not going to ask a single question about what happened the other day at the gallery… but if you ever need to talk, I'm here."
The words hung in the air.
Naiara looked at her, like someone staring at a rope stretched over a cliff.
Then she broke.
Tears came without warning, hot, soundless.
Clara leaned forward and took her hands.
"It's okay. You're safe."
Naiara shook her head.
"No. I haven't been safe in a long time."
Her trembling turned into sobs. When she finally spoke, her voice carried something raw, not weakness, but fury barely contained.
"At the beginning, he was perfect. He made me laugh, wrote me poems, took me to places I'd never seen. He said I was different. That no one would ever understand me like he did. And I… I believed him."
She lowered her gaze.
"Then came the rules. Small, harmless things. 'Don't wear that dress, it's too short.'
'Don't go out with them, they don't really care about you.' 'Answer me right away, or I'll worry.' Every rule sounded like protection.
Every rule was a wall."
Clara said nothing. She only listened.
"He called me twenty times a day. If I didn't answer, he came over. Always. He said he couldn't live without me, but what he really meant was that I wasn't allowed to live without him. I couldn't choose anymore, or even think. I felt guilty just for breathing."
Her voice trembled, then went quiet.
Naiara pressed a hand against her chest.
"His words were strings, and I was the puppet. Every time I tried to move, he'd pull harder. And when I started fighting back, he became calm, too calm. That silence before he exploded was worse than the shouting.
It was like waiting for thunder in a sky that had already broken."
She drew a long breath that never reached her lungs.
"One day, I said I was leaving. I'd packed a small suitcase, nothing more. And he… changed. I'll never forget the way he looked at me. He didn't need to raise his voice.
Just standing there was enough to make me afraid."
Clara squeezed her hand. Tears ran freely down Naiara's face, but her tone stayed steady, painfully lucid.
"He told me that without him I'd have nothing. That no one would believe me. And for a while, I believed that too. Until one night I understood that if I stayed, he'd never let me go. Not alive, at least."
The silence that followed was different, heavy, but no longer frightening.
Clara pulled her into an embrace, her cheek resting against Naiara's hair.
"You don't have to explain anymore," she whispered. "You've already survived."
But Naiara didn't answer. Her body still trembled, as if something inside her hadn't finished falling apart.
"I didn't want to die," she murmured. "I just wanted to stop being afraid."
Later, Clara brought her a blanket.
"Stay here tonight," she said softly, touching her arm.
Naiara nodded.
She lay down on the couch, wrapped in the rough fabric, and closed her eyes.
Her breathing was slow but never calm.
Every noise made her flinch, a car in the distance, a door closing, a dog barking.
Her brain still couldn't tell the difference between danger and memory.
Across the window, Clara looked absently toward the street.
A black car stood by the gate, headlights off.
It didn't move for a long time. Then, almost silently, it rolled away and disappeared around the corner. Clara didn't notice.
Naiara slept, clinging to the blanket like an anchor.
Outside, the sea moved without a sound. And in that silence, something was still watching over her.