The shock of recognition left Lysandra momentarily speechless, the mansion's foyer charged with a tension so thick you could cut it with a knife. Horacio, standing on the threshold under the porch light, maintained that kind, almost professional smile, but his dark eyes couldn't entirely hide his surprise and perhaps, a shadow of something deeper upon meeting Lysandra's astonished gaze.
She, barely recovering a shred of her usual composure, stepped ahead of Fernando, who was still observing the scene with a mixture of curiosity and puzzlement. "Thank you, Horacio," Lysandra said, her voice a little more breathless than she would have liked. She reached into her purse and, without thinking too much, pulled out a one-hundred-dollar bill. It was an excessive tip for a food delivery, an impulsive gesture born of shock, sudden pity, or perhaps an unconscious desire to bridge the chasm between the past she remembered and the present she was witnessing. "For the service."
Horacio looked at the bill, then at Lysandra, and a fleeting expression of genuine surprise crossed his face before the kind smile returned, this time perhaps with a hint of gratitude or simple resignation. "That's very generous of you, miss. Thank you very much." He accepted the money with a slight nod. "Enjoy your dinner." He turned and, with the same discretion with which he had arrived, disappeared into the encroaching darkness of the night, leaving behind a whirlwind of unanswered questions and the tempting aroma of Yucatecan food.
As soon as the door closed, Fernando turned to Lysandra, his eyebrows arched in a silent interrogation that quickly turned into words.
"Well, well, little sister," he began, a tone介于 (between) amusement and scrutiny in his voice. "A hundred-dollar tip? And that look on your face like you've seen a ghost? Who exactly was that young delivery guy? Because the way you two looked at each other… it wasn't exactly like two strangers."
«What's going on here?» Fernando thought, watching his sister, who still looked pale and a little shaky. «Lysandra has never been impulsive with money, much less with displays of emotion. A delivery guy? Since when does a delivery guy leave her like this? Could my little sister, the queen of professional ice, be having a secret affair with him? That would be the ultimate surprise of this trip.» The idea, though far-fetched knowing Lysandra, crossed his mind with a spark of intrigue.
Lysandra sighed, running a hand over her forehead as if trying to dispel a fog. "It's not what you're thinking, Fernando," she said, her voice still tinged with shock. "His name is Horacio. We studied together at university."
"At university?" Fernando repeated, genuine surprise now in his voice. "That guy was your classmate? But… he seemed so…" He searched for the right word. "...ordinary. And you looked like you were about to faint."
"It's just… at university, he was different," Lysandra explained, as they began to carry the food bags towards the informal dining room. "He was the leader of our generation. Brilliant, charismatic, everyone predicted an incredible future for him. Conferences, offers from top companies even before graduating… to see him like this, delivering food…" She shrugged, the confusion evident on her face. "I just don't understand it."
Fernando listened, and as Lysandra briefly told him about the Horacio she remembered – the promising young man, the future CEO – his own confusion grew. «A university leader, now an Uber Eats driver?» he thought, increasingly bewildered. «That makes no sense at all. Either Lysandra is leaving out a very important part of the story, or something really major happened to that guy. And her? That reaction… it wasn't just surprise at the change in an old classmate's circumstances. There was something more.»
They decided to have dinner. The aroma of cochinita pibil, relleno negro, and panuchos filled the dining room, but Lysandra's appetite had considerably diminished. While Fernando and Ruby commented on how delicious the food was, Lysandra's mind was miles away, lost in a labyrinth of memories and conjectures.
She took a bite of her food without really tasting it. The image of Horacio on the doorstep, with that kind smile that couldn't quite hide the shadow in his eyes, replayed over and over in her head. And with it, the question that had been haunting her since the memory of him had surfaced that very morning, now laden with the weight of a disconcerting reality: What would have happened if they had had something together?
Before, the question had been a melancholic fantasy, a speculation about a path not taken with a man who represented success and brilliance. But now… now the answer felt painfully incomplete, tinged with sadness and confusion. What kind of life would they have had? Would she, with her own complexities and her gift, have been able to fit into the life of that promising young man? And what kind of life was he leading now, so far removed from all expectations?
The conversation at the table continued, Fernando and Ruby's voices a background murmur. But Lysandra was immersed in her thoughts, in the brutal collision between the idealized past and the unexpected present. Horacio's arrival, instead of closing a chapter of speculation, had opened a new volume of even deeper and more unsettling questions. The night, definitely, still held many secrets.