The doorbell rang once, and Sofía already knew who it was.
There was no need to look through the peephole or ask who was there: Tomás had a way of being in the world that announced itself before he did. Like a change in the atmosphere, like a pause in the routine.
She opened the door without a word. She just looked at him.
And he, also without a word, held up the folder he was carrying.
The manuscript.
"Is that it?" she asked with a slight smile, somewhat different from before. Softer, more intimate, less ironic.
"Yes," he replied. "Final version. I'll send it this week."
Sofía took it in her hands as if it weighed more than it appeared. And in a way, it did.
It was no longer just the collection of pages they had corrected together, between glasses of wine, veiled discussions, and long pauses of shared silence.
Now it had a title.
And the title was a blow to the center of her chest.
"Seasons of Loneliness."
She swallowed and pretended she hadn't noticed. That she didn't feel the dizziness.
But she felt it.
Because she understood it.
Because she knew that book wasn't just a story.
"Did you bring anything else?" she asked, glancing at the bags he carried. "Tell me you didn't plan to let me starve this week."
Tomás nodded, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "Food to survive until Friday. Lasagna for two days, soup for three, and rice with vegetables for when you don't even have the strength to heat anything."
"You're worse than an overprotective father," she murmured, setting the manuscript on the table, without fully letting go of it.
"And you're worse than a teenager with no eating discipline?"
She laughed. That soft laugh, which had begun to escape her more often lately, without her even realizing it.
That laugh he sought, without saying so, every time he visited her.
While Tomás headed to the kitchen and began filling the refrigerator, Sofía sank onto the sofa with the manuscript on her lap.
She didn't open it yet.
She just stroked the cover with her fingers, tracing the letters with her fingertip.
"Seasons of Loneliness."
She had read every part, every dialogue, every clause… she had suggested changes, sometimes minimal, sometimes structural. But now, seeing it all printed, definitive, with that name inscribed on the front, stirred something she couldn't name.
It hurt.
But not in a hurtful way. It was a warm, strange pain.
As if someone had given her space to exist without asking permission.
"Are you going to read it again?" Tomás asked from the kitchen, his head poking through the half-open door.
"I don't know…" she replied, hugging the manuscript as if she were cold. "It's different now. It has a name."
Tomás returned, drying his hands on a kitchen towel, and sat beside her without a word.
Sofía turned her face towards him.
"Why did you give it that title?"
Tomás took a moment to reply. "Because it's everything I learned these years. That there are seasons… of distance, of emptiness, of waiting. And that, sometimes, someone passes through them and stays. Even if it's just for a while."
"And me?" she asked, barely a whisper. "Which season am I in?"
He didn't look at her directly. His eyes settled on the window, where the afternoon was slowly fading, painting the walls in a warm orange.
"The most difficult. The most beautiful. The one that never stops hurting."
She smiled, a lump in her throat.
"God… you're so ridiculously young to say things like that." She leaned forward and opened the manuscript, like someone preparing to delve into a thick forest. "But for some reason, I like it."
He stood up to let her read; he didn't want to interrupt her. Sofía, in silence, began to scan the first pages. Her corrections were there, yes.
Her marks, her marginal notes.
But now she understood it differently.
It was as if with each correction she had told him: it's okay, keep going, I'm with you.
And Tomás had understood. He had transformed it into that last sentence on the back cover, one she didn't remember correcting:
"Sometimes it's not about arriving, but about accompanying until the end."
Sofía closed her eyes for a moment, feeling everything inside her compress.
He was there.
He had been there from the beginning.
He had been there even when she didn't want him to be.
She looked up towards the kitchen, where he was finishing preparing a soup with the care of someone mending something fragile.
And she knew she wasn't alone anymore.
Even if she couldn't give him anything. Even if she didn't know if she would ever write beyond a few loose pages. Even if life still weighed on her shoulders…
He had brought words.
He had brought food.
He had brought refuge.
And without meaning to, without saying it, without asking for it…
he had brought home.
They ate the soup sitting on the floor, by the living room coffee table, as they had done so many times. Sofía with a blanket over her legs and her back against the sofa, Tomás with his elbows on his knees, carefully blowing on the steam.
"It's good," she said, after taking the first sip. "Better than last week's."
"Was last week's bad?"
"No. But this one makes me think less," she murmured, looking at the steaming bowl, as if it held a secret beneath the broth.
Tomás barely smiled.
The silence between them was comfortable, like an old song that needs no lyrics to move you. They ate slowly, in sync, as if both knew that this meal had something of a ritual, something of a farewell.
Because the doubt, though unspoken, floated over the room like an invisible echo.
What now?
The manuscript was finished. Corrected. Ready to be sent.
The excuse to see each other… had run out.
Sofía knew it. And the thought tightened her chest.
It wasn't that Tomás needed her less, or that she had stopped feeling comforted by him. It was something deeper: the certainty that he had been a light in her darkness without asking for anything in return, without measuring time or silences, without conditions.
And now, without that pretext, how could she keep seeing him? How could she ask a boy to keep coming to her rescue?
She was a woman. He, a student. Although the distance between them seemed to have been shortening, sometimes abruptly, it still remained there, like a thin invisible line that both knew they couldn't fully cross. Not yet.
And then, as if he had read her thoughts, he was the one who spoke first.
"Sofía…"
She looked up, barely surprised by the softness of his voice.
"Yes?"
Tomás set his spoon in the empty bowl and held her gaze.
"Can I keep coming?"
Sofía froze. Inside, her heart constricted as if she had just been caught in a lie.
"Why do you ask me that?" she wanted to know, her voice low, almost fearful.
"Because I thought maybe I wouldn't have a reason anymore," he said, scratching the back of his neck, uncomfortable. "But I realized that… I don't need one. If you want me to come, I'll come."
She bit her lower lip, unable to tear her eyes away from him.
Tomás was many things. But above all, he was honest. He had never played with her feelings, nor pretended to be more than he was. And yet, there he was, telling her plainly that he would keep coming if she asked him to.
Because he wanted her near. Because he didn't want to lose her.
And that… that broke her a little inside.
"Of course you can keep coming," she finally said, her voice a little hoarse. "I just… I don't know how much more I can give you."
"I don't need you to give me anything," he replied without hesitation. "Just… let me be here."
They said nothing more.
They stayed there, sitting together until the clock advanced mercilessly and words no longer had a place.
Sofía was tired. Not just from the wine or the day, but from the invisible weight that always accompanied her. She didn't resist when he helped her up, nor when he guided her to her room as so many times, with that gentleness that seemed tailor-made for her.
They entered in silence.
The room was as messy as ever, but this time she didn't try to hide it. She sat on the edge of the bed, and before he could say goodbye, she said, almost in a murmur:
"Don't go."
Tomás had already approached the door, his coat in one hand. He stopped.
He turned on his heels, looked at her.
She looked at him too, from the bed, with the blanket clutched in her fingers and her eyes wide, wet, pleading.
He approached, unhurriedly, and leaned towards her.
As he had done so many times before, he kissed her forehead tenderly. That caress that never asked for anything, that claimed no place, nor demanded a name.
It just was. It just said: "I am here."
And then he replied:
"I won't leave. I'll stay until you leave."
She didn't fully understand his words. She was drowsy, lulled by the wine and the warmth of his presence. She just nodded with a slight sigh, closing her eyes.
"Yes, Dad… thank you," she murmured with a tired smile.
And she fell asleep.
Tomás sat on the floor beside her, his back against the bed.
He didn't turn on the lamp. He didn't need light.
The gloom was enough.
And there he stayed, until she fell into a deep calm at last.