Soledad was enjoying the night in a way she hadn't felt in a long time. Ariel had convinced her to go out to the festival, to breathe, to distract herself after an exhausting week at the hair salon. And, against all odds, it was working. She felt light, carefree, as if the weight of the world had dissolved amidst the warm lights and vibrant music filling the air. The bustle of the crowd, the sweet aroma from the food stalls, the laughter of children running between attractions... everything had an almost unreal quality, as if that night were a parenthesis, an unexpected gift from life.
And then she saw him.
Tomás was there, standing by the roulette stall, with his rigid posture and impenetrable expression. The surprise of seeing him in such a place transformed into genuine joy, into an involuntary tenderness that prompted her to call out to him without thinking.
"Tomás? What are you doing here? I never thought I'd find you in a place like this."
At first, his bewilderment seemed funny to her, one of those small reactions that made him endearing. But something changed in his face when he looked at her. His smile wavered, his eyes briefly flickered towards Ariel before refocusing on her, and in that brief moment, an icy sensation ran down her spine. It was as if an invisible crack opened between them, as if something broke in a silence only they could hear.
She tried to ignore it.
"It's good to find us here," she said in her lightest tone, as if that could erase the tension thickening in the air.
But when she mentioned Ariel as her boyfriend, everything became irrevocably clear. The way Tomás looked down, the barely perceptible blink, the twisted smile he tried to force unsuccessfully... every small gesture was a pang in her chest. He clenched his jaw before greeting Ariel with impeccable courtesy, but Soledad saw what lay behind that forced composure. She saw it in the stiffness of his hands, in the slight unevenness of his breathing.
And then she understood.
He didn't know.
Until that moment, Tomás had never let his gaze betray him, had never given her a reason to suspect. And perhaps that's why she never wanted to see it. But now, as she watched him force himself to remain calm, as his dark eyes reflected something between disappointment and heartbreak, the truth hit her with a brutality that left her breathless.
There were feelings there. Feelings he had kept silent, perhaps convinced that sooner or later she would see them. And now, without having planned it, without even having imagined it, she had just shattered them before his eyes.
A bitter feeling of guilt rose in her throat. Because she hadn't been the only one confused; he too had felt something more.
"Do you want to join us for a walk around the stalls?" she offered, desperate to cling to something, to erase the pain reflected in him like a broken mirror.
But Tomás shook his head, with a gentleness that felt more like a goodbye than a simple refusal.
"No, it's fine. You two go on, enjoy the fair," he said, and his voice sounded so calm that it hurt even more.
Soledad felt a knot form in her chest as she watched him walk away. She would have liked to stop him, to say something, anything. But Ariel took her hand and pulled her towards another stall, oblivious to the storm raging inside her.
She looked back one last time, searching for his figure in the crowd. She saw him walk with his shoulders slightly hunched, with steps that seemed to lead nowhere. And she understood that he didn't need to turn around. She knew he was suffering.
And then, with the same certainty with which one knows the sun will set at the end of the day, she understood something else.
She had wanted to help him. She had wanted to teach him to live, to laugh, to love. But in her attempt to heal him, she had hurt him in the only way she truly could: without realizing it.
The festival lights continued to shine, colors danced around her, music still enveloped the atmosphere. But for Soledad, everything suddenly felt dull. As if, without warning, something in her had extinguished along with him, because she knew him well enough, she knew he would never come back.