The next morning begins with a terse email in my inbox:
Subject: Internal investigation closed – Patient 419
From: Medical Management
To: Dr. Alma Balmaceda
"We hereby inform you that, after reviewing the records and in accordance with the Clinical Audit report, the case of patient 419 is declared resolved in administrative and clinical terms. Consequently, we instruct that the file be permanently archived and that any additional related proceedings be canceled. We appreciate your cooperation."
The words "case resolved" echo like the slamming of a vault door. Below the message, the Systems thread unfolds: the night before, they requested the release of the print logs I had requested for the early morning of March 28. That simple request reached the Management and set off red flags. Instead of authorizing the download, they decided to close the investigation. The file dies, but not the question that gave rise to it.
I sit stiffly in front of the screen; the fluorescent lights illuminate a space that suddenly no longer belongs to me. I remember Tomás's warning: "In this hospital, there are two types of people: those who watch without doing anything, and those who do something even if no one is watching." Tomás... My pulse hangs suspended somewhere between my sternum and my windpipe. Without the alibi of the investigation, what do I have left to justify every encounter with Tomás, every stolen glance in the hallways?
A light knock on the door startles me. It's Paula, my quality control colleague, with a coffee in each hand.
"Did you hear?" she asks as soon as she crosses the threshold. Her tone tries to be light, but curiosity trembles on her chin.
I nod without words. She leaves a cup on my desk and leaves with a brief squeeze on my shoulder, as if sensing that anything she might say would be a hindrance.
With the door closed, I force myself to read the email again, more slowly. Each line sounds like the sealing of a coffin. And yet, beneath the frustration, something deeper, almost shameful, stirs: the certainty that now desire has no dam or academic pretext with which to disguise itself.
Tomás. His name beats against my ribs, urgent.
At noon, the hospital cafeteria is an aquarium of voices and clattering trays. I take advantage of the fact that my research block is now empty and look for a table by the windows. Claudia Rivas, the internist on duty and my occasional confidante, sees me from the line and raises an inquisitive eyebrow. We rarely work the same shift, but today the synchronicity seems inevitable.
"I finally caught you!" she exclaims, placing her tray in front of mine. "Why the long face? Another sleepless night?"
I drop my fork and summarize the email from management, the IT thread, and the abrupt cancellation. Claudia purses her lips and looks away, making sure no one is listening.
"So they shut the door on you just when you were about to get your hands on the black box," she says quietly. "How convenient."
"Convenient for them," I mutter. "I still need to know what happened."
Claudia takes a sip of her juice and changes the subject with the delicacy of a scalpel:
"What about Tomás? I'd bet you'll see him anyway, investigation or not. What are you going to do about how you feel?"
"I don't feel anything, Clau," I reply too quickly. She raises her eyebrows.
"Look, Alma, between 'nothing' and 'too much' there's a whole spectrum. You can sleep with someone without asking them to write you poetry on the night shift. Relationships don't always involve the soul, sometimes they're just skin deep."
"I'm not cut out to separate those things."
"Maybe you should practice," she replies with a half-smile. "The control you think you have dissolves as soon as your body decides otherwise. Do yourself a favor and don't turn desire into a clinical file."
My pager beeps, announcing a meeting. I get up, but her words linger like a faint bell: desire without the shield of research. Maybe that's what scares me the most.
The rest of the day passes in a mechanical haze. I sign reports, supervise progress, but the phrases don't stick in my memory. Every time I think I see Tomás's figure at the end of a corridor—that measured gait, the broad back under the blue uniform—a current runs down my spine.
During the interdisciplinary meeting at 5 p.m., he sits two rows ahead of me. I see him taking notes quickly and methodically, without saying more than necessary. When the head nurse jokes with him, his lips curve slightly; that small gesture triggers a dry combustion in my throat.
I find myself breathing through my mouth, my hands clenched on the notebook. I mentally run through possible questions that would allow me to keep him after the meeting: "Can you show me where they file...?" "Do you have a minute to review...?" But they all sound hollow; without the umbrella of research, they would be transparent excuses.
He gets up first and leaves the room. I watch him walk away slowly. I don't follow him. I wonder when we'll cross paths again.
At home, the night falls heavily. Wilson chews on his rope toy on the sofa while I flit between the kitchen and my desk, unable to decide what to have for dinner. Finally, I go up to the attic where I keep my novels, looking for something to numb my mind.
I randomly choose a black-bound volume: "Chains of Honey." I opened it years ago and abandoned it due to lack of time. Today, the pages rustle like a knowing whisper as I settle into the futon, covered by the gray blanket.
An exhausted girl confronts a man who dominates every scene with a low voice and unstoppable orders. Halfway through the chapter, he grabs her wrist and leads her into a dimly lit room. The descriptions border on the forbidden, a fine line between fear and ecstasy.
Suddenly, the character's face fades away and Tomás's emerges: his restrained gaze, his gloved hands adjusting an IV, his warm breath that I imagine against my ear. The text continues; my fingers slip under the waistband of my cotton pants, guided by the cadence of the sentences: "Don't escape."
My breathing becomes agitated, I can hear every beat of my heart rumbling throughout my body. The couch creaks as my hips seek more pressure; I try to keep my eyes on the book, but the words blur and all that remains is the figure of Tomás, giving orders that don't exist.
I feel my skin burning under the touch of my hand. It's been so long since I've sought this that I had forgotten how liberating it was. My hand reaches for the button that opens the door to ecstasy. I caress myself gently at first, and then, as images of his body, the memory of his eyes fixed on me, and all the memories of these last few days flash through my mind, my body begs me to speed up and rub deeper and deeper.
The climax reaches me slowly but intensely. I clench my teeth, holding back a name that struggles to escape.
As I catch my breath, I slam the book shut. I feel exposed, even though I am alone. Wilson raises his head and tilts his ears.
I smooth and tidy my clothes and take the book back to the shelf. I hide it behind a clinical manual, then turn off the light in the attic and feel my way down the stairs, as if someone could see the blush burning on my skin.
In bed, for the first time, the silence does not calm me, but suffocates me, pressing down on me in the same way Claudia would with her questions. It feels like an interrogation. My mind replays the scene, butterflies settling in my stomach again as I wonder what will happen next time, if there is any chance that it won't be me who brings myself to climax.
I try to keep the pillow stiff, to try to maintain the lie about my self-control, which clearly, after what happened, is impossible to achieve. My long-dreamed-of and enjoyed control is dying, I feel the cracks widening, and the tranquility I had managed to achieve quickly fading away, and I don't know if I'm ready for this...