“Carlos?”
I don’t know how long we stayed staring at each other, but it was strange. As if those three years had suddenly vanished. We ended up sitting at the same table. At first, we spoke cautiously, like two people who know each other too well and, at the same time, barely recognize each other. She asked me about my work. I did the same. We laughed at an old trip to Puebla, a silly argument for a dog we never adopted, things that, in the past, would have been more hurtful.
The worst thing was to realize that I could still speak to her naturally. Like before.
Around midnight, he told me that he knew the hotel where I was staying. Then he suggested that we walk a while along the beach. And I, who had spent years convincing me that I had forgotten her, accepted it as an idiot.
The beach was almost deserted. The sea roared hard, but not as much as everything that was roating inside me. We walked barefoot through the sand, talking about this and that, of memories, of how we had ruined everything. At one point, Elena stood silent and simply looked at me.
That was enough.
That night, he went back to the hotel with me. I didn’t give much importance. I wanted to believe that it was a strange farewell, a shared weakness, something that would be buried in Cancun. We don’t even talk about the “next day.” It just happened, that’s all.
But at dawn, everything changed.
I woke up late, the sun was seeping through the curtains. Elena was already by the window, holding one of my shirts. For a second, I felt something dangerous: peace. That kind of peace that makes you forget why a relationship ended.
I slept with my ex-wife again during a business trip, and in the early morning, a red spot on the sheet took my breath away. A month later, a call from a hospital in Cancun made me realize that that night had not been a mistake… but the beginning of something much darker.
