Patricia’s voice is syrupy on the line, the way it gets when she’s about to take something.
She wants to come back “for Sofía,” she says, now that the media is whispering you’re improving.
You grip the phone hard, jaw tight, because you remember how she left—clean, cold, with jewelry and excuses.
Marina doesn’t say anything, but you feel her presence like a question in the air.
You hang up and admit the truth you’ve avoided: “She left when I needed her most.”
Marina’s eyes soften with something like anger on your behalf.
“Not everyone runs,” she says, and the words land like medicine.
Sofía bursts in with a new drawing, and the moment breaks, but it doesn’t disappear.