And for the first time, I didn’t feel like fixing it.
—I don’t know. But not today. And not because you’re feeling sorry for yourself right when you lost control of the story.
I closed it.
The following months were filled with war and waiting.
The twin pregnancy forced me to slow down. Severe nausea, fatigue, constant appointments, vitamins, ultrasounds. My body became both a battlefield and a temple.
Diego tried to accompany me to the appointments.
At first I didn’t stop.
Then, on the advice of the psychologist and the lawyer, I allowed her to attend some sessions, always with clear conditions. No scenes. No touching me. No speaking for me.
The first time she heard both complete heartbeats, she cried.
She cried a lot.
I looked at the screen, not at him.
I didn’t want her tears to confuse me.
Later, in the parking lot, he said:
—I missed the first heartbeat because I’m an idiot.
—You missed out because you were cruel.
He nodded.
-Yeah.
That was the first time he didn’t defend himself.
It wasn’t enough.
But I wrote it down somewhere in my heart, without promising her anything.
Paola didn’t disappear so easily.
He sent me a message from an unknown number:
“I just want you to know that Diego told me you guys were already in bad shape before I came along.”
I replied:
“And you believed him because it suited you.”
He wrote to me more.
I didn’t answer.
A month later I learned that she was trying to sue him for money he had lent her for an apartment. Diego had lied to her too. He promised her that as soon as I “confessed” to the infidelity, he would keep the house and they would start over.
How beautiful.
I was the villain in his story and the mortgage guarantee in hers.
Irene laughed when she found out.
—Men who lie a lot often recycle scripts.
The neighborhood, on the other hand, took longer to fall silent.
The neighbor who used to greet me with pity started to see me differently when my mother-in-law, desperate to regain access, told everyone that the babies were indeed Diego’s. Then I went from being seen as unfaithful to “poor thing.”
I didn’t like it either.
I didn’t want pity.
I wanted respect.
One day, in the store, a lady said:
