So she cleaned.
As she left, already at night, she saw Mateo leaning against a simple car. This time he was wearing a blue shirt and his hair was less disheveled.
—Lucía.
She was surprised.
—How does he know my name?
Mateo pointed to his badge.
—It's hard not to see it.
Lucia laughed for the first time all day.
—That's right. I forgot to take it off.
He took out a small bag.
—I wanted to buy a watch for someone special, but not in a store like that. Do you know of any good places where I won't get weirded out for asking about prices?
Lucía hesitated, but ended up leading him to a more modest watch shop near Reforma. As they walked, they talked about simple things: tacos, traffic, the city's absurd weather. Mateo seemed clumsy, but attentive. That made her lower her guard.
In the store, he chose a small steel watch.
"For a girlfriend?" she asked, half-jokingly.
"For a twelve-year-old boy," Mateo replied. "He lives in a children's home. It's his birthday."
Lucia stopped smiling.
—Do you help there?
-Sometimes.
She said nothing more. But her eyes changed. Lucía recognized that kind of silence. It was the silence of those who have lost too much.
That night, Mateo wrote to her.
“Did Fernanda bother you again?”
Lucia looked at the message from her small room, sitting next to a bowl of instant soup.
“I’m fine. Don’t worry. People talk because they can. I work because I have to.”
Mateo gripped his phone angrily. In his private office, he opened the branch's security camera footage. He saw Fernanda ignoring customers, mocking Lucía, giving her extra work, hiding a commission, and speaking ill of her to the manager.
He saved the videos.
"They think they own my company," he muttered. "They forgot who signs the contracts."
On Sunday, Lucía went to a children's home in Coyoacán with notebooks and crayons for the children. When she entered the courtyard, she froze.
Mateo was sitting on a bench, talking to a boy with messy hair. The watch they had bought together gleamed on the little boy's wrist.
—¿Mateo?
He stood up, genuinely surprised.
—Lucía… I didn’t know you were coming here.
She sat down next to him.
—I grew up coming to this place. When my mother got sick, the nuns helped us with food.
Mateo lowered his gaze.
—I grew up here.
Lucia stared at him without blinking.
"My parents died when I was ten," he said. "Then my grandfather took care of me, but he died too. This house was all I ever had."
Lucia felt something inside her soften.
“My dad didn’t die,” she whispered. “I wish he had. He gambled, drank, and banged on the walls so my mom would cry silently. When I started college, I had to drop out to work. My mom died in debt to the hospital. I learned then that no one comes to save you.”
Mateo wanted to take her hand, but he didn't dare.
Lucía quickly wiped away a tear, as if she were angry that she had let it out.
—But that's over now. We're still here, right?
