The day of the divorce. He married his mistress, and his pregnant wife left smiling, carrying a secret. Barcelona, 9:30 a.m. Court of First Instance.
Cristina Montalvo tightened her seatbelt across her eight-month pregnant belly as she gazed at the imposing courthouse through the fogged windshield. October raindrops slid down the glass like tears she refused to shed.
Today wasn’t a day for tears. Today was the day she would reclaim her dignity, even if no one else knew it yet. “Are you sure you want to do this alone, sweetheart?” her mother, Sonia, asked from the driver’s seat.
Her hands gripping the steering wheel betrayed the tension she was trying to hide. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life, Mom.” Cristina’s voice sounded strangely calm for a woman who was about to divorce her son’s father, but there was something in her eyes.
Olive green, a spark of determination that Sonia hadn’t seen in months. Since discovering Damian’s betrayal, her daughter had changed. She was no longer the naive physiotherapist who believed in fairy tales.
It was another woman, a woman with a plan. Cristina’s phone vibrated. A message from her lawyer. I’m already inside. Everything’s ready as we discussed. Trust me. Cristina smiled slightly.
Trust. What a strange word after everything she’d been through. “Give me five more minutes,” she murmured, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. Memories of the last few months flooded her mind: the day she found the apartment receipts on Diagonal Avenue, the lies about late meetings with clients, the whispered calls that Damian would cut short when she entered the room.
And finally, that April afternoon, when she saw Ruth Díaz leaving the doorway of that same apartment, adjusting her blouse and smiling with satisfaction, Ruth, the classmate from the Faculty of Architecture, who had always envied everything Cristina had, her job at the Health Center of
Gracia, her stable marriage, her house in the Eample, now belonged to her husband, but she had no idea what she had truly lost in the process. A tap on the window pulled her from her thoughts.
It was Damian in his impeccable charcoal gray suit, sporting that arrogant smile he’d been using lately like armor. Beside him, Ru wore a burgundy dress that probably cost more than Cristina’s monthly salary and heels that clacked against the wet asphalt like hammer blows.
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