CHAPTER 05

ONE MONTH LATER

A pair of eyes that opened, the white lights of a room that she recognized after having woken up in it for so long. Time had passed and time was surely going to continue passing there, enclosed in those four walls.

And as she did every morning, Paula put her hands to her face. The bandages were still there and were surely going to continue for a long time to come. She closed her eyes once more. She didn't know how much longer she was going to resist not only feeling how the bandages stung but also how the pain increased along with the itching.

The door to her room was knocked. It must have been the same time to take her medication.

 "How are you doing?" Asked that man with a thick voice.

Paula just denied. Maximilian approached until he could put the tray with her breakfast and her medications near the bed.

"The time for the medication has arrived, have you felt any additional pain?”

Paula got out of bed little by little. "I just want you to take off these damn bandages and see what has happened to my face.”

Maximilian lowered his head. He couldn't do any of that. Not until he was sure of what he truly was already sure of.

"Why don't you tell me anything?” Paula asked since whenever she made a comment like that he stayed silent.

"No, not at all, I'm just listening to you.”

Paula took the glass of water from Maximilian's hand along with the pill. All she wanted was for the itch to go away.

"Do you want me to help you eat?” Maximilian asked, being the good doctor he always was with all his patients.

She shook her head and took the food from the plates, caring little if it was rude of her to take it with her hands.

Once again, like all those times, Maximilian looked at Paula without her realizing it. The wounds on her hands were already healing but it was logical that there would be many scars. He couldn't even imagine what those on her face could be like if at the moment she arrived all he knew was that she was disfigured, he had done everything so that she could look like the woman she should have been but the truth is that not even everything neither knowledge nor preparation made that possible.

The more he looked at her, the more he realized that there was something in her that had made her live beyond the survival instinct. Surely a dark past like the one we all have.

"Maximilian, where are you?!” Someone shouted from outside the room.

"I think they're talking to you," said Paula, eating.

Maximilian left the room and went to where Manuel had called him.    

Paula looked up seeing Maximilian's back. She had spent a month in that house, more than a month, and all she could think about was the help he had given her in all that time. He must have been one of the few good people in the world, although the truth was that good people didn't exist, they always wanted something in return.

Then Paula got out of bed. If it wasn't that day, it would never be since day and night she had Maximilian close to her so that she wouldn't do something crazy.

Feeling the cold floor under her feet, she approached the door from where she could hear Maximilian talking to Manuel, the older man who lived with him and until that moment he still did not know the relationship they had. Maybe, father and son.

"Three clients come today, one of them so you can remove the change bandage on her face and the other two just so you can take off a few extra years.”

"Have you already told them about the price?”

"You completely agree!” Manuel answered.

Everything seemed to be that Maximilian was going to have a busy day. Now that she had heard him better, she realized that Maximilian was a great doctor, a doctor full of mysteries who worked in his own home, as if he did not want anyone to discover him.

Once again, Paula returned to bed upon learning that Maximilian was returning. She already had her plan, it would be a busy afternoon for her and she only needed ten minutes so she could find out the truth.

"Paula?”

She looked up.

"I will be in my office for the next four or five hours, if you need anything just ask Manuel, if the pain bothers you, just tell him and he will tell me.”

Paula nodded. "I'll rest for a while.”

"I'll see you later.”

That's how that month had gone. Paula's wounds tried to heal while every night she remembered how her family had made fun of her countless times. That was what kept her alive, that was what had made her get here despite the blood loss. And the more she tried to bring back the innocent girl that everyone used in their favor, the more she realized that or could, that it was hatred and the thirst for revenge that made her live.

She waited for more than half an hour in her bed, no steps from Manuel, probably Maximilian working in his office. It was her time to act.

Carefully, once again feeling the cold floor under her feet, she approached the furniture that was in front of her bed and in which Maximilian was guiding a pile of papers that she did not have but sooner or later she was going to do so, and looking through all those things, she managed to find what she wanted. A brush with a mirror behind it. Maximilian, after all, had not managed to hide all the mirrors.

Sitting on the cold floor, she began to pull out her bandages, faster and faster, she felt that at any moment the door would open and it would be Maximilian who would not let her see how her face had turned out.

The brown hair began to be reborn, the bandages were disappearing, the mirror was ready to give her the reflection she wanted to see.

She had finally made it, two or three more turns and she would see her face. The bandages fell completely, then Paula's scarred hands lifted the brush and then, very carefully, turned it over, opened her eyes and... in the reflection found what she would never have thought she would find in herself.

"My face, what happened to my face?! Help, my face!" She screamed with all her might.

****** 

In his usual office, with a beautiful smile on Maximilian's masculine face, he gladly received the words of that woman of no more than thirty years old who was in front of him.

"You've done a good job! No one is going to recognize me, not the police, not anyone,” said the woman, the wife of a gangster. "The truth is that I can't believe that being so talented you are in this place, having to do the most successful operations at home.”

Maximilian smiled. He didn't care at all about being recognized, he just wanted to be paid well.

"Well, I'll give you a prescription for the medications you should take and the massages you should do.”

And just at that moment when Maximiliano was writing on that sheet, the screams of a woman were heard.

"My face, what happened to my face?! Help!”

Maximilian's expression changed instantly. Paula had surely made the mistake of her life.

Running up the stairs, flinging open the room of the woman he had kept there for more than a month, he realized that what he feared most had just happened. Paula had just seen her face in the mirror.

"Help, my face, my face!” She continued screaming with so much pain.

Maximilian knelt before her, forcing her to look at him.

“Don't see me, don't see me!”

"Hey, Paula, listen, please listen.”

"My face, I want my face back!”

"Hey, listen, Paula, listen, please!”

"What did they do to me? Those bastards did this to me!”

"What are you talking about, Paula?”

"I want them to pay, I want them to pay for their mistake!”

Maximilian couldn't do anything other than pull her to his chest. Paula was uncontrollable and he had finally gotten a clue about what had happened in her life. Someone had hurt her, and it was hate that kept her heart alive.

"They have to pay, they have to pay!” She continued saying while hitting Maximilian's chest.

He better than anyone knew what she meant with those words because they had also taken something very important away from him. He could understand Paula, he really did.

Maximilian closed his eyes as he caressed Paula's hair. He didn't know why but at that moment he felt that it must be him and no one else who stayed near her. They had met for a reason and that reason was what would give their stories being one.