Chapter 9:The Letter

"Here you are."

The words came from behind me, followed by slow, mocking claps.

I stopped with my hand on the gate, my body stiffening before my mind caught up. I knew that voice. I had listened to it for eight years.

When I turned, Rui was standing a few steps away, his hands still moving together, a thin smile on his face.

"Please, Rui," I said. "Not today. Not here."

I turned to leave, but he caught my arm and lifted it above my head, as if I were a thief he had caught in the act. Then he shoved me away. I stumbled back, my wrist throbbing where his fingers had dug in.

"You have the nerve to tie my father to a bed?" he said. "How dare you, after the extra fifty thousand dollars I gave you?"

The words hurt more than the shove.

Fifty thousand dollars.

That was the price he had put on eight years of my life; the dreams I put aside, the nights I waited up for him, the insults I swallowed to keep our home together.

I searched his eyes for any trace of guilt or worry and found none. He looked at me the way a person looks at a stain on a clean shirt.

My heart broke quietly, right there on the pavement.

"Rui," I said, my voice unsteady, "didn't he tell you what he wanted to do? He tried to sleep with me."

I had been so sure those words would reach him.

Whatever he felt about me, Gerald was his father. No son could hear something like that and stay unmoved. I held my breath and waited for shock, for anger, for anything.

"Then?" he said.

That was all. One word, flat and bored.

I stared at him, my mind refusing to accept it. Then? I studied his face, the set of his shoulders, the slight tilt of his head, trying to confirm that this was really Rui.

The man I had defended to my friends. The man I had borrowed three hundred thousand dollars for without a second thought, because he had said he needed me.

Something hot rose in my chest, and this time I did not whisper.

"Can't you see?" My voice rang across the quiet street. "He wanted me in his bed in exchange for my own money!"

Rui pointed a finger at my face. His voice stayed calm and cold, which was worse than shouting.

"That is none of my concern."

For a moment, the world went silent.

Then the feeling rushed back all at once, a heat that burned from my stomach to my throat to my eyes. My hands shook at my sides.

I thought of every night I had cried quietly in the bathroom so he would not hear, every apology I had made for things that were never my fault, every time I had told myself, He's tired. He's stressed. He'll change.

He had never intended to change.

I straightened my back. My knees were trembling, but I refused to let him see it. I stood before him like a rock, even though I felt as if I were breaking apart inside.

"We're done, Emilia," he said. "We are done."

He said it like a man ending a business meeting, as if I should be grateful for his honesty. And for one terrible second, the old, foolish part of me wanted to beg.

To ask what I had done wrong. To ask why he couldn't love me even a little.

I pressed my lips together until the urge passed.

If I begged, I would only feed his ego and give him the strength he wanted. He had already taken enough from me.

"I want to make something clear too," I said, and my voice was steadier than I expected. "Money can't buy back time. Fifty thousand dollars will never pay for eight years of my life. And I'm done with you."

A flicker of surprise crossed his face, so small I almost missed it. He had expected tears. He had expected me to crumble, the way I always had. Instead, I held his gaze until he was the one who looked away.

I walked away, and with every step I felt lighter and emptier at once. At least my mother had not heard any of it. She could never have borne the things Rui had just said to me.

When I reached the door and turned to close it, he was still standing there, calmly dusting off his suit, as if I were nothing more than dirt he had brushed from his sleeve. I shut the door on him. The click of the lock sounded like the end of something.

I wiped my face and walked through the house, wanting only a glass of water and a few minutes of silence. That was when I saw her through the glass doors.

My mother was sitting on the terrace.

She was holding a piece of paper.

I stopped walking. Even from where I stood, I recognized the creased edges, the faded ink, the handwriting that slanted more with every line because my hand had been shaking when I wrote it.

It was a letter.

She lifted her eyes to me. I could not name the expression on her face. It wasn't anger, and it wasn't shock. Her eyes were dull, as though something inside them had gone out, and she looked at me as if she were seeing a stranger wearing her daughter's face.

"Mom," I whispered. "That isn't..."

I rushed forward and reached for the paper, but she pulled it against her chest and stepped back, away from me, one slow step at a time.