Lahat ng Kabanata ng My dad's bestfriend: Kabanata 41 - Kabanata 50

The drive back from the party was spent in an almost comfortable silence, rocked by the hum of the Jeep's engine and the whistle of wind rushing through the cracked windows. Sofia, in the front seat, let her gaze wander over the coastal road lit by the sporadic headlights of passing cars, the shadows of palm trees cutting through the black sky like ghostly silhouettes. The evening had been a whirlwind of laughter and music, a bubble of temporary forgetting where she'd danced until her feet ached, laughed at Carlos's stupid jokes, and dodged Mike's insistent shots. Ellie drove with his usual caution, his hands at ten and two on the wheel, but she could feel his tension that conversation in the car on the way there, where he'd brushed against his feelings without daring to fully confess, still hung between them like an invisible fog. She didn't want to think about it now; her mind was already occupied by Pedro, that persistent shadow that refused to fade, even in the superficial joy of

A soft knock at the door made him start, as if someone had just rapped directly on his raw nerves. Pedro looked up, his heart pounding a little too hard."Dad?"Ellie's voice, hesitant, almost fragile, from the other side of the door.Pedro cleared his throat, desperately trying to find a normal tone that of the solid, reassuring father he'd always tried to be, even when he felt himself crumbling inside."Come in, son."The handle turned slowly. Ellie pushed the door open, still in faded gray pajamas, his hair tousled like a child who'd just woken from a nightmare. He stepped in quietly, closed the door carefully behind him, and leaned against the wall, arms crossed over his chest a defensive posture, almost fearful, as if he expected to be sent away.Pedro felt his heart tighten. Ellie had always had that look when he sensed something was wrong with his father—since Maria, since the nights Pedro came home late, eyes red from exhaustion and alcohol, since the silences that had lasted

Javier and Diego came back from the kiosk at the top of the dune, their arms loaded with cones already melting under the afternoon sun. Two enormous vanilla-chocolate ones for the boys, dripping with chocolate sauce that ran down their fingers, and a lemon sorbet for Sofia pale yellow, tangy, with bits of zest glistening like shards of glass. Javier handed hers to his daughter with a tired but tender smile."Here, *mija*. Careful, it's dripping everywhere."Sofia took it, her fingers brushing her father's for a second. She thanked him with a distracted smile, but her attention was already elsewhere on Pedro, sitting a little apart on his folding chair, elbows on his knees, staring at the horizon as if he could find an answer there to everything eating at him. He'd refused his ice cream with a simple wave of his hand, claiming he wasn't hungry, that the heat was killing his appetite. But Sofia knew. She saw the tension in his jaw, the way his eyes carefully avoided meeting hers. He was

The house still breathed sleep a thick, soft sleep that seemed to have settled like dust on the light wooden furniture and cool tiles. Sofia came down the stairs on tiptoe, every fiber of her being stretched toward the silence. The old oak steps, faithful and worn, creaked despite her light weight, a familiar groan marking her descent. The dawn, through the large picture windows of the living room, was a milky blue, streaked with pale gold on the horizon. It was barely seven o'clock.Already, the air carried the smell of coffee that Javier had prepared before leaving a morning ritual he never abandoned, even on vacation, even in this rental house facing the ocean. It was a rich, bitter, comforting scent, speaking of normalcy, of masculine routine. It spread from the kitchen, persistent. Sofia passed by the entrance, her gaze sweeping the empty space where the surfboards had been lined up the night before. The cement tile floor still bore the damp traces of their passage, wide bare foo

The morning after the bed invasion, Sofia woke not from sleep, but from a fainting of the soul. A strange, diffuse sensation first inhabited her, as if she were floating a few inches above her own damp body, before falling back sharply, heavily, into the flesh that was hers. She hadn't been crushed; it was worse. She felt emptied, hollowed out. A deep, cold, pulsating void had settled in her solar plexus, beating like a parasitic heart, sick with shame. It wasn't pain, but an absence, a negation of herself.She lay there for an infinite time, eyes wide open, staring at the white ceiling where the nascent daylight, filtering through the shutters, drew trembling bars of shadow and light. She listened. The house was plunged into a cathedral silence after mass. A silence she perceived as a verdict. Then, gradually, the familiar sounds reached her muffled, distant: the dull thud of a closet door downstairs, the creak of the coat rack in the hallway, low, stifled laughter Javier and Diego's