The court is lit when I arrive.
Floodlights slice through the night, harsh and unforgiving. Diego is already shooting, movements sharp and restless, every throw carrying more force than necessary. Juan leans against the fence with his phone in hand, pretending not to watch me too closely. Daniel sits on the bench, elbows on his knees, studying all of us like he is trying to understand a conversation we refuse to have out loud.
"You're late," Diego says without looking at me.
"I didn't give a time."
The game starts hard and only gets worse. We play aggressively, bodies colliding, shoes scraping against concrete. No talking. Just impact, breath, sweat. My lungs burn. My muscles scream.
This pain makes sense. It is clean. It follows rules.
Juan passes me the ball and frowns. "You're off."
"I'm fine."
"You're not."
Daniel does not look away. He never does. "Did something happen with Alma?"
The ball slips from my hands. It hits the ground and rolls away like it wants nothing to do with me.
I turn on him. "Stay out of it."
"She's my friend too," he says evenly. "And you're spiraling."
Before anything fractures beyond repair, Diego steps between us. His voice cuts through the night. "Enough."
I leave the court without another word. No one follows. No one stops me.
I go home.
The Valdés mansion is quiet when I return. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that signals preparation.
I pass my father's office and notice the light is on.
Eduardo sits behind his desk, hands folded neatly in front of him, posture perfect. He looks like a man who has already decided how this ends.
"You were seen again today," he says.
I do not ask where.
"At a café near campus."
My jaw tightens.
"She was laughing," he continues. "That is what people remember. Not context. Not explanations. Only the image."
"She is not doing anything wrong."
"That is irrelevant."
His gaze sharpens, assessing, dissecting. "You are losing focus."
"I have it under control."
"You do not," he replies calmly. "And you will not be given a second warning."
He stands and walks past me. When he speaks again, his voice is lower, edged with something old and bitter.
"Cruz blood brings history. And history brings consequences."
The words lodge deep. They always do.
The door closes behind him, but the room does not release me.
I stand there longer than I should, his voice unraveling something I have spent years refusing to examine. The name Cruz echoes in my head like a bruise pressed too often.
Marisol Cruz.
I know her only through fragments. A name spoken too carefully. A photograph once hidden, then burned. My father's first love. His teenage obsession. The woman he wanted and could not control.
Isabel, my mother, had been Marisol's best friend. Loyal. Quiet. In love with a man who never stopped looking elsewhere. She married him anyway.
Hector Cruz had been part of it too. A dealer back then. Dangerous. Demanding. Someone my father once called a friend, until the cost became too high. They cut him off. Or so the story went.
Then Marisol disappeared.
My father found her. Tried to win her back. Only to learn she had married Hector. They left Spain for Colombia and never looked back.
Isabel stayed. Loved Eduardo anyway. Married him. Built a family in the shadow of a love that never truly ended.
And now Alma.
Her name. Her laugh. The way my father watches her existence like a threat instead of a coincidence. He is obsessed with the truth, even when it costs him.
I leave his office and go outside instead of to my room.
I stop in front of my car. Matte black. Low. Quiet. The kind that disappears when it needs to and moves fast when it doesn't. Nothing flashy. Nothing that asks to be remembered.
I do not go back to my apartment.
I drive.
Through streets carved into memory. Past corners I should miss but do not. The city dissolves into motion until I pull over without knowing why.
Across the street, a small apartment glows warm and uneven.
I recognize it immediately.
Alma's.
I sit there longer than I should, watching shadows move behind the curtains. Hearing laughter drift faintly through the night. Camilla's voice. A life unfolding that has nothing to do with me, and yet pulls at everything inside my chest.
This is what my father meant.
Visibility.
Wanting something I cannot protect.
I start the engine and drive away.
Alma stands by the window after I am gone.
She does not know why her chest feels tight. Only that she refuses to let it define her. She opens her book and forces herself to read. Turns the music up until it fills the room.
She chooses herself.
And somewhere between distance and denial, something fragile begins to crack.
Being student chairperson is a performance I never auditioned for.
It means walking through university halls like I belong to everyone. It means professors nodding with approval, administrators smiling like I am proof their system works, and students parting just enough to let me pass.
It also means being watched.
I feel it the moment I step inside the main building. Eyes follow me openly, without shame. Freshmen whisper like I am a rumor they just discovered. Seniors glance up, assess, decide. Some smile. Some do not bother hiding their interest. A few girls straighten their posture when I pass, slow their steps, let their laughter trail longer than necessary.
I have learned how to ignore it.
What I have not learned is how to stop looking for one person who is not looking for me.
Alma moves through this place differently. She does not expect attention, and when it finds her, she steps around it instead of into it. She believes I see everyone else. That I am distracted by noise and beauty and ease.
She is wrong.
It is always her.
The girl who keeps me awake at night without trying. The girl who thinks she is invisible to me while I am memorizing the way she exists. The girl who believes I am careless with my attention when she is the only thing that has ever made me careful.
I pass the student council room and consider skipping the meeting.
I do not.
Responsibility is a habit now. One my father drilled into me long before I knew what it would cost.
Inside, the council is already seated. Complaints about budgets. Complaints about events. Complaints about nothing. I listen. I respond. I mediate. I sign off on decisions that feel too small for the weight they demand.
Halfway through, someone asks, "Gael, thoughts?"
I blink. "Approve it."
They do. Just like that.
This is what power looks like at this level. Not earned. Not debated. Accepted.
It leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
When the meeting ends, Daniel lingers.
"You're distracted," he says.
"I am busy."
"That's not the same thing."
I grab my bag. "If this is about Alma…"
"She's my friend," he says. "And you're making this harder than it needs to be."
I stop. Turn to face him. "You think this is about difficulty?"
Daniel exhales slowly. "I think you're fighting something you don't want to admit is already bigger than you." I leave before I say something I cannot take back.
By the time evening comes, the weight of the day has settled into my bones.
I drive without music. The city slides past in muted colors. My mind keeps circling back to my father's voice. Calm. Certain. Dangerous in its restraint.
"Cruz blood brings history. History brings consequences."
He had not raised his voice. He never does. Eduardo Valdés does not need volume to be heard. His words settle slowly, like sediment, until they are impossible to ignore.
I park near the mansion but do not go inside right away.
Instead, I sit in the car and open my phone.
I search.
Hector Cruz does not appear easily. The man learned young how to disappear from clean records. But fragments remain. Old mentions. Financial disputes buried under shell companies. A few names that repeat often enough to matter.
Marisol Cruz appears more often.
She is older in the photos than I expected. Softer than the stories suggest. There is something familiar in her eyes that unsettles me.
I scroll until my screen dims.
This is not coincidence. I know that now.
I finally go inside.
My father is in the study again. Of course he is.
"You are late," he says without looking up.
"I was busy."
He sets his pen down. "With her."
I do not deny it.
"You think this is about jealousy," he continues. "Or pride. It is not. This is about patterns. About men who think they can take what is not theirs."
"She is not an object."
"No," he agrees. "She is leverage."
The word lands heavy.
"You will end this," he says. "Before it becomes visible."
I laugh once, sharp and humorless. "It already is."
His gaze lifts to mine. For the first time, something like hesitation passes through it.
"Then you will be smarter than I was," he says quietly.
The conversation ends there. He does not need to say more.
I leave the study with a deeper understanding and no solution.
Night stretches longer than it should.
I tell myself to go home. To sleep. Instead, the city guides me on instinct alone, streets unfolding beneath my tires until I realize where I am without needing to look.
I stop across from her building.
This time, the window is open.
She is there. Standing just inside, framed by warm light, book pressed loosely to her chest like she forgot why she picked it up in the first place. She is not laughing. Not moving much at all. Just staring out into the street as if she feels something pulling at her without knowing its name.
Then she looks directly at me.
The moment hangs.
Her expression barely changes. No shock. No smile. Just recognition. Acceptance. And something carefully unreadable.
She reaches for the window.
Closes it.
Pulls the curtains shut a second later, too controlled, too deliberate, like she is pretending the choice is casual.
But the light stays on.
And the curtain is not fully drawn.
I can still see her shadow. The faint outline of her figure lingering too close to the glass. Waiting. Listening. Wondering if I have left.
A smile tugs at my mouth before I can stop it.
I stay.
Minutes pass. Then more. Her shadow shifts once, twice. Finally, it disappears. The light clicks off, leaving the window dark and honest.
Only then do I start the engine.
At the first red light, I unlock my phone.
Good night, princessa.
I do not wait for a reply.
I do not need one.
I drive on, carrying the quiet knowledge that neither of us is as indifferent as we pretend to be.