“I’d rather tell you in person. Can you meet now? I know it’s late.”
I looked at the time: 00:37. Marta, my sister, was sleeping in the room next door. Madrid was still noisy outside the window, as if the city fed on nights exactly like this one. I hesitated for a few seconds. Then I wrote:
“Café Comercial, in Bilbao, in twenty minutes.”
Half an hour later, I walked into the nearly empty café, which smelled of burnt coffee and fresh cleaning products. Diego was sitting at a table in the back, without the relaxed smile he always wore at gatherings with friends. He looked older, with dark circles under his eyes and his hands clasped around a glass of water.
“Thanks for coming,” he said, half-standing.
“Make it quick,” I replied. “Tomorrow I have to talk to a lawyer.”
His eyes widened slightly.
“You’re serious?”
“I’ve never been more serious in my life.”
He ordered a black coffee; I asked for chamomile tea that tasted like nothing. Diego stared at his cup as if the right answer might be floating inside it.
“What happened tonight…” he began. “It wasn’t just a bad joke.”
“I know. Javier never jokes—he just feels untouchable.”
Diego swallowed.
“For months he’s been talking about you like that when we go out. He says you’re ‘below his league,’ that you married him to get out of your neighborhood, that…” he hesitated, “that you owe him your life.”
It didn’t surprise me as much as it should have. I had heard softened versions at home, small stabs wrapped in sarcasm. But something in Diego’s voice unsettled me.
“I can imagine that,” I said. “You didn’t call me out at one in the morning to tell me that.”
His fingers began tapping against the cup.
