Chapter 8: When Camila Woke Up
She came back slowly.
First the sounds — the soft mechanical rhythm of monitors, the distant murmur of voices, the particular quality of air that only existed in hospitals.
Then the light, filtered through her eyelids, pale and even.
Then the weight of her own body, heavy and strange, like something borrowed.
Then the pain.
Dull and deep and everywhere.
"Camila."
A voice she knew.
Close.
She opened her eyes.
Alejandro was sitting in the chair beside her bed.
He was still wearing the same clothes from the night before.
He looked like he had not slept.
"Hey," he said quietly.
"Take your time."
She tried to speak.
Her throat was dry.
He poured water from the bedside pitcher and held the cup while she drank.
"The baby," she said.
"He's alive.
He's in the neonatal unit.
He's breathing on his own." Alejandro set the cup down.
"He's small, but he's fighting.
The doctors say that's a very good sign."
She closed her eyes for a moment.
"I thought—" Her voice broke.
She stopped.
Started again.
"On the floor.
I thought I wasn't going to—"
"I know."
"I couldn't move.
And I kept calling him, and he just—"
"I know." Alejandro leaned forward slightly.
"Camila.
Look at me."
She did.
"You're safe.
Your son is safe.
And I found the envelope."
Her breath caught.
"I read the letter.
I have the drive.
My attorney filed with the federal prosecutor's office this afternoon." He held her gaze.
"You were not imagining things.
You were not confused.
You were not losing your mind." He said each sentence separately, clearly, like he needed her to receive each one individually.
"You were right about everything."
She pressed her lips together hard.
Her eyes filled.
"I was so afraid," she whispered.
"I kept thinking — who is going to believe me?
He tells everyone I'm unstable.
He's been telling people for months.
His friends, his family — they all look at me like I'm—"
"They won't be looking at him the same way much longer."
A tear slid down her face.
Then another.
Dr.
Fuentes appeared in the doorway, checked the monitors, made a small note, and looked at Alejandro with an expression that was not quite a smile but carried the same weight.
"She needs rest," the doctor said.
"But a few more minutes is fine."
She stepped back out.
Camila looked at the ceiling for a moment.
"He came here, didn't he.
Mateo."
"Yes."
"Did he see the baby?"
A pause.
"I don't know."
She nodded slowly.
Something settled in her face — not peace exactly, but a kind of resolution.
The look of someone who has been carrying a question for a very long time and has finally stopped waiting for an answer they were never going to get.
"I used to love him," she said.
"I want you to know that.
I'm not — I didn't imagine that part either.
There was a time when I thought he was the best person I knew."
"I know."
"When did he change?
Or was he always—" She stopped.
"I don't know," Alejandro said honestly.
"I stopped being able to see him clearly a long time ago."
She looked at him.
"Why did you come?
That night.
You didn't have to."
"You called me."
"I called you because I had no one else.
That's not the same as you having a reason to come."
Alejandro was quiet for a moment.
"You were my friend before you were his wife.
That didn't stop being true just because he told you to stop calling me."
She looked at him for a long time.
Then she said, "I want to see my son."
"I'll arrange it." He stood.
"As soon as the doctors say you can be moved."
"Alejandro." She reached out and put her hand briefly on his arm — just for a second, just enough.
"Thank you."
He nodded once.
In the hallway outside her room, his phone buzzed.
A message from Tomás: *Mateo went to Valeria's apartment.
He's been inside for forty minutes.
Banda's car is parked outside.*
Alejandro typed back: *Stay on them.*
May you like
He put his phone away and stood in the corridor for a moment, listening to the quiet sounds of the hospital around him.
Down the hall, behind a glass window in the neonatal unit, a very small boy was breathing on his own for the first time.
