Christina sat in her dimly lit room, the flickering shadows from candles dancing on the walls. The air was thick with the scent of cigarette smoke, lingering tequila, and the sharp sting of regret. She had been steeped in her pain for hours, replaying every memory of Arturo on a loop that wouldn’t quit.

Lighting another cigarette, she let out a slow exhale as Luis Miguel’s heart-wrenching voice filled the room. His ballad echoed through the small space, each note like a knife twisting deeper into her chest.

Tears slipped down her face without warning. Quiet and pathetic, like even her body was tired of pretending she was fine. She didn’t even like menthols. The cigarettes weren’t hers. The case had been in Arturo’s bag, and now it sat beside the tequila, mocking her like everything else he left behind.

She hated the taste. Hated the way it burned. But maybe that’s why she kept smoking them, because pain was the only thing that still made sense.

Each sip of tequila stripped something away—memories, hope, maybe even her last bit of dignity. Yo debería estar acostada aquí con Arturo, she thought bitterly, no ahogándome en esta tristeza de mierda.

She cranked the music up louder, using it like armor, letting it drag her under, note by note. It was easier than facing the truth; it was easier to drown in boleros and pretend she wasn’t completely unraveling.

Her thoughts spiraled, they were chaotic, jumbled. Her brain, like her, was too drunk. She thought of Arturo. The wedding. Her family’s sharp stares and fake smiles. The whispers.

She wasn’t dumb. She knew they were talking. They always did. Her life had become party gossip—another juicy story for the family to chew on between drinks.

They thought they knew everything. The rumors about her and Arturo? Please. Yes. Most of them were true. The sneaking around, the late-night escapes, the heated arguments behind locked doors.

What the family never understood was that it wasn’t some rebellious fling. It wasn’t for show. It was survival. It was real. At least it was for her.

Her father never saw that. To him, she was a disappointment. A problem to manage. Her older brothers treated her like some fragile investment, something to be married off or molded into a boardroom puppet.

But they never saw the truth. They never saw the girl who cried herself to sleep. The one who just wanted someone to love her.

Arturo wasn’t perfect. He came with his own shadows. His father paraded him around like a prized show dog—perfect smile, perfect posture, no soul left behind the eyes. His mother? Present, technically, but cold as porcelain.

He used to say Christina was the only real thing in his life. And sometimes, she believed him.

She envied him for having a mother at all. He envied her silence, her empty house, the freedom in it. Neither one of them had what they needed, but somehow, together, they made something that felt like home.

Their childhoods were strung together by money, fake friends, and forced smiles. Summers in gated estates. Winters at exclusive camps. But underneath all of it? Loneliness. The kind that sinks in your bones and never quite leaves.

They weren’t supposed to fall in love. But they did.

And now here she was, alone, in a room that smelled like heartbreak. Lighting another cigarette that tasted like him. Letting Luis Miguel rip her apart one lyric at a time.

Because if she didn’t feel something—anything—she was scared she might disappear completely.