Chapter 2 The Echo of Silence

CLAUDIA

“…so the coach told me that if I keep this up, they’ll move me up to the first team next month. Are you even listening, Clau?”

I blink, jolted back to the reality of the pizzeria.

The smell of melted cheese and scorched crust, the chatter of students at the surrounding tables, and Javi’s voice hit me all at once.

He’s leaning over the table, his eyes bright with excitement as he gestures with a slice of pizza.

He’s wearing that oversized gray university sweatshirt, and he has the kind of smile that has always felt like the safest place in the world.

But tonight, for some reason, I’m struggling to follow the conversation.

"Yeah, of course I’m listening, babe. That’s amazing—you deserve it," I say, forcing a smile and taking a sip of my beer.

"You’re a million miles away," Javi complains, though without any malice, tapping my nose affectionately. "You’ve been staring into space all dinner. Is Almeda still giving you a hard time?"

At the sound of her name, my stomach does a strange flip. I set my glass down a bit too hard.

"She’s not giving me a hard time, Javi. She’s demanding.

She’s... different. You can't imagine how my meeting with her went today.

It was just us in her office, and—well, she got so intense about my focus on desire in classical thought.

Her jaw just tightened in a way... God, when she debates, she acts like her life depends on it.

She has this intensity that just blows your mind.

No one else at San Griselmo analyzes texts the way she does. "

Javi sighs, takes a bite of his pizza, and laughs, shaking his head.

"Almeda again. Seriously, Clau, you’re a broken record.

You haven't talked about anything else for two weeks. Dr. Almeda dresses so elegantly. Dr. Almeda has a brilliant mind. Dr. Almeda looked at me this way... She’s a frustrated nun, babe.

A relic of San Griselmo who thinks she’s living in the nineteenth century. Don't obsess over it."

"She is not a relic," I defend her immediately, my tone sharper than I intended.

Javi looks at me, surprised. I soften my voice quickly.

"I just mean she has an incredible intellectual magnetism. I’m going to have hours to debate her one-on-one on the train to Salamanca next week.

I need to polish my thesis tonight, Javi.

I want to make sure that when she reads it on that train, she won't have a single argument left to shut me down. "

I pull my phone from my jacket pocket, feeling an anxious, burning need to review the notes I took this afternoon. Javi sighs, reaches across the table, and squeezes my hand.

"Alright, alright. Don't get mad. I just hope you have some time to call me when you're in Salamanca. I’m going to miss you."

I look at his hand over mine. It’s warm, familiar—the boyfriend I’ve been with for two perfect years.

I should feel that spark, but my mind has already flown far away from this pizzeria.

It’s trapped in an office that smells of old paper, searching for the approval of gray eyes that burn through me, even if I don’t understand why.

MERCEDES

The silence of my apartment is a ruthless judge.

I left my keys in the silver tray by the door with my usual mechanical precision. I hung my coat in the closet and shed my suit, changing into a black turtleneck and tailored trousers. Yet, I cannot shake this suffocating sensation.

The tea kettle whistles—a sharp, piercing sound that cuts through the stillness. I make a cup of herbal tea and sit in my armchair by the window, facing the illuminated towers of the cathedral. I haven’t turned on the lights; I prefer the shadows. It’s easier to hide my shame in the dark.

I pull the wooden rosary from my pocket. My fingers, practiced in the routine of prayer, move to the first bead.

"Hail Mary, full of grace..."

"Denying an impulse doesn't erase it."

Claudia’s voice echoes against the walls of my skull like a bell.

I stop mid-prayer. I squeeze my eyes shut, feeling a thick, forbidden heat crawl up my neck.

It was insolence. A lack of respect for the doctrine, for my position.

.. for me. Why did she lean over my desk?

Why did she look at me with that blatant insistence, with a purity that seems completely unaware of the fire she ignites?

The worst part isn't her audacity. The worst part is that a part of me—a cursed part I thought I’d buried twenty years ago under layers of theology and discipline—wanted her to lean in closer.

I lay the rosary on the side table, feeling unworthy of holding it. I get up and walk to the small desk in my bedroom, turning on my laptop. The harsh white light of the screen stings my tired eyes.

I log into the faculty database. My fingers hesitate for a second over the keyboard before I type her name: Claudia de la Vega.

Her academic file appears. A brilliant record.

Honors, distinctions, one flawless grade after another.

But my eyes don't look at the grades. They lock onto her student ID photo.

Claudia is smiling at the camera with the same guileless freshness she brought into my office today: her dark hair a little messy, her gaze clear and vibrant, utterly untouched by the guilt that is eating me alive.

I stare at the image for minutes on end, losing all sense of time. The screen illuminates the lines on my face, exposing my weakness in the middle of the night.

"She’s just a student," I whisper to the empty room, trying to force my mind back to logic. "A brilliant mind you have to guide. Nothing more."

But when I close the laptop, the echo of her voice still lingers in the room, reminding me that next week, on that cursed train to Salamanca, there will be no office, no mahogany desk, and no safe distance left to protect me from her.