Chapter 18 Outside the Rules

CLAUDIA

The moral theology department office is dead silent this morning. It’s a heavy, suffocating quiet—the kind that feels like walking past an open grave.

I carry the draft of my theoretical framework under my arm, still feeling the residual warmth of last night on my skin.

That sacred surrender in Mercedes's bedroom put every piece of my broken world back together.

I'm not afraid anymore. I don't care about Javi, or Leguina, or San Griselmo’s judgment.

I stepped into the abyss, and for the first time, I feel like I'm flying.

But as I approach Mercedes’s office, I freeze.

The heavy oak door is wide open. Inside, a university mover is packing leather-bound volumes into large cardboard boxes. The scent of mahogany and old paper still lingers, but the soul of the room is gone.

"What... what's going on here?" I ask the worker, a knot of dread tightening in my stomach.

"Orders from the dean's office, miss," the man replies without looking up. "Immediate clear-out. Dr. Almeda resigned this morning."

My leather portfolio slips from my hands. The pages of my thesis scatter across San Griselmo’s stone tiles like dead leaves in autumn. I don't even bend down to gather them. The air freezes in my lungs.

"Well, de la Vega. I see you've already heard."

I spin around. Dr. Clara Leguina stands in the middle of the hallway, arms crossed over her dark blue wool coat, wearing a sharp, predatory smile.

"What did you do to her?" I snap, abandoning all academic decorum as I take an aggressive step toward her. "What did you do to Dr. Almeda?"

"We didn't do anything, dear," Leguina purrs, taking a step back but maintaining her condescending tone.

"Your illustrious mentor preferred to save us the trouble of an ecclesiastical tribunal. She confessed. She admitted she’s been obsessed with you for months, manipulating your advisor meetings and forcing an abusive relationship by taking advantage of your vulnerability after your breakup.

Shocking, really... A total predator. Naturally, the dean accepted her immediate resignation to avoid a public scandal. "

"That's a lie," I shout, tears of rage and desperation blurring my vision. "It’s a lie! She didn't force me into anything. It was both of us... I went to her, I—"

"Silence, de la Vega," Leguina cuts me off, her voice turning to steel.

"Don't be stupid. Dr. Almeda signed a confession taking sole responsibility.

Your academic record is clean. You'll defend your thesis before an external committee next week.

You're safe. Your career is intact. You should be grateful that woman had the decency to step aside before dragging you down into the mud with her. "

The venom in her words strikes my chest. I don't hear anything else.

I don't care about the thesis, the chair, or this entire temple of stone and hypocrisy.

The sheer weight of Mercedes's sacrifice hits me all at once.

She completely sacrificed herself. She destroyed a twenty-year reputation of absolute rectitude, turning herself into an outcast to the Church and the academic world, just so I could keep moving forward. Just to save my future.

I turn and bolt down the hallways of San Griselmo.

I run as if every demon in their theology textbooks is chasing me, trampling over my own scattered papers, rushing through the cypress courtyard into the downpour of the Madrid rain.

I have to get to her. She can't leave like this.

I won't let her save me at the cost of her own life.

Mercedes

The apartment is nearly empty. Three leather suitcases sit in the middle of the living room, and the bedroom bookshelves are stripped bare of the texts that kept me company for decades. It’s all that remains of my life in Madrid.

I wear my usual gray suit. My hair is pinned up with the same marble rigidity as always.

As I go to button the collar of my blouse, my right hand reaches for the gold cross, but my fingers find only smooth silk.

The cross stays on the nightstand, gleaming coldly.

I won't take it today. My exile demands no sacred shields.

I pick up the small olive wood box that belonged to Inés, the one I retrieved from the department library.

I run my fingers over the worn wood. Inside, next to the prayer card of the Virgin of Montserrat, I've left a note folded into quarters and a small brass key.

The key to the stone house in Salamanca I inherited from my grandmother—a quiet refuge by the Tormes River, far from San Griselmo.

A sharp, desperate knock rattles the heavy wooden front door.

My heart does a wild flip. I know exactly who it is. My body, which learned to recognize her rhythm last night, responds instantly with a tremor that travels up my legs. I walk slowly to the entryway and open the door.

Claudia stands on the threshold. Her hair is soaked from the rain, her cheeks flushed from running, and her dark eyes brim with tears streaming uncontrollably down her face. She's shaking from the cold, from anger, from love.

"Why did you do it?" she gasps, stepping inside and slamming the door shut—the exact same way she did that first night. "Why did you lie, Mercedes? Leguina told me... You told them you harassed me. You ruined your life for me."

I try to force the mask of the untouchable professor back into place. I try to make my voice as cold as a Salamanca winter.

"It was the logical choice, Claudia," I say, keeping my hands clasped behind my back so she won't see my fingers trembling.

"Your mind is far too brilliant to let those conservatives destroy it.

Your thesis is your freedom. My career was over the second I let my defenses drop.

I've had my time. Yours is just beginning. "

"I don't give a shit about logic!" she screams, stepping so close I can feel the feverish heat of her breath in my empty living room.

She grips the lapels of my gray jacket with unexpected strength.

"What good is a thesis, what good is a future if you leave?

You can't leave me behind, Mercedes. I love you.

Last night... last night you showed me your abyss is my only home. Don't leave me on the shore."

Hearing her confession of love crumbles my last defenses.

The tears I forced myself to hold back all morning at the dean's office finally spill over, hot against my cheeks.

I slide my hands up her damp arms to her neck, pulling her against my chest with a desperation that borders on madness.

Claudia sobs into my shoulder, clinging to me as if I might vanish if she lets go.

We are breaking, both of us, but it’s a clean break, entirely stripped of the Catholic guilt that used to suffocate us.

"I'm not leaving you, my love," I whisper into her ear, stroking her wet hair with a fierce, protective tenderness. "I'm only stepping aside so you can fly, free from their judgment. San Griselmo is no place for us. It never was."

We pull back slightly. Claudia looks up, searching my gray eyes for a promise.

I take the small olive wood box from the living room table and press it into her hands. Her fingers close around the cool wood.

"What is this?" she asks, her voice barely a whisper.

"My past, Claudia. And maybe... our future," I tell her, offering a small smile—the first smile of absolute freedom I’ve felt in twenty years.

"Inside is the key to my house in Salamanca.

The stone house by the river. Defend your thesis next week.

Shine before that committee the way only you can.

Cleanse your name. And then... then come find me there. "

Claudia’s eyes widen, a sudden flare of pure hope illuminating her tear-streaked face. She presses the wooden box tightly to her chest.

"I will find you, Mercedes," she promises, leaning in to seal the vow with a slow, deep kiss that tastes of rain, goodbyes, and a new horizon. "I swear it on my life. No matter how long it takes. I will find you on that other shore."

"I'll be there, Claudia," I whisper against her lips. "Waiting for you."

I turn, pick up my leather suitcases, and for the first time in my miserable, perfectly ordered existence, I walk out of that apartment without looking back. The Madrid chill doesn't scare me anymore. Because in the ruins of my old world, I’ve finally learned what it means to be truly alive.