PART 2
Rosa stayed by my side, squeezing my hand as if she feared the truth would shatter me more than the fall itself. Camila was breathing fast, trapped between the doorway and our eyes. Daniel said nothing. He kept running a hand through his hair over and over, like a child caught in wrongdoing.
“Tell me the truth,” I asked. “Did you know something?”
Daniel opened his mouth, but before he could answer, someone knocked on the door.
Three slow knocks.
Camila froze.
Rosa turned toward the entrance.
—Were you expecting someone?
Camila denied it too quickly.
Daniel moved toward the door, but didn’t manage to open it. The lock turned from the outside.
A man walked in as though the house belonged to him too.
I recognized him immediately.
Nicholas.
Camila’s ex-boyfriend.
She had sworn she hadn’t spoken to him in years. But there he was, standing in my living room, staring at my crutch on the floor with a smile that sent a chill down my spine.
“Oh dear,” he said. “Looks like I arrived at a bad time.”
Daniel glared at him.
—What are you doing here?
Nicholas shrugged.
—I came for what’s mine. Camila knows.
Camila started crying.
—Nicolas, please leave.
He gave a dry laugh.
—Are you scared now? You weren’t this nervous when we were planning everything.
The air in the room seemed to disappear.
“What did you plan?” I asked.
Camila covered her mouth.
Nicholas looked directly at me, without guilt, without shame.
—Your accident, Mrs. Mercedes.
Rosa let out a choked scream. Daniel went pale.
My heart pounded so hard I thought it would burst from my chest.
“It wasn’t an accident,” Nicolás continued. “Camila knew you had discovered the withdrawals from her account. She knew you were going to report her. And we needed time.”
“Shut up!” Camila shouted.
But it was already too late.
Nicholas smiled.
—She loosened the railing screws. I told her how to do it.
Everything collapsed inside me.
I remembered the stairs. My bag. The keys falling. The metallic sound. My body losing balance. The scream. The blood. My leg trapped at an impossible angle.
“You…” I whispered, looking at Camila. “You made me fall.”
She sobbed uncontrollably.
“I didn’t want you to lose your leg. I just wanted you to be scared, to not go to the bank, to not talk to Daniel…”
Daniel sank into the armchair.
—What did you do, Camila?
Nicholas stepped closer to him.
—Don’t act innocent. You signed it too.
My son lifted his head.
-That?
Camila closed her eyes.
—Daniel didn’t know everything.
—But he signed it—Nicholas said—. He signed the loan using his mother’s house as collateral.
Another blow hit me.
My house.
The house where I raised Daniel. The house my husband and I had paid for little by little. The house where my memories, my photos, my entire life were stored.
“Did you mortgage my house?” I asked.
Daniel began to cry.
—Mom, Camila told me it was temporary. She said you were confused, that you couldn’t handle your own affairs…
I looked at him, completely shattered.
—You chose to believe I was crazy instead of believing me.
Daniel had no answer.
Rosa stood up.
—Mercedes, I know where Camila kept the documents.
Camila snapped her head up.
-No!
But I was no longer the woman lying on the floor.
I picked up my crutch, took a deep breath, and said:
—Then let’s go find them.
Because if they had broken my body, I would break every lie they had built on my pain.
