The bar was filled with laughter, warm lights, and the swaying of glasses celebrating promises, goals achieved, and future dreams. Alana and Sofia were at one of the central tables, surrounded by some colleagues celebrating Alana's upcoming wedding, her recent graduation, and what seemed to be a promising future. Everything was perfect, until the darkness decided to seep through the most unexpected crack.
While Sofia was talking to one of the guys, Alana smiled, calm. It was then that she received a message.
Camila Jimenez: "Enjoying your night? I thought you'd like to know where your fiance really is. I'm at Eclipse too... and I'm not alone."
A video followed. Alana opened it without thinking. In it, Nick. Her fiance. Desperately kissing Camila in a private room, whispering things that chilled her soul. Her stomach turned. The music of the bar disappeared. Only that dull thud in her chest remained.
"What's wrong?" Sofia asked, alarmed by Alana's pale face.
Alana showed her the video, unable to speak. Rage grew in her friend's eyes.
"Let's go!" she said, taking her hand.
They walked firmly towards the back of the bar. Just as they were approaching one of the private doors, they heard voices. They stopped. It was Nick. And Camila.
"She won't find out," Camila said mockingly. "She's so naive... she thinks you love her and that you love her too."
"I never loved her," Nick replied, without remorse. "It was just part of my father's plan. But Alana... she didn't give me what you do. Everything had to wait. Always 'after the marriage'. I'm not a saint, Camila. You give me what I need. You understand me..."
"And I love you," Camila added, wrapping her arms around him. "She just wanted a fantasy of pure love. But you weren't born for that, Nick."
"Sometimes the most puritanical are the biggest whores. You deserve someone like me."
The door burst open.
"How could you?!" Alana's voice broke the air like lightning. Nick took a step back, surprised, but without guilt.
"How could I what, Alana? Seek what you refuse to give me? That?"
Sofia stepped forward furiously.
"You're a pig! And you Camila are a bitch."
Nick didn't even look at her. He just fixed his eyes on Alana, defiant.
"You were the one who decided that everything had to wait until marriage. That you wanted to arrive pure at the altar. That you wanted to be the perfect bride. But what did I get in return? Rejection, rules, distance. I got tired. I got fed up with living under your terms."
"What did it cost you to just let me make you mine."
"I loved you!" Alana cried, her heart shattered.
"No, you loved what you thought I was," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "But you never saw who I really am."
It was then that Camila came out, with a venomous smile.
"I do love him," she said, standing next to him. "And I do give him what he needs. Not like you... who has him like a display ornament."
"Was this what you wanted?" Alana trembled. "To destroy me out of envy?"
"No," Camila replied, her eyes burning with malice. I just wanted you to feel what it's like to lose. You were always the brilliant one, the perfect daughter, the unattainable bride. But now... now you're just one more who was replaced by someone better."
Nick said nothing more. He didn't try to stop her, nor did he deny the obvious. He just looked at her... empty.
And so, Alana knew: the man with whom she had planned her life... never existed.
The lights of the bar kept spinning, indifferent to the heart that had just broken.
Alana's perspective
I felt hollow. As if something inside me had broken into a thousand pieces and the noise was nothing more than a silent echo that only I could hear. Sofia walked beside me, without saying anything, and I appreciated it. I didn't need words. Not now. Not when the image of Nick with Camila still burned in my mind.
The way he looked at me... without guilt, without remorse. As if I had been to blame for everything. As if wanting with purity, with patience, with the hope of building a home together, had been an unforgivable mistake. As if protecting the most intimate part of me was an offense.
"Alana... you turned me into this," he said.
I heard it. Again and again. Like a damn recording on loop.
He had chosen to be unfaithful. He had chosen Camila. And the cruelest thing... he didn't regret it.
We walked away from the bar aimlessly, and although the night was cool, I felt suffocated. My heels echoed on the sidewalk, and each step seemed like a declaration of dignity, even though inside, I felt defeated.
Sofia offered me her jacket, but I refused with a slight gesture.
"Do you want us to go home?" she asked in a low voice, almost fearing to break me.
"I want..." I hesitated. "I want to breathe."
We stopped in a small nearby square. I sat on a wrought iron bench, and for the first time in a long time, I let the tears fall without resistance.
I wasn't just crying over the betrayal.
I was crying for all the plans, for the "forever afters", for the promises that now seemed ridiculous. For having believed that love was enough. For having closed my eyes when intuition screamed that something was wrong. For having loved someone so much who never really saw me.
I looked at the sky. There were no stars, just a cloudy blanket that seemed to reflect my interior.
And in the midst of that pain, a certainty began to emerge: this was not the end.
It was the beginning of something bigger. Of something mine.
"It's over," I whispered, my eyes burning but my voice firm. "I'm not begging anyone for love again."
Sofia took my hand, squeezing it tightly. Her silence was my shield.
And in that instant, something changed within me. Something hardened, as if a part of the girl who still remained in me had disappeared, giving way to a woman who was no longer willing to settle.
I was no longer the Alana Forbes who dreamed of a perfect life with the boy who swore to love her.
Now... I was a wounded woman, but awake. And ready to write a different story.
One in which I would be the protagonist.
As we walked back to the car, I felt something slip through the air. A strange sensation, as if someone was watching us from the shadows. I turned around, looking around, but the street was empty. However, something told me it wasn't.
From the second floor of the bar, through the glass windows, someone was watching. At first I couldn't make out the figure, but as I adjusted my view, I saw a masculine silhouette. With a glass in his hand, his gaze fixed on the distance, and his arms crossed. There was nothing in his posture that indicated an intention, just an unsettling calm.
My pulse quickened instantly.
It was Dante.
His eyes met mine, and, although I didn't move, I felt the weight of his gaze digging into my being. It wasn't curiosity. It wasn't attraction. It was something deeper. Something I couldn't define, but that made my skin crawl.
The tension was palpable, even though we were at a distance that completely separated us. However, in that brief exchange of glances, I felt ashamed, his presence enveloped me like a dense fog, and something inside me knew that this encounter, although fleeting, would not be the last.
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