The knock on the door broke hard enough to cut straight through my thoughts.
My head lifted, fingers freezing mid-keystroke as the sound echoed once more—impatient now, like whoever was on the other side didn’t believe in waiting.
I pushed back from the counter, already moving.
When I opened the door—my father stood on the other side.
For a second, my brain didn’t catch up.
The sight didn’t make sense—on my doorstep, framed by gray sky and frozen concrete, the cold curling in around him like it had been waiting for permission to follow him inside.
“Beatriz.” No hesitation. No pause to read me first, no distance held for formality—his arms came around me in one solid motion, pulling me in like he had every right to be there, like the months between us didn’t exist the second he closed the space.
I folded into him automatically. The tension loosened in one clean drop, slipping out of my shoulders as I breathed him in—citrus and spice, something grounded underneath it that had never changed, no matter where in the world he’d come from or was going next.
“Hi,” I breathed against his coat.
His hand came up to the back of my head, fingers threading briefly into my hair before he leaned back just enough to look at me. “You’ve lost weight,” he murmured, thumb brushing once along my cheekbone like he was confirming it through touch instead of sight.
“I haven’t,” I snickered back.
His mouth curved slightly—not quite a smile, but close enough to feel like one. “You say that,” he replied, the words familiar, worn smooth from years of repetition.
He stepped inside without waiting for permission.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?” I asked, already turning, already shifting into motion as I moved past him, pushing the door closed fully.
“I was in New York,” he explained, unbuttoning his coat with practiced efficiency. “Meetings ran shorter than expected.”
“And you didn’t think to call?”
His gaze flicked to me, something softer threading through it now. “Would you have told me not to come?”
I exhaled, shaking my head slightly as I took his coat when he handed it to me, hanging it on the back of the chair like I’d done a hundred times before.
“I missed you,” he added.
“I—” I started, stepping back, already turning—and froze.
The bathroom light. A thin strip of brightness cut across the floor, sharp against the muted tones of the apartment, leading straight to the door I hadn’t closed.
Leading straight to—my pulse kicked once, hard enough to feel.
My father moved further inside, setting his gloves down on the counter, attention already drifting—taking in the space, the details, the life I’d built here in clean, efficient lines.
He would see it.
He cannot see that!
I shifted immediately. “Give me one second,” I stuttered, already moving before he could respond.
I crossed the apartment in three quick steps, each one measured, controlled, not rushed—but faster than I would normally move. The tile bit into my feet as I pushed the bathroom door open just enough to slip inside, blocking the line of sight behind me with my body.
The test sat exactly where I’d left it. Small. White. Unassuming.
World-altering.
I didn’t look at it.