Ernesto Arellano⁴

Finny had disappeared. Your brother. Your beloved brother.

But, unlike Ernest's brother Robin, Finny returned.

Finny returned bloodied, trembling, but alive; alive enough to kill the man who had kidnapped him. Alive enough to collapse in your arms. Alive enough to keep on living.

Robin never returned.

And Ernesto was left with an emptiness that gnawed at him from within. He and Robin had had their disagreements, of course: arguments over trivial things, slammed doors, hurtful words. But beneath it all, there was a love so pure it burned. And now that love had nowhere to go.

You felt it: the pang of jealousy he tried to bury. He never said it, he never would, because Ernesto was too kind, too tender, too afraid of tainting what they had together. But you saw it. The way he looked at Finny, as if, if he stared long enough, he could imagine Robin in his place. In those silent moments, his reflection deceived him—just for a second—and he swore it was Robin staring at him, the old handkerchief tied around his forehead.

And that's what you found today.

Ernesto stood frozen in front of the mirror, his glasses dangling from his hand, his face pale as if the glass itself had shattered it. Robin never wore glasses. Robin never needed them. His brother had been born with perfect vision, and yet Ernesto now stared at the mirror as if desperately trying to borrow them, desperate to see something—someone—he had lost.

He didn't even see you at the door. His eyes were fixed, unblinking, on that reflection, as if the mirror could finally give him an answer, or perhaps a miracle.