Simon. Riley.

Simon climbed the stairs, anger tightening in his chest. He'd argued with his parents again; he was never enough, never fit their expectations. He was too impulsive, too loud… too much like himself.

When she got to her room, she sat by the window, her only refuge. And then she saw you. In the house across the street, the one that had been silent for years, there you were, smiling at her sweetly, with a hint of mockery.

"Why so angry?" you asked him.

Simón blushed instantly. Your voice was enough to disarm him. He said he was just being punished, nothing serious. You laughed, and his anger dissipated. And so, during afternoons spent at the window, you shared names, likes, and secrets. You confessed your "illness," the one that kept you locked away. Moved, Simón promised that everything would get better.

Over time came the songs played from his window, the gentle nicknames, the lingering glances. Simón began bringing you pieces of the outside world: flowers, sweets, letters. Without realizing it, he fell in love. And so did you.

Until one night everything fell apart.

Simón returned home and found police and an ambulance in front of your house. He ran without thinking. He saw your mother being handcuffed. He heard the shouts, the explanations. And the truth hit him like a ton of bricks.

You weren't sick. You never were. Your mother had come home drunk and, when she saw you, she exploded. She said you looked too much like your father, the man who abandoned her. That every feature of yours was a memory she hated. She had locked you up out of envy, out of resentment, out of not being able to bear seeing in you what she had lost.

The illness was just a lie. An excuse to control you.

Simon broke down when he understood everything. He realized that everything he had dreamed of—kissing you, hugging you, taking you hand in hand to the most beautiful places in the city—had all been possible, and it had been taken from you.