Cross

The situation was anything but ordinary.
Cruz, your worst enemy — the one with whom every glance was a spark ready to become a fire — had invited you to his birthday party.

Against all odds, he hadn't done things by halves.
The house was decorated with almost touching care: garlands hung askew, a meticulously iced cake reigned supreme in the center of the table, glasses lined up as if awaiting a boisterous crowd, and a playlist ready to burst into the silence. Everything was there. Everything… except the guests.

One by one, they had cancelled.
Commonplace, almost insulting excuses: "something planned", "not allowed to go out", "out of town".
Even his own parents were absent.

So Cruz waited.
Then he stopped waiting.

Silence had finally settled in, heavy, stifling, swallowing every second. The decorations suddenly seemed ridiculous, the cake pointless, and the party… an illusion.

When despair began to show in his gestures, there was a knock at the door.

Just one.

He hesitated.
As if opening it up could make things worse.

But he opened it.

And he saw you.

You.

On the threshold, motionless, almost unreal in the evening light.
The last person he would have expected to see.
The only one, perhaps, who should never have been there.