Episode 5

...Val...

There is a kind of silence that exists only in the control tower at six in the morning.

It isn't empty silence. It's charged. Radar screens glow green, monitors blink with weather data, and you sit there with your headset and your coffee, knowing that at any second a voice is going to ask you for permission to live or die at thirty thousand feet.

It's the best job in the world.

And the worst.

Paty was already at her station when I arrived. Fortysomething, hair always pulled back, supernatural ability to find out everything before it happened.

"Good morning, Val. Did you sleep well?"

"Yes."

"Lie. You have dark circles."

"That's just my face, Paty."

"Your face didn't have dark circles on Monday. Something happened. Is it a man?"

"It's coffee. I need coffee."

I sat at my station, put on my headset, and checked the board. The morning flight list came up, and there it was.

VC-3576 - Captain S. del Fuego - Departure 07:15 - Destination: GDL

I took a deep breath.

Professional. I was going to be professional. This was my job. Guide airplanes. Give instructions. Keep people from dying. The fact that the pilot of the plane was the same man who had made me come three times in one night a week ago was completely irrelevant.

The frequencies activated. The first flights requested taxi clearance, and I went into automatic mode. Voice steady, clear, emotionless. Up here, I'm not Valentina. I'm a voice that saves lives.

"Tower, Vuelo Cielo 3576, in position on runway 05 left, ready for departure."

My hand froze over the microphone.

His voice. Deep. Controlled. With that cadence that turned a radio protocol into something that should not have sounded that intimate. The same voice that told me "no" when I asked him to hurry. The same one that said my name against my neck, rough, right before he came.

Paty looked at me. I didn't look back.

I pressed the button.

"Vuelo Cielo 3576, tower. Wind one-eight-zero at ten knots, runway 05 left, cleared for takeoff."

Silence. One heartbeat. Two.

"Cleared for takeoff, runway 05 left, Vuelo Cielo 3576." A pause that was in no manual. "Good morning, tower."

I released the button. Exhaled.

"Good morning, 3576."

Two protocol sentences. Nothing personal. Nothing inappropriate. Nothing that justified my pulse hammering at two hundred and my palms sweating.

"Vuelo Cielo 3576?" Paty murmured. "Isn't that the new captain? The tall, dark one who looks like a model..."

"I didn't notice."

"Oh, Val."

The flight took off. I followed it on radar until it left my airspace. A green dot moving southwest, carrying three hundred passengers and a man who took up too much room in my head.

The rest of the shift passed without incident. Seventeen landings, eleven takeoffs, one minor emergency that turned out to be a faulty fuel indicator. Routine. Control. Order. The three things I needed and only ever found in this tower.

I left at six in the evening dead on my feet. I walked to the parking lot thinking about getting to my apartment, showering, and sleeping twelve hours.

I took out my phone.

Forty-three notifications. Twenty-seven from Luciano, from a number I'd already blocked twice and that kept multiplying like a virus. The others were from "The Airport Girls," the WhatsApp group for my female coworkers.

The last message in the group was a photo.

Luciano Reyes in a restaurant with a blonde hanging off his arm. From her Instagram account: "Dinner with my love @lucianoreyesg 💕"

Three hours ago.

The group comments:

"Isn't that Val's ex???"

"But they broke up a week ago!"

"Asshole comforted himself fast."

"Val, are you okay? 😰"

I looked at the photo. Waited to feel something. Pain. Jealousy. Anything.

Nothing. The only thing I felt was relief. So clear I almost laughed right there in the parking lot.

The man who sent me thirty-seven messages saying "you're the most important thing in my life" already had a replacement. One week.

I answered the group with a thumbs-up and put my phone away.

But when I reached the entrance to my building, the relief ended.

Luciano was there.

Leaning against his father's Audi, the imported one he brought out when he wanted to impress people, with red roses in one hand and a cake box in the other. Impeccable as always. Perfect hair. Rehearsed smile.

"Doll." He held out the roses. "I brought your favorite. Tres leches."

"Luciano, what are you doing here?"

"I came to apologize for real. The thing in the group was stupid. Give me another chance."

"I saw the photo."

His smile froze.

"What photo?"

"The one from the restaurant. With the blonde. The one she posted on Instagram three hours ago."

"It's not what it looks like, doll. She's a friend. A coworker."

"Business dinners don't put hearts in the captions, Luciano."

His jaw tightened. And there it was again, the switch. The good-boy mask fell away, and underneath was the thing I'd spent three years pretending not to see: something cold.

"You know what, Valentina? I'm tired of begging you. Any woman would be happy to be with me."

"Then go be with any woman."

"Without me, you're nobody." He took a step toward me. His voice dropped into something darker than anger. "Your father ignores you. Your sister despises you. Your mother is in a coma. Your grandma doesn't even know what day it is. Who's going to love you, Val? Who's going to be there when you wake up at three in the morning crying?"

The words hit where they always did. In the soft places. In what never closed.

But this time, instead of falling apart, I felt something else.

Rage.

Because another man had looked me in the eye and told me, "Neither of us is that cheap." Another man had torn up one hundred thousand pesos to prove what happened between us couldn't be bought. And even if it was a mistake, even if he was an arrogant asshole, Sebastián del Fuego had treated me in one night with more respect than Luciano Reyes had in three years.

"Leave," I said, and my voice sounded the way it did in the tower. Firm. Unwavering. "Don't come to my building. Don't call me. Don't text me. It's over. It was over much longer than a week ago."

"Or what?" Another step. "Are you going to call the police? Your dad? Oh, no, right, your dad doesn't answer your calls."

I clenched my fists. Dug my nails into my palms. The doorman watched us from inside but didn't come out, because Luciano Reyes was the son of a businessman and people like that always got away with things.

"Leave," I repeated.

He looked at me with that gaze I knew too well. The one of someone calculating whether he'd already broken you enough or could still push a little more.

Then headlights lit up the street.

And the light cut a silhouette on the sidewalk across from us.

Tall. Broad shoulders. Black leather jacket. Hands in his pockets. Looking straight at us.

Sebastián del Fuego was standing in front of my building.

He didn't say anything. Didn't cross the street. Didn't do anything heroic. He was just there. And it was enough for Luciano to turn his head, see him, and change his posture.

"Who is that?" he asked.

I didn't answer.

"Valentina. Who is that guy?"

"No one who concerns you," I said, and walked into my building without looking back.

I told the doorman not to let anyone up. I took the stairs because the elevator was taking too long and I needed to move, to burn off the adrenaline.

I reached my apartment. Key. Lock. I sat on the entryway floor with my back against the door.

My phone vibrated.

Unknown number. But I already knew who it was.

"Are you okay?"

Two words.

I looked at the screen. Typed:

"What were you doing outside my building?"