========== A Face in the News ==========

  Davide's ugh carries across the terrace: his king's forked, mate in two. Laya leans back in her chair, pleased as a cat.

  From the kitchen, Sofía sees gnces slide off the chessboard and nd on Riccardo. He sits with them, inside the circle, but tight. Too tight. Laya narrows her eyes—and it's clearly not the game.

  The door creaks; Sofía steps out barefoot. She reaches for the kettle, and a couple of male eyes snag on the movement. The air is thick. In her head, cold crity.

  Riccardo gets up for the tray. Routine, automatic—and then his hand closes on nothing. The tray tips, chipped cups strike the tile with a dry, brittle crack, and tea runs out in a dark puddle. He stumbles and goes sideways. The sound is ugly, far too loud.

  A beat of silence. Sofía takes in all of it, her gaze sharp as a sp. Then everything moves at once.

  Davide catches Riccardo by the elbow; Evan is already checking the split skin at his temple; Laya leans in and blocks the view. Sofía barely moves: one nod toward the towel, one quick gesture toward the first-aid kit in the hall.

  — Paper towels. Peroxide, — she says, voice level. — Shards in the bin.

  She crouches to gather the rger pieces, drags two chairs aside, clears the path. For a second, gnces skim over her, then slide back to the accident. Back to Riccardo. Back to the tea. The evening finds its groove again: mop up, patch him up, put the kettle on.

  The kitchen clouds with steam. The kettle hisses; Evan pours fresh tea with easy precision. The TV mutters from its wall bracket, the anchor's ft voice half lost under the ughter as everyone starts trading stories about their own stupid falls.

  Davide slips into a coach's bark and reenacts an embarrassing foul; Laya throws out a quick, "I got tangled in the starting blocks," and snorts; Matteo waves both arms, acting out how he dropped a camera into a fountain.

  Sofía sits by the window, her bare heels on the cool tile. She listens and smiles—easy, even, gaze clear. A thin line of tension keeps her spine straight. She catches the checking gnces and answers with the smallest shift of one shoulder. Casual. Not quite innocent.

  Then the screen flips to something else. The anchor is already on the next item, but a photo fshes up—dark hair, a name, and the word "tragedia." Gone as fast as it came. Sofía doesn't look up in time; she only registers the silence that drops.

  — Shit... — Davide exhales. The mug in his hand trembles. — I know him. That's... that guy.

  — What guy? — Laya goes still, her voice turning sharp.

  — From the party. — Davide flicks a gnce at Sofía, checking whether she caught it. — The one she kissed.

  Silence thickens. Sofía tilts her head a fraction and feels the air change weight. She never got a clean look at the face on the screen, but the space around her tightens all at once... like the beat before thunder.

  ========== All Converging at a Single Point ==========

  The kitchen sat under a dense smell of garlic and fried onion. Sofía moved calmly, almost meditatively: the knife tapping a steady rhythm on the olive-wood board, her hands working on their own. The silence in the house was heavy, but she gave off a strange, concentrated force—in the even boil of the water, in the way the olive oil hissed when it hit the pan.

  She'd insisted on cooking dinner alone. No one argued.

  A stair creaked. Evan appeared in the doorway. He stopped for a second, his gaze drifting—almost against his will—to her back under the kitchen mp. Then he caught himself and stepped in.

  — Need a hand? — he asked quietly. — No pressure.

  — Chop the basil, — she said, not turning from the stove.

  He bent over the herbs in silence, then after a moment leaned a little closer, voice low.

  — So... about that guy. — He let out a breath. — Investigation says it was an accident. He tripped, hit his temple on a concrete post, went into the water, and never came round.

  Sofía only lifted an eyebrow. Her rhythm at the stove never broke.

  — So. Just bad luck.

  Evan nodded, though something stayed in his eyes. Something he didn't say.

  When dinner was ready, Sofía called the others in. On the table was the st thing anyone had expected: pasta al dente under a thick, fragrant sauce, simple ingredients pulled into bance. Even the most worn-out faces eased. She smiled—briefly, with quiet satisfaction. Tonight she'd managed to bring a little warmth back into the house.

  A rare, well-fed silence settled over the kitchen. Empty ptes edged aside, water running at the sink, the extractor fan humming, someone rummaging in the fridge. But the center of gravity was obvious: Sofía.

  She leaned back on the rear legs of her chair, bare feet crossed on the almost cleared table. Held the bance easily, like her body had known this angle for years.

  Gnces moved over her—not all alike. Matteo's stayed a beat too long, as if he were framing the shot in his head. Davide gave her the smallest nod—gratitude without dispy. Laya watched with caution, but the challenge had gone out of her; control was giving way to fatigue.

  Sofía felt that not on her skin, not as heat, but as simple knowledge: she was here, now, holding the thread. That certainty steadied her breathing.

  Talk around the table started up again, slow and uneven.

  — Tomorrow... staying in the city? — Davide asked softly, as if afraid to jolt the peace.

  — Or the beach first thing, — Laya said. — All together.

  Evan shrugged.

  — I'd go for the park. Quieter there.

  — Boring, — Matteo muttered. — The center's better. That's where life is.

  Riccardo joined in carefully.

  — Given the... recent news, maybe we shouldn't spend time by the pier.

  They spoke in fragments, cutting across one another without malice, but under the pin words something else hung there—fatigue, unsaid things, heavy secrets.

  Sofía listened without stepping in. A faint smile touched her mouth. In that pause she felt it: everything binding them to one another—the gnces, the guesses, the attachments—still, still converging on a single point.

  And that point was her.

  ========== Talk at the Edge ==========

  Sofía pushed the door open with her shoulder. Laya was in the room, straightening the striped bedspread with precise little tugs, as if neatness might pin the anxiety down. Sofía paused in the doorway and took a deeper breath.

  — Remember the first day? We said anything important had to be said out loud before sleep.

  Laya looked up—surprise flickered, then settled into composure. Sofía stepped closer and stopped right in front of her, leaving almost no room to step back.

  — I broke the rule, — she said on an exhale. — With Riccardo. In the bathroom. On my terms, yes, but... it was still in the house, and... — Her voice caught. — I should've told you.

  A pause. Laya said nothing, her mouth set in a thin line. Sofía felt the pulse beat at her temples but didn't look away.

  — You could've kept that from me, — Laya said at st. Her voice was even, without accusation. — But you didn't. I'm angry, yeah. Not even really at him... at you. But... — Her eyes dropped to a crease in the cotton cover. — Do you want help figuring it out? Or do you just need to say it aloud?

  Sofía shook her head.

  — I want to figure it out. Myself. How this works inside me. I don't want to lose what's between us. But... — The words stuck. Hard. — And that isn't even the hard part.

  Sofía sat down on the edge of the bed, palms pressed between her knees. Laya settled across from her—composed, watchful, like she expected the floor to shift. The silence dropped heavy between them.

  Sofía broke it first.

  — Ask. Anything.

  Laya frowned.

  — Why there? In the bathroom.

  — Because it felt outside the rules. — Sofía spoke more slowly than usual, choosing each word. — Like no one was meant to see it. But I still feel this wasn't a choice. It was crossing a line.

  Laya gave a small nod, eyes narrowing.

  — Did you know you liked him? Or didn't that matter?

  — I knew. But in that moment he wasn't even him. Just... someone there. Somewhere to put the pressure. — Sofía's voice came out quieter, and clearer, than she wanted. — And then it went cold. Just cold.

  The room went quiet again; only the dry rustle of fabric under Laya's fingers cut through it.

  — Do you believe yourself? — Laya asked.

  Sofía held her gaze.

  — I want to. Otherwise none of this makes sense.

  They kept going in bursts: question, pause, answer. With each exchange, something in the room shifted a fraction. Inside Sofía, recognition kept gathering: the accidents, the coincidences, the pses—they weren't separate things. This wasn't chance. Saying it aloud, though... that was terrifying. She was still only feeling for the edges of it.