Valerio walked hand in hand with Natalia into the school.

She noticed Valerio stop and she watched as he stared at Polo and Cayetana with concern.

Natalia let go of his hand and rolled her eyes. He noticed this and immediately smiled at her "I'll be right back, okay?"

Natalia nodded and he walked off towards the pair. She sighed and walked over to Ander.

She noticed that he was nervously playing with his hands and she smiled at him "Hey, handsome. How are you?"

Ander laughed "I'm okay. Are your parents coming?" Natalia shook her head "No. my sister has a school play so they've decided to go there."

Ander looked at Natalia with pity and he touched her arm "Well, you know I'm here for you, okay? After this, you can come home with us if you want. I could use the company."

Natalia smiled "I already promised Lu that I would spend some time with her but thanks for the offer. Maybe another time, yeah?"

He nodded understandingly and Natalia then looked to her right and saw Valerio kiss Cayetana's shoulder and brought her into a heartfelt hug.

She immediately looked away when Cayetana noticed her stare and she played with her ring.

Ander nodded towards the auditorium "Shall we go in? You can sit next to me and Omar." Natalia took his hand and the two walked into the large auditorium.

When everyone was finally seated, Azucena started to speak into the mic. She spoke about the scholarship that Nadia and Lu had one and then decided to get them onto the stage.

"I'd like to invite the winners of the scholarship to the stage. A big round of applause, please, for Nadia Shanaa and Lucrecia Montesinos Hendrich."

The audience applauded as Nadia and Lu slowly walked up to the centre of the stage where Azucena stood smiling at them.

"Bill McKinley will present the award on behalf of Columbia University." The man walked to the microphone and spoke into it "Hi, everyone. Thank you for having me. I'm very excited to be here."

He then looked at Nadia and Lu who stood behind him "Congratulations. We're excited to have you at Columbia." The two thanked the man and he handed them the trophy. The audience cheered and the girls walked up to the microphone.

The room went quiet and Lu was the first to speak "Good afternoon. Thank you to our parents and friends who have joined us for such a special moment...for us and... for our fellow students."

Lu cleared her throat "I would like to..." Lu stopped talking causing Natalia to frown. She then stepped away from the mic and it looked like she was whispering to Nadia from afar.

Lu then leaned forward again and continued to speak "Well...I was saying that..."

Nadia suddenly moved the mic in front of her and started to speak "No, wait. I would just like to say that...I would like to..."

She shared a look with Lu "well, we would like to...I think I'm speaking on behalf of both of us...dedicate this award to all our fellow students, especially everyone there in the back, who, for different reasons, cannot join us up here...as part of this graduation ceremony."

Nadia started to clap causing Natalia to turn around and look at the four students that were sat smiling. Rebeca, Guzmán, Valerio and Samuel.

Nadia stopped clapping and Nadia continued "Not being able to have them here with us...makes this moment...not as happy as we would have liked it to be."

Lu nodded and leaned forward and steadied the mic "That's true. Because she and I should be jumping for joy...but we're not. Because we... deserve this award. We deserve this moment, Nadia."

Nadia then spoke "My friends are there...due to a series of injustices...the most serious of all being the one that deprived us of having...
Marina with us."

Natalia shifted uncomfortably at the mention of her friend and she could see Polo's mothers looking at each other.

"Injustices...that we both condemn."

Lu nodded "That's right. And just one person is responsible for all of those injustices." She then looked at the front row of the crowd "Polo. How are you? Happy with yourself?"

Natalia watched as Begoña stood up and walked up onto the stage.

Lu continued to scowl at Polo "Look, the award we are receiving... was a ploy your moms came up with to clean up your image, basically. And we are accepting it because, I repeat, we deserve it. What should we do? Because this has become..."

Begoña then moved the mic away from the girls and looked at the two "If it's such a problem for you to accept the award, don't worry. The scholarship has been called off."

Natalia's eyes widened and she muttered under her breath "Shit."

Ander, who was sitting next to her, touched her knee reassuringly and she sighed.

Begoña then looked at the crowd "All we've ever wanted is to support Las Encinas and to help the students."

Begoña then walked off the stage and Lu and Nadia looked at each other sadly.

Lu then decided to take the mic and she sighed "You know what? I promised someone I love dearly that we would celebrate this day together. That we would have lots of fun and that nothing would fuck it up. Let's go celebrate at Teatro Barceló! Thank you."

The two girls walked off the stage and the room started to get loud. People were speaking about what happened and Natalia stood up and grabbed her bag.

She could see Valerio looking for her but she decided to immediately leave the room.

She scurried through the people who were also walking towards the exit and saw Lu holding the trophy with her head down.

She walked over to the girl and caressed her arm "Hey. Don't worry about it."

Lu looked up at the girl "What the hell am I supposed to do now?"

Natalia grabbed her hand "Come on. You can come back to mine and we'll have some food. After that we can go and have a couple of drinks at the club, okay?"

Lu smiled slightly and followed Natalia out of the school.

Natalia's outfit: