Before Silvia could answer the text, Miyen snatched the phone from her hand and traded it for a mate. She didn't complain. She knew her friend was right. Enough already. Time to put an end to it and let go.

Like it was just so easy.

They were in her room in Caseros, laying back on the bed side by side, watching a movie on her tablet. She smoked and drank mate. Her eyes were still swollen but dry. The shower and the meal had helped her to clear her mind. She felt drained, and it was that exhaustion what kept her wide awake. So she remained there, quiet and still, curling up against her friend's side.

"Told you he thought it was me," she said out of the blue.

"Oh, that changes everything, right? Turns out he's not a fucking son of a bitch but a fucking asshole. Glad to know."

Miyen's rant pushed a weary chuckle out of her lips. Of course it changed everything. It appeased the pain, but as hours went by, she wondered if it actually did her any good.

Claudia came back at sunset, and Miyen convinced Silvia to go downstairs for a light dinner. The Commodore was out on a flight and Graciela was discretion in the flesh. Silvia excused herself soon and went back to her room. However, as a proof of good will, she gave her phone to Claudia. Miyen rolled his eyes.

"I ain't giving it to you so you can have fun hate-texting Jim."

Miyen snorted.

Upstairs, she got in bed to spend what she knew would be the worst night of the last fifteen years, since her parents had died, give or take.

Maybe if she listened to a little music?

She spent the next hours playing a single song on repeat, Natalie Imbruglia's Hide Behind the Sun, until she had no tears left to cry.

Tonight, everything but me
Taken out to sea, all gone.
A wish written in the sand
Washed away tomorrow.

This time
Look what I've become
Didn't run from what you've done
Didn't hide behind the sun.

And I wanted everything
Thought that you could bring me daylight.
A dream burning in the sky
Leaves my spirit dry.

And you lied
Now look what I've become
Didn't run from what you've done
Didn't hide behind the sun.

Couldn't run
Lost in what you've done
Look what I've become.

Midnight found her wide awake, staring up at the moon out the window, struggling to face her own feelings.

Only now she understood that the pain Jim's last text had appeased was her hurting pride. And receding, that particular pain had left room for a far worse one. It'd cleared all the obstacles out of the way for her to sprint even faster across the mirage, and crash head-on against the wall closing the dead-end alley behind the smoke curtain.

And with the strokes of that heinous midnight, she faced she hadn't only run out of tears: she'd also run out of hopes.

Any dream she might have secretly harbored was dead and buried. She was desperately in love with Jim, and her love had taken her to places she would've never believed she'd accept. But after the rollercoaster ride was over, she was still herself, the product of thirty-five years of struggle and achievements, ups and downs, loss and findings, decisions, chance, mistakes, ideas, emotions.

She was still herself and that she couldn't fight. Because hand to heart, she was perfectly fine with who she was. And this self she was, this self she didn't want to change because she still felt true, completely refused any new projections.

So she realized, as surprised as devastated, she didn't want to even dream of seeing Jim ever again. Not after what she'd been through over the last three days. All that crazy circus was okay for a weekend, maybe even a month, a whole year if she was more naïve than optimistic.

And that was it.

She didn't know if she cut it, and she didn't care anymore.

The ugly truth was that she'd never been interested in any of it, and that hadn't changed. Actually, after the last weekend, it was all the way around.

The women, the people around at all times, the constant public exposure, the reckless lack of control, the sharp shifts in Jim's mood. And all those shady corners she knew he'd been careful to keep from her.

But that was him. All the light and all the darkness. The joy, the madness, the talent, the volcano in his guts and the iceberg in his mind. That was his truest nature, his very core, his soul of souls.

She understood it and she accepted it. She loved him for it. She wouldn't want him to be any different than who he really was.

But she didn't want any of it in her life.

So she was forced to stop hiding behind the sun. Step away from the blinding lights and have the guts to say no.

She might love him for the rest of her life, but she didn't want to be by his side, not now, not ever again.

**Natalie Imbruglia, Hide Behind the Sun w/lyrics**