Five Years Later, My Former Friend Humiliated Me Again, but When Alvaro Saw My Knitted Scarf, His Smile Disappeared

At the moment when Alvaro saw me in the hotel hall wearing my knitted scarf, the folder of documents fell from my hand and my breath caught.

It was almost ten in the evening. Outside, the thunderstorm hanging over the mountains shook the windows, while rain flowed like a river down the hotel’s marble steps. I was completely wet. Water ran from my hair down my neck, and in my shoes a small wave swayed with every step.

But the cold did nothing to me compared with what I saw around Alvaro’s neck.

I knitted this scarf.

I was seventeen when, for three months, I unraveled its edge every evening and started again. I bought cheap, rough wool with the money I earned on Saturdays at a small bakery. In one corner, three loops turned out slightly tighter, and there the fabric folded lightly. Only I knew about this flaw.

I had prepared the scarf for Alvaro, but I did not give it to him on his birthday. That evening Irene presented him with a gift in expensive Italian packaging. Everyone joked that they already looked like a couple in love. Irene smiled. And Alvaro did not deny it.

I hid my small package in my bag and held it in my hands all the way home as if I were carrying evidence of a crime.

Then I left the scarf in a desk in the classroom. I added a short note: “You seem like a good person. Keep it.” I did not write my name.

Alvaro was never supposed to find it.

But five years later, he was wearing it.

“Lucia.”

His voice rose above the noise of the hall. I looked toward the elevators and pretended I had not heard.

“Lucia, stop.”

His hand tightened around my wrist. I turned around. Alvaro’s eyes were still as dark as I remembered, but he no longer had the calm confidence of that time. Now there was anger in him and something heavier, almost fear.

“Five years have passed,” I said and freed my hand. “What do you want from me?”

Instead of answering, he touched the scarf.

“Do you recognize this?”

I could hear my heartbeat in my ears.

At that moment Irene appeared beside him. She was wearing a white coat, her hair was perfectly brushed, and the diamonds sparkling delicately on her fingers made my hands, wet from the rain, look like foreign objects beside her.

“Lucia, what a strange meeting,” she said and hooked her arm through Alvaro’s. “What are you doing here?”

There was feigned warmth in her voice. And for the first time I clearly distinguished what I had failed to notice before.

Fear.

“She works with me,” a voice sounded behind me.

Dario Salvatierra stood beside me and picked up the folder from the floor. He was twenty-nine years old, one of Madrid’s most ruthless commercial-law attorneys, and he had such a smile that a person could take even a compliment from him as a threat.

“Lucia, are they bothering you?” he asked.

“I haven’t decided yet,” I answered.

Alvaro looked at Dario.

“Who are you?”

“The person who pays her so that she does not waste time.”

Irene’s smile wavered slightly.

At that same moment I understood that Dario had not brought me to this hotel by chance. In the folder was my mother’s old dismissal case. The case about which my mother had been silent for five years.

“This evening we only have to sign one agreement,” Dario told me quietly. “If these people interfere with you, just tell me.”

Alvaro lowered his voice.

“Did you come because of your mother?”

The question awakened an old pain in my body. Mother said that leaving the Montenegro family had been her choice. But on the night we left the city, her hands were shaking so much that she could not fasten the suitcase.

“You must not mention my mother’s name anymore,” I said.

“You know nothing, Lucia.”

“That is exactly why I came.”

Dario opened the lock of the folder. The little metal tongue sounded sharply. Irene took a step back.

“Dario,” she said, frightened for the first time, “this is a family matter.”

“No, Mrs. Valcarcel. This is already a documentary matter.”

The elevator doors opened. The senior notary came out of them, holding a sealed brown folder. Dario turned toward him and extended his hand. At that same moment Alvaro looked at my wrist again, as if trying to return to the past.

“Before you open it, tell me at least one thing,” he whispered to me. “Why did you leave me that scarf?”

The notary placed his fingers on the stamped folder. Dario reached to lift the lock…

Dario’s fingers stopped on top of the lock, but he had not yet opened the folder.

“You will not get an answer to that question today, Alvaro,” he said. “Someone else must answer questions first.”

The notary adjusted his glasses. We entered a small conference room in the hotel, where golden clocks hung on the walls and half-empty wine glasses still stood on the wooden table. It was half past ten at night. Thunder struck the windows, and the metal candleholder on the table trembled lightly with every rumble.

Irene remained by the door.

“I have the right to be here,” she said.

“If your name appears in this case, you certainly do,” Dario replied. “Although we cannot lock the exit door for you.”

Alvaro looked toward her.

“Irene, what do you have to do with this?”

She turned her head so quickly as if she had heard his words for the first time.

“Alvaro, don’t start. Lucia returns after five years and you immediately take her side?”

“I have not taken either side yet.”

“You always say that when you do not want to hear the truth.”

I gripped the edge of the table. The wood was cold. The staircase from five years ago, my mother’s silent face, and the packed suitcases became mixed together.

“Mother told me she left the Montenegros herself,” I said. “But the next day I found her beloved copper thermos beside a trash bin. Mother never left the house without it.”

Dario looked at me.

“Lucia, you must know everything before you sign.”

“That is why I am here.”

He opened the folder and placed the first sheet on the table. It was my mother’s dismissal order. I remembered the date exactly: the end of May, the week of my exams. The stated reasons were loss of money and rough treatment of the family’s elderly woman.

“Your mother denied all of this,” Dario said. “But she had no money for a lawyer. And the Montenegro family closed every door to her.”

“Who filed the complaint?” I asked.

Dario did not answer me. He turned over the second sheet.

Alvaro came closer to the table.

“Tell me.”

“The signature belongs to Irene Valcarcel.”

The ticking of the clock sounded in the room.

Irene tried to laugh, but her voice failed.

“This is absurd.”

“You were not even in the house that day,” I said.

“You remember nothing.”

“I remember that you came to me that same evening and told me that your mother no longer had a job because she had ‘disappointed someone.’”

Alvaro looked at Irene.

“Did you write this?”

“No. Someone used my name.”

Dario placed a small memory card on the table.

“That is exactly why this is here.”

For the first time his voice no longer sounded ironic. The air in the room grew heavy.

He started the recording. At first the distant sound of cars could be heard, then the voice of a young Irene.

“If Lucia stays here, Alvaro will finally realize that she is more than someone to him.”

My fingers moved away from the table. Strength left my knees.

Then another voice sounded. My mother’s.

“Please, Mrs. Irene, do not touch my child.”

Irene covered her face with her hands.

Alvaro leaned on the chair.

“Where did you find this?” he asked.

“In the archive of the security system of the old Montenegro house,” Dario replied. “The new owner sold the server at auction. And I do not buy things by chance.”

The recording continued.

“They will fire her tomorrow. And if Lucia comes near you again, I will tell everyone that she stole your money.”

No one in the room was breathing anymore.

Alvaro looked at Irene.

“Did you say this?”

“I was angry.”

“Did you say this?”

Irene pressed her lips together.

“Lucia was taking everything from us.”

“What was she taking from you?” I asked. “A friendship you never had?”

Alvaro lowered his head. The small, uneven corner of my scarf appeared at his neck.

“I believed you,” he said.

“I know.”

“Why didn’t you tell me then?”

“Because back then you never once asked me what the truth was.”

Dario took out a third document.

“This is only the first part. Tomorrow morning we will officially file the lawsuit, but tonight another person is waiting for us.”

“Who?” Alvaro asked.

Dario looked at his phone. An unknown number was glowing on the screen. The call ended, then rang again.

“The person Irene has been paying for years to make those recordings disappear.”

The phone lit up for the third time. Dario answered, listened silently for several seconds, and then his face changed.

“He is here,” he said. “And he says he has a gun…”

“He is here,” Dario repeated. “And he says he has a gun.”

A heavy blow came from the hotel basement. The candleholder rattled on the table. Irene screamed, while Alvaro instinctively moved in front of me.

“Step back,” Dario said.

It was eleven at night. Only the yellowish light of the wall clock was burning in the room. A fine crack in the wood of the table pierced my palm, but I could hardly feel the pain.

The door opened.

A man of about fifty entered, in a wet jacket and with a clenched jaw. He was not holding a gun. He was holding only an old telephone whose cracked glass shone on the screen.

“I left the gun in the car,” he said. “But if you call the police, they still will not be able to help you.”

Dario looked at him calmly.

“Bruno Mendes.”

The man chuckled.

“You remember my name.”

“I remember everyone who is capable of selling someone else’s life.”

Alvaro looked at Irene.

“Who is this man?”

Irene shook her head.

“I don’t know him.”

Bruno placed the phone on the table.

“Five years ago I managed your security cameras. Mrs. Valcarcel told me to delete one recording. In exchange she would pay for my son’s operation.”

“I did not tell him to threaten anyone,” Irene said.

“You told me word for word: ‘Lucia’s mother must leave as if she herself were guilty.’”

Alvaro’s face turned pale.

“And you knew all this?”

Bruno shook his head.

“I was only taking the money. My conscience woke up late.”

Dario took the phone and played the recording. This time Irene’s voice was heard clearly.

“Do not touch Lucia. First they will fire her mother, and then I will tell Alvaro that Lucia stole money. She will leave on her own.”

My body seemed to leave the room. I heard every word from five years ago again: Alvaro’s anger, his demand that I apologize to Irene, his cold look on the stairs.

“This is a lie,” Irene whispered.

“It is your voice,” Alvaro said.

“I only wanted to protect him.”

“From whom?”

“From you!”

Irene struck the table with her hand.

“You looked at him the way you have never looked at me! She was a poor girl who came to our house because of her mother. And I belonged beside you!”

Silence completely filled the room.

Alvaro gripped the scarf. The threads were caught between his fingers.

“Where did you find this scarf?” he asked me.

For the first time I did not run away from the answer.

“I left it in the desk that stood in front of you. I added a note.”

Alvaro’s eyes widened.

“I found it. The next day.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me?”

He opened his lips, but could not find a word.

“Irene told me it was a scarf she had given you,” he said at last. “She said you had simply tried to steal it.”

Irene lowered her eyes.

I smiled, but there was no joy in that smile.

“You wore a lie around your neck for five years.”

Dario placed the documents prepared for court in front of me.

“Your mother’s dismissal was arranged illegally. With these recordings, the signature, and Bruno’s testimony, we will prove the case.”

Alvaro took one step toward me.

“Lucia, I have to apologize to you.”

“Yes.”

“I know it is late.”

“Very late.”

At that moment my phone rang. My mother’s name appeared on the screen. I answered.

“Lucia,” she said in a frightened voice, “two men have come here. They say they are looking for your documents. I am not opening the door, but they are still outside.”

Dario heard her voice and immediately called the police.

Irene stood by the window. Her old confidence was no longer on her face.

Alvaro looked at her.

“What else have you done?”

Irene smiled slowly, but madness was mixed into that smile.

“Do you really think all this was only because of her mother’s job? Lucia still has not said who her father is.”

Everyone in the room froze.

Dario looked toward me. I could still hear Mother on the phone, but I was already listening only to Irene’s last sentence.

New fear appeared on Alvaro’s face.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

Irene looked toward me.

“Tell your mother, Lucia. Tell her whose family you were born into…”

Dario placed a second, still-sealed envelope on the table. My surname was written on it, and on the back was a seal I knew from the archive of the Montenegro family.

“This envelope,” he said, “was sent to me by your mother this evening. And it says not only why she was fired, but also whose blood you carry…”