Chapter 92 – Date with Diana
The girls returned about an hour later.
The classroom was still submerged in the monotony of the lesson when three sharp knocks echoed at the door. Professor Diana looked up from her book. She sighed, as if she already knew what was coming.
The four of them stood outside.
Cristal, with her golden mane disheveled, arms crossed over her chest. Sofía, biting her lower lip, eyes glassy. Laura, pale, her gaze lost somewhere down the hallway. And Melanie, jaw clenched, fists tight at her sides.
The professor stepped into the hallway and closed the door behind her.
Inside, the silence turned uncomfortable. Someone coughed. A sheet of notebook paper tore. Damián leaned sideways, trying to glimpse something through the small window in the door.
Outside, the voices were inaudible. But the gestures spoke for themselves: the professor pointing her finger at the four of them; Cristal shaking her head over and over; Melanie pointing at Laura, Laura pointing at Sofía, Sofía pointing at no one.
When the door opened again, the entire classroom held its breath.
The four entered as if walking on glass.
"Sit down," the professor ordered, in a tone that allowed no reply.
None of them said a word.
But when they passed by Titus's desk, all of them looked at him. It wasn't a quick glance. It was a look that carried weight. That accused. That asked without words: you're the one to blame for this.
Titus felt the weight of those four pupils stabbing into the back of his neck like needles.
Then, once they sat down, they started looking at each other. And those looks were worse.
Cristal glared at Sofía. Sofía glared at Laura. Laura glared at Melanie. Melanie glared at all of them.
The air grew thick. You could have cut it with a ruler.
Titus lowered his gaze to the desk. He ran his fingertip over an initial carved into the wood. J.C., it read. He wondered who J.C. was. He wondered if J.C. had ever ended up in the middle of a war he hadn't started.
"What the hell happened?" he whispered, more to himself than to anyone.
To his left, Damián let out a muffled laugh. He couldn't hide it. He had his hand over his mouth, but his eyes gleamed with poorly concealed amusement.
"For real," he murmured, shaking his head slowly, like he was witnessing the best show of his life. "Moving to this school was the best decision I ever made."
Titus stared at him, confused. "How can you laugh?" he whispered. "This is a disaster."
"That's exactly why," Damián replied, and his grin widened.
Titus wanted to say something else, but the words wouldn't come.
Somewhere behind him, Bruno remained motionless. He hadn't seen the exchange of looks between the girls. He hadn't heard Damián's whisper. He hadn't registered the four walking in, or the scolding, or the tension still vibrating in the air.
Bruno was somewhere else. He was on the shore. He felt the cold breeze on the back of his neck. He heard the crashing of the waves. He saw Walter's face illuminated by a waning moon, the strands of hair shifting across his forehead, his lips slightly parted.
And he could still feel, like an echo on his skin, the exact moment just before the kiss. That eternal second when everything could have turned out differently.
He didn't know if he had done the right thing. He didn't know if he would do it again. He only knew that, since that night, something inside him had changed. And that change hurt. And he didn't want it to stop hurting.
Three rows ahead, Walter was also staring without seeing. His eyes were fixed on the chalkboard, where chalk had drawn equations that meant nothing. His mind was still trapped in the sand. In the moment Bruno had kissed him. In the silence that followed. In his own arms, hanging limp at his sides, motionless.
He hadn't pulled away. But he hadn't kissed back either. What did that mean? Fear? Surprise? Or something deeper, something that didn't have a name yet?
He didn't know. And that, precisely that, was what terrified him most.
The class went on. Professor Diana explained something about ancient Egypt. Someone took notes. Someone else drew a cat in the margin of their notebook.
But at two desks, separated by meters of distance, two hearts were pounding at the same frantic rhythm. And neither of them knew what to do about it.
---
The rest of the day passed in a tense, almost feigned calm.
Classes followed one after another with their usual monotonous rhythm, as if nothing had happened. But everyone knew that wasn't true.
When the lunch bell rang, Walter, Bruno, Damián, and Titus found a table in a corner of the cafeteria. A precarious refuge in the middle of the battlefield.
Titus couldn't stop feeling the stares. They came from four different directions. Four separate tables. Four girls who, although no longer sitting together, shared the same expression: disgust clenched between their teeth, furrowed brows, eyes narrowed like blades.
They were all looking at Titus. And all of them, every now and then, shot glances at each other. Those were worse. They had an edge.
Titus lowered his head and focused on his tray. He pushed his food around with his fork, not hungry, not wanting to eat. I didn't do anything, he repeated in his head like a mantra. But the stares kept coming, and none of them believed him.
Beside him, Damián seemed to be at the theater. Every so often he let out a muffled laugh, shaking his head, his eyes bright with pure delight.
"How can you laugh?" Titus murmured without looking up.
"Because this is the best thing that's ever happened to me," Damián replied, and bit into his apple with a smile.
Walter and Bruno, on the other hand, barely existed at that table. They shared the physical space, but their minds were anchored in another night. In the sand. In the moon. In the silence that came after a kiss they still didn't know how to name.
That's how the day went.
Until the final bell freed everyone.
The desks began to empty, backpacks started closing, voices rose with the promise of the streets.
Then Professor Diana spoke: "Titus, stay a moment. I need to talk to you."
The classroom froze. All eyes converged on him like flies to light. The other boys, with jaws clenched and envy burning on their tongues. The girls, with something darker in their eyes. And Damián, laughing under his breath as he picked up his backpack.
Walter and Bruno crossed the door without looking back. Each trapped in their own labyrinth.
The four girls paused for an instant at the threshold. They looked at Titus. Then they looked at Professor Diana. And in their eyes, for a second, something shifted. Something that looked like fear. Or respect. Or warning.
Then they disappeared.
The classroom fell silent.
Only Titus, standing by his desk. And Professor Diana, watching him from the door.
---
The classroom emptied completely.
The murmur of voices faded away down the stairs until only silence remained. A dense silence, the kind that presses against the ears.
Professor Diana waited a few seconds before speaking. When she did, her voice sounded different. Lower. More personal.
"Mr. Titus," she said, and the "mister" sounded almost like a joke between them. "Let's go buy your uniform."
Titus hesitated. He ran his fingertip along the edge of the desk, feeling the splintered wood.
"Professor… what if you leave first and wait for me further ahead? With everything that happened today…" He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't need to.
Diana looked at him steadily. Then she nodded, once.
"Where?"
Titus thought. He visualized the way back to the station. "Six blocks south. There's a bus stop. We'll meet there."
"Agreed."
She picked up her bag and left without looking back. Her heels echoed in the empty hallway like a metronome. Then, silence.
Titus waited. He counted to thirty. Then to sixty. When he left, the hallway was deserted. But the ghosts of the day still lingered: the girls' stares, Damián's laugh, Bruno and Walter's silence.
He walked with his hands in his pockets, his backpack hanging from one shoulder. The air outside tasted of escape. Of a day ended. But also of something else, something he couldn't name.
Six blocks. He counted them one by one.
When he reached the stop, there was no one. Only the distant murmur of traffic and the hum of a streetlight.
He waited. One minute. Two.
Then he saw it.
The car appeared from the corner like a shadow. It was a black sports car, matte finish, so silent it seemed to glide over the asphalt rather than roll. It stopped in front of him effortlessly, as if it had been waiting its whole life.
The window rolled down without a sound.
Inside was Diana. But it wasn't the same Diana from the classroom. She wore black glasses that covered half her face. Her hair, earlier pulled back in a severe ponytail, now fell loose over her shoulders. She had unbuttoned two buttons of her white blouse, just enough for her skin to peek out like a question. Her skirt, always impeccably measured, had ridden up a couple of centimeters as she sat behind the wheel.
"Get in," she said.
It wasn't an order. Nor an invitation. It was something in between.
Titus opened the door and slid into the leather seat. The interior smelled clean, new, expensive. He scanned the dashboard with his eyes: the soft lights, the perfect stitching, the feeling of being inside something designed to fly.
"I can't believe this is your car," he said, and his voice sounded younger than he wanted it to.
Diana sketched a smile. Brief. Almost imperceptible. She stepped on the accelerator, and the car responded like a domesticated animal.
They hit the road.
During the ride, Titus watched her out of the corner of his eye. Outside the classroom, without the chalkboard in between, without the other students watching, Diana seemed to have aged backward. She didn't look the age she should. If he didn't know she was his teacher, he would have placed her in her early twenties. Maybe less.
They arrived at a shopping district. Big signs, illuminated storefronts, people coming and going with colorful bags.
They went into store after store. Fitting rooms. Fabrics. Measurements. Diana chose, Titus nodded. It was almost domestic. Almost normal.
But it wasn't.
---
Hook: And that silence hid a danger that would soon come to light…