The edge of desire

They say that under the Moon everything seems possible, that the shadows hide more than lies and that desire burns stronger when it is kept silent. But… how long can the secret last?

Lucía led a structured life, with fixed schedules, short relationships and absolute control over what happened around her. At 28 years old, he had a well-paid job, independence and zero interest in complicating his life with the dramas of love. He had had relationships before, yes, but none deep enough to stay in his memory for longer than necessary. For her, love was a game not worth playing that much.

It all started at a chance meeting of friends. The kind of night where music and laughter manage to break invisible barriers and turn strangers into accomplices. There she met him: Adrián. A man with a defiant look and a smile that promised what it shouldn’t. He was that guy you’re warned to avoid, but who always ends up dragging you over the edge.

For hours, they exchanged glances and comments that seemed innocent, but each sentence hid more. When he offered to accompany her home, Lucía did not hesitate to accept. That night, under the threshold of his door, he felt something he had not experienced in a long time: a raw, vibrant desire, like a volcano that had been dormant for too long.

—Are you going to invite me in or do you want to continue playing hard? —he asked, leaning against the frame.

He looked irritating. Nothing more was needed than that.

The first night was explosive. No preambles, no romantic love stories, just bodies responding to impulses. Adrián was not like the others; he didn’t follow the rules. He would look for her whenever he wanted, disappear for days and return with a charming excuse that she never rejected. Theirs wasn’t something formal, they weren’t a couple, but they couldn’t resist each other either.

Weeks passed in that constant coming and going. Lucía was addicted, although she refused to admit it. In the few moments where they opened up beyond the physical, she discovered that Adrián was a complicated man. His past was full of mistakes, broken relationships, and women he had pushed away. But just as it seemed to open, Adrián stepped back. And that, ironically, attracted her even more.

One night, after another of their “comings and goings,” Adrián appeared with a proposal.

—What if we escape for a weekend? —he asked, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

-Where to? —Lucía responded, skeptical.

—It doesn’t matter. Choose a place. We need to breathe.

Lucia, although surprised, felt that she needed it. That routine of intense encounters, between tension and desire, was beginning to wear her down. So it helped. The following Friday, with light backpacks and without defined planes, he took the road towards the coast. During the ride, they didn’t stop talking: him telling her anecdotes from his childhood, she laughing at how he always seemed to get lost on the roads.

When they arrived, they found a small coastal town. Renting a room in a simple but cozy hotel, Adrián took her hand and took her straight to the beach. The cold sand under their feet and the sound of the sea surrounding them created a different scenario. It wasn’t the usual desire, it wasn’t just bodies searching for each other in the darkness. It was something else.

—Do you realize that we have never done anything like this before? —said Adrián, looking at the horizon.

—Kind of like… getting out of bed, right? —She responded with a mocking tone.

He looked at her and shook his head, smiling.

—No, something like being ourselves without masks.

That sentence left her silent. Because it was true. Until that moment, their relationship had been built on the ephemeral, the fleeting, as if they were afraid to show themselves vulnerable. That night, on a terrace looking at the stars, they drank wine and told each other stories they had never shared with anyone. Adrián confessed his fears: how difficult it was to allow himself to love someone after so much time hurting and being hurt. Lucía, for her part, confessed that the controlled life that she defended so much was only an excuse to never feel hurt again.

—Why are we so broken? —Lucía asked, in a whisper.

“Because no one taught us to be whole,” he answered, caressing her face.

That night was different. They made love, but with a calm they had not known before. As if, for the first time, they didn’t need to prove anything. Just be.

The next day, they returned to the city. But something had changed. The intensity of their relationship no longer felt the same. Adrián began to distance himself little by little. What they had shared on that trip seemed too real, too honest for him. And Lucía noticed it. One night, after several unanswered messages, he decided to end it.

“I don’t want this anymore, Adrián,” he wrote. What happened there was not a mistake. But if you can’t be honest with yourself, there’s no point in continuing.

Adrián never responded. Theirs ended with a silence that said more than a thousand words.

Lucía spent weeks rebuilding herself. I missed him, yes, but I also understood that some people are only in our lives to show us parts of ourselves that we don’t know about. Adrián had taught her that she could love without losing herself, and that was enough.

Some people come into our lives like storms. They stir us up, transform us and then disappear, leaving behind a clearer sky. The moon knows it. She always knows.