The sun began to set over the mountains, painting the sky with a warm orange that filtered through the window of Zaira's small room. The cool evening air caressed her face as she sat at the wooden table, covering her face with her hands. The soft light illuminated the scattered papers with notes, textbooks, and a cold cup of coffee.
University seemed so far away, the dream of finishing her degree seemed impossible from where she was. Her fingers ran over the pages of the math notebook, but her mind wandered, lost in worry about the future.
How was she going to pay for the next semester? The accumulated debt already suffocated her heart, and the money she needed to finish her degree seemed like an unattainable dream.
"Why can't I focus?" Zaira whispered, dropping the pen on the notebook and running a hand through her hair, ruffling it even more.
She had grown up in a poor neighborhood, where money was not only not abundant, but it was a scarce commodity. In her neighborhood, dreams often died before they were born, or at least that's how she felt most days. The dusty streets and half-built brick houses were all she knew. Zaira looked out the window, watching the children playing soccer on the street corner, with smiles full of hope, oblivious to the constant struggle she was living.
"What do I do?" she asked herself softly, looking at her hands, raising them slowly, as if expecting an answer from them.
She stopped thinking for a moment and picked up her notebooks, put them in her worn backpack and decided to return to the university, where she already knew she would hear a warning from the director.
Zaira sighed, slowly standing up. She opened the door and went out ready to face life's adversities.
Her slow and sure steps allowed her to see a little more of the place where she lived, of the things her mother had to do to eat something even though she was sick.
The memory that she didn't have a car made her snap out of her thoughts and force her to run or she would miss the bus.
An hour later, she was already at the university, where Tatiana was waiting for her.
Zaira, trying to smile, although her tone revealed her exhaustion.
Tatiana was wearing a tight blouse that revealed her figure perfectly sculpted by hours of gym. Her blonde hair, straight and well-groomed, fell over her shoulders. Zaira watched her, silently envying her friend's life, so different from her own. While Tatiana was always surrounded by luxuries, Zaira barely indulged in a coffee from the store.
"I don't know how much more I can take, Tati," Zaira whispered, clenching the edges of her worn backpack as if she could extract a magic solution from it.
The bustle of the university cafeteria enveloped her: laughter, crossed conversations, the smell of cheap coffee and stale cookies. But at her table, the world seemed stopped, suspended between fatigue and anguish.
Tatiana, her best friend since freshman year, dropped the pen with an exaggerated sigh.
"Zaira, you're going to collapse!" she exclaimed, crossing her arms on the table. "You can't keep killing yourself in that night store for a miserable salary and studying during the day. Something's going to happen to you."
Zaira laughed without humor, tossing her dark hair back.
"And what other option do I have? Every month is a battle. Rent, university, transportation..." She listed as her eyes welled up. "And now, with my mom's illness..." Her voice broke.
Tatiana took her hand firmly.
"Tonight we're not going to think about debts or illnesses. Tonight you're going out with me."
"Go out?" Zaira repeated, as if the word was foreign to her.
"Yes, go out. There's a new club in town. It's not like the sleazy ones, I promise you. It's elegant, private... And you need to unwind." She winked mischievously.
Zaira hesitated. It wasn't her style, and she knew it. But something in Tatiana's confidence, in her determined smile, made her finally nod.
"Okay... but only for a little while."
Night fell like black silk over the city, stained with lights and uncertain promises.
In front of Club Eclipse, Zaira felt tiny. A line of luxury cars arrived and departed, while men in suits and women dressed like movie stars paraded towards the entrance.
"Tati... are you sure?" she whispered, hugging herself.
Tatiana, encased in a red dress that seemed to melt over her figure, laughed amused.
"Trust me. Besides," she added, pointing to her own neckline, "we're dressed well, they drool, they buy us drinks, and we leave. No commitments."
Inside the club, the music enveloped the air with a hypnotic rhythm, and the dim lights created an atmosphere of mystery and sin. Zaira felt out of place immediately. Her simple black dress, which for her was almost a luxury, seemed to clash among so much glitter and expensive fabric.
What she didn't know was that, in one of the exclusive areas of the club, someone had noticed her.
From a dimly lit balcony, with a whiskey in his hand, the owner of the Eclipse watched her with cold interest.
"Do you see her?" he said, turning to a man dressed in black next to him.
The bodyguard nodded.
"The perfect girl for Mr. Santos."
The owner smiled, a calculating and cunning gesture.
"Make sure she stays. Leonardo has been too surly lately. It's time to offer him a gift... one he can't refuse and even less today, that it's his birthday."
"I'll do my job right away sir."
Meanwhile, downstairs, Zaira felt like Alice falling into Wonderland, without imagining that that night would mark the beginning of everything.
"That's right friend, forget everything for tonight!" Tatiana exclaimed, moving her body to the rhythm of the music.
Zaira smiled and joined her friend.
She had no idea that tonight would be the beginning of her ruin Or her salvation.
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