Chapter 8: Trapped

It had gotten light. I opened my eyes. I lay there for a moment, my belly rising and falling, before forcing myself to put my feet on the floor. My whole body hurt. My back, my knees, my swollen ankles. I got dressed with difficulty and went up the stairs.

Marcos was in the kitchen, standing by the island, checking his phone. He was wearing only pajama pants. When he heard me come in, he looked up and smiled.

“Good morning, Edilberto. Did you make coffee?”

The name hit me in the middle of the chest. I stood frozen in the doorway. Edilberto? It couldn’t be...

“Y-yes, Don Marcos,” I replied. My voice came out with that Colombian accent. “I’ll make it right now.”

Adrián came down at that moment, already dressed in sports clothes. He looked at me for a second and nodded with the same ease.

“Edilberto, make a full breakfast today. Marcos is hungry.”

“Of course, Don Adrián.”

I turned toward the coffee maker before they could see my face. As I ground the coffee and took out the eggs, I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Edilberto.

When they finished breakfast and went upstairs, I ran down to the basement. I closed the door to my room and opened the nightstand drawer. There they were.

Colombian passport. Expired four years ago. A temporary residence card that expired in 2021. An employment contract as a domestic worker. And a letter from the Immigration Office warning that my situation was irregular and that I had to leave the country within thirty days.

Edilberto Ramírez Vargas. 56 years old. Medellín, Colombia.

I sat on the bed. My hands were trembling so much that the papers shook. Adrián had done it. He had carried out his threat to the letter. I was no longer David. My identity had been completely replaced. Now I was a fat, old, undocumented immigrant living in the basement of a couple’s house.

I tried to remember my apartment in Madrid. The Complutense. The first time I kissed Marcos. Everything became blurry, as if someone had poured water over fresh ink. Maybe I had never been David and I had lost my mind? The doubt was worse than the fear. I was starting to believe I had always been this. That David had never existed.

I stayed there sitting for a long while, with the papers in my lap and my belly spilling over my thighs. Then I heard laughter upstairs. The sound of shower water.

Don’t go up, I told myself.

I went up.

The main bathroom door was ajar, as always. Steam drifted into the hallway. I approached slowly and looked.

Marcos had his back turned under the stream of water. Adrián was pressed against him, one hand on his hip, the other moving slowly between his legs. Marcos had his forehead resting on the tiles and moaned softly every time Adrián bit his shoulder.

I slipped my hand under my belly. I had to lift it with my forearm to be able to ...