Now we knew the truth.

Sebastian had never changed at all, because Sebastian had never been there.

Santiago had only been playing his brother’s part, wearing his brother’s goodness like a borrowed coat, and the gentleness we had loved in the survivor had been Sebastian’s gentleness all along, imitated by the man who had destroyed him.

In the aftermath, my marriage was legally annulled; in the eyes of the law it had never truly been a marriage at all, because I had never truly known the man I stood beside.

I went back to teaching.