Some encounters feel written in the dust of chance.
Some gazes cling for no reason and refuse to let go, as if the world itself were holding its breath around them.
Catarina didn't believe in coincidences, but that night, in that dimly lit bar, she could've sworn fate had decided to play with her.
She had turned seventeen just a few weeks earlier, yet that number already felt distant.
In her mother's black dress and lipstick that was a shade too dark, she looked older, more confident, an illusion she clung to desperately, especially when she saw him.
Sitting alone at a table. Charcoal suit. An expensive watch. Clear, tired eyes.
He carried something cold, elegant, almost melancholic about him.
She didn't know yet that those eyes would become the source of her greatest joy, and her deepest wounds.
- Are you waiting for someone?
His voice was low, smooth, and tinged with that quiet authority men used to being obeyed tend to have.
Catarina could've lied. Said she was meeting friends, that she was leaving, that she was of age.
But instead, she shrugged, flashing that effortless smile she'd mastered to perfection.
- Maybe. And you?
- No, he replied after a pause. Not really.
Their conversation could've ended there.
But there was tension, curiosity, the way he looked at her like she was a mystery he hadn't meant to solve but couldn't ignore.
They talked for a long time, about everything and nothing.
In her mind, she invented a fake name just in case he asked.
He, on the other hand, carefully avoided giving his.
It was a dangerous game, though neither of them knew it yet.
Two souls balancing on the thin wire of secrecy.
When he offered to walk her home, she hesitated just a second too long.
He noticed.
And without another word, watched her leave, eyes following her to the door, as if he already knew they'd meet again.
She, she knew it already.
Because in that instant, without understanding why, Catarina had fallen into the sweetest sin in the world.
She thought the night would end there, that she'd go home, a little shaken, but untouched.
But chance, or whatever we call it when we're too afraid to say "fate", still had a part to play.
Two days later, she saw him again.
Not in a bar this time.
In a quiet café near the university where she claimed to be doing an internship.
He was there, alone again, reading a newspaper.
Still impeccably dressed, still holding his cup as if the whole world were nothing but a background detail.
- Are you following me, or is it destiny again? she teased, flashing the smile she saved for those she wanted to unsettle.
He looked up, surprised, amused.
- Maybe both.
This time, he invited her to sit.
And the conversation resumed, as if it had never been interrupted.
Their words brushed lightly, but their eyes burned.
She learned he worked in business, traveled often, and didn't like complications.
She pretended to be older, a communications student, free as the wind.
Every word she spoke was a carefully spun lie.
Every smile he gave her, a promise he didn't yet know he'd keep.
When his hand brushed hers while reaching for his glass, a violent shiver ran through her.
It was the kind of touch one shouldn't notice, yet never forgets.
They saw each other again.
Always by "chance."
Always in places too discreet to be innocent.
Until that night, when he finally asked:
- What's your name?
She hesitated. She should've lied again.
But for some reason she couldn't explain, she simply said:
- Catarina.
He smiled, faintly, as if that name already tasted familiar.
- Sylus.
That was all. Two syllables.
But they changed everything.
She didn't know yet that this name would come back to haunt her dreams, her shame, and her memories.
That it would become the red thread of her downfall, and her rebirth.
That night, she went home telling herself it was nothing.
That she could still stop.
But deep down, she already knew, she had crossed the line.