He thought about Lucía’s swollen eyes. Her trembling hands.
Her silent crying.
Manuel opened the spiral notebook that had fallen from the seat.
Inside were messy pencil drawings.
Most were typical child sketches—flowers, stick figures, houses.
But several pages showed a large man shouting, drawn with dark scribbles around his head.
On another page Lucía had written, in shaky letters:
“If something happens to me the phone is under the bus.”
Manuel felt his throat tighten.
The child hadn’t been hiding the phone for fun.
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