Victoria Matosa -

Victoria felt the familiar prickle behind her eyes. Too much, she told herself. Stay clinical.

Victoria Matosa had always been the kind of person who felt everything a little too much. While her friends laughed at a meme, she’d be tearing up over a commercial about a lost dog. While they breezed through heartbreaks, she carried hers like a stone in her shoe for months. It was exhausting, but it was also her secret weapon.

“Maybe it’s not a problem,” he said. “Maybe it’s a gift.” Victoria Matosa

“I’ll do my best,” she said, her voice softer than she intended.

She shrugged, a little embarrassed. “I feel things too much. That’s usually a problem. But sometimes… it’s the only way in.” Victoria felt the familiar prickle behind her eyes

She took the box. Her fingers traced the worn carving. It wasn’t a pattern—it was a word. Saudade. The untranslatable Portuguese longing, the ache of absence.

“Only the ones worth saving,” Victoria replied, wiping her hands on a rag stained with ochre and indigo. Victoria Matosa had always been the kind of

But when she touched the velvet, she saw something. Not with her eyes—with her chest. A flash of a young man with Rafael’s smile, dancing with a dark-haired woman in a kitchen. A child’s laugh. A hand letting go of a doorframe. And then, a single word, felt rather than heard: “Stay.”