We reach the entrance of the office. This is where it's all going to end. I knock on the crumbling door. Dust comes out of the frame, the lock squeaks.

“Headmistress, open the door,” I say.

“Shouldn't you be in bed?” I hear from far in the back, a voice far away. She must be sitting at her desk. So, you don't intend to open it for us, huh.

Fine then.

I kick the door. This kick I kick it with the sole of my foot, I'm not going to make the mistake of giving it a punt like with the car. The lock breaks, or actually, finishes breaking.

“Holy Mother! What's wrong with you?” the headmistress scolds.

“We really needed to talk to you, Sharon,” I say.

I can see what Raquel was telling me. It's not like that now, her face was always like that. A tired face, full of sadness and bitterness. An emaciated temple, on the verge of crumbling.

“I don't know how to deal with you,” she says, looking to the side.

What we find is not a battle. There is no offense, no counterattack. We walk among the ruins.

“May God have mercy on you,” she now looks at us.

It is sad. A mask of anger, words that don't want to be said.

“I just want to know one thing, Sharon,” I turn to her. I get no answer. I continue anyway.

“You loved once,” I say.  It's not a question.

After several seconds of silence, I get an answer.

“I once loved.” Her expressionless face.

“And you could never let go.”

“...”

“So much so that you stayed close.”

“...”

“And you did the complete opposite.”

“...”

My lovers look at me strangely, but it is in Ismael that I see a spark. Soon, his face lights up.

“The pharmacist...” Ismael says, his eyes wide open.

The headmistress's face changes.

“Hypocrite. I can't call you anything but a hypocrite,” Ismael's words are harsh, but I can't blame him.

Headmistress Sharon sinks deeper and deeper into her seat.

“Wait, I'm totally lost,” says Raquel.

“I'm in the fog, too,” says David.

“A long time ago... well, not that long ago, there were two girls in a convent. In this church. Maybe back then there were only girls in the place, and people from the city came to listen to the masses despite the distance,” I begin. I look at the nun who has my name.

“Between those two friends... what had to happen happened. What happens between two people who want each other's heat,” Raquel finishes my sentence as if hypnotized, reconstructing our conversation about the pharmacist's, finally making sense of it.

“Is that why you came here, to humiliate me, to take revenge?” We finally get words from the woman.

Yes, I would love to see you cry, to see you suffer. That's the truth. But...

That's not the point, Sharon.

“You could have gone to a temple in the city, but you didn't dare to escape as I did. But it would have been useless, you can't fool yourself. You stayed close to her.”

“A nun in love with a pharmacist...” says David.

“Those exorcisms, those confessions, all that,” Ismael takes the word.

“Lies,” answers the headmistress.

“Those testimonies of overcoming, of healing. Those who 'cured' their homosexuality?”

“Charlatans.”

“Those therapies, those camps...”

“Cruelty.”

“All those humiliating confessions, those hand postures, those empty motivational talks. In the end you turned out to be like me.”

“No. You... all of you, you like men and women. I only like women. What you feel is also real, it exists, it's not a phase, it's not confusion.”

We lack the words. There's a lot we don't know, huh?

And the headmistress cries. She cries like a child. You hear sobs, moans, choked voices. She trembles. She has been completely and utterly broken.

This is what I wanted, to defeat her, to humiliate her. To make her feel what we feel. But no, this does not satisfy me. Because...

“It must have been painful,” says Ismael in a low voice.

The headmistress interrupts her grief, looks at the boy with an expression that mixes horror and sadness.

“Yes,”—says Raquel— “To live like this, all this time, to do all these things, to be exposed to these humiliations too. It must have been very painful for you.”

This doesn't satisfy me, because all this time she has felt the same way we do.

“Stop it, please,” she cries more and more. Her voice trails off, she loses it.

I want to slap her, to mock her tears. But she is not our adversary. In one look, we can all come to this unspoken understanding.

“Don't look at the person, look at the word,” Raquel sighs.

I look back through the door. Towards a wall. Behind that wall... our enemy is much bigger than a single wounded woman.

“I don't even have the right to ask for your forgiveness, Ismael,” the headmistress's voice is barely audible.

“And I don't know if I can forgive you, but... I don't like to see you cry, it's as simple as that,” the boy replies.

I take several steps forward. I need to take them, to get closer. The headmistress has her hands resting on her desk, if she didn't have them there, her body would collapse to the floor. I'm in front of her, she gives me a small glance. I raise my hand and...

I caress her head.

“What are you doing?” She reproaches me, but she doesn't take my hand away.

“I have no idea,” I continue stroking her head. Raquel joins me, then David, finally Ismael.

“What are you doing?”

No one knows, but we keep doing it. And she doesn't get upset. She sinks her face into her desk and cries. She cries all these years. She cries for nights she hasn't cried, for a lost mother, for lost friends, for lost loves. She cries.