Chapter: Laughter Without Permission

It had been a lighter week. Not better, but less heavy. As if the internal fog that accompanied me had lifted just a few steps—enough to breathe without drowning.

That Saturday, Merlyn convinced me to go out with her and Alejandra to a small used book fair downtown. I had no intention of buying anything, but I let myself be carried along. Walking between stalls, touching books that smelled like time and old paper, reminded me a bit of my walks with Tom... but without the stabbing pain. Just a warm kind of nostalgia. Soft.

And then, as if it were part of the script life writes when it wants to surprise you, I saw him. Marcos. Crouched in front of a box of stacked books, frowning as if searching for a needle in a haystack.

"Another coincidence?" I said, smiling as I approached.

He looked up. Laughed.

"At this rate, I'm going to start thinking you're following me."

"Don't be so egocentric," I teased, and he raised his hands in surrender.

"I'm looking for something specific... a children's book I used to read with my brother. I never find it, but I keep looking. Not really for the book, I think... more for the memory."

He said it so naturally that I didn't know whether to hug him or sit down and search with him.

"And you?" he asked. "Are you looking for something in particular?"

"No. They just let me out under supervision," I said, pointing at the girls in the distance, watching us like undercover paparazzi.

Marcos laughed loudly. A real laugh that lit up his eyes. And something in me relaxed, as if his laughter had given me permission to feel good too.

"Alright then..." I said, crouching down next to him. "Let me help you find that ghost book. What's it called?"

"The Mouse Who Wanted to Be a Cloud." Cheesy, I know."

"I love it. Sounds exactly like something Tom would've given me."

We searched through books full of dust and torn covers. We laughed at ridiculous titles, absurd covers, printing errors. Each joke, each glance, each stolen smile, stitched together a moment I didn't think I'd ever have again: one where I laughed without permission, without guilt, without fear of forgetting.

In the end, we didn't find the book. But Marcos bought me one with clumsy drawings and poems about astronaut cats.

"For when you're having a bad day," he said.

I took it, and for a moment, I wanted to cry. But I didn't.

Because for the first time in a long while... I wasn't having a bad day.